Cryptocurrency businesses have become reliant on expansive marketing campaigns. The huge marketing budgets for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) go to show the extent of this reliance.
A healthy marketing outlay makes sense. Developers of a new project or blockchain solution want the public to know about their offerings. Without proper marketing, a project is bound to fail despite its superior technology.
Some projects take their emphasis on market overboard that it begins to raise suspicions. For instance, it is common in cryptocurrency sector to see put ICO marketing before product development. Sometimes they raise funds and the product remains on the back burner.
Tron.
Tron fits the bill of blockchain projects that have indulged in expansive marketing efforts. Only 10 months old, it has become a household name much like Bitcoin and ethereum.
This begs the question, besides Marketing, how good is the Tron project?
From the naming of its roadmap milestone points (Exodus, Odyssey, The Great Voyage, Apollo, and Star Trek & Eternity) you get the feeling that the developers want to excite just like a movement. Since its creation in September 2017, the project has gained so much attention owing to its aggressive marketing.
[perfectpullquote align="full" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]Why #TRON is better than #ETH: 1. 10000TPS vs. 25TPS 2. zero fee vs. high fee 3. consistent Coinburn vs. no coinburn 4. Java vs. Solidity 5. strong extensibility vs. no ex. 6. 1 billion USD developers rewards vs. no plan 7. 100 million users vs. small number [/perfectpullquote]
Buterin’s reply was unforgiving and sent the crypto community agog. In a series of tweets, he accused Tron project of plagiarism. He tweeted,
[perfectpullquote align="full" bordertop="false" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]Better white paper writing capability (Ctrl+C + Ctrl+V much higher efficiency than keyboard typing new content)[/perfectpullquote]
It’s time for even more serious business for the Tron development team following the Launch of its MainNet. One can no longer afford to make huge claims and promises which are not based on tested technical specifications. Their claims can now be tested.
In a more recent tweet, Sun claimed a transaction speed of 1000tps down from 2000tps he claimed in April. He is also on a race against time to deliver 100 million DApp users he promised will follow not long after launch.
Then there is a $2 billion (formerly $1 billion) developer fund to attract developers to the Tron Mainnet. While this seems to have spurred developers who have added numerous features and iterations to Tron, the amount is one of Mr. Sun’s exaggerations.
He would jump at any opportunity to promote his project. Recently he hyped a paid ad on Nasdaq making it look like Tron was now been traded on the exchange. “#TRON hits #NASDAQ once again!” he tweeted, leaving followers to wonder the deal it has with Nasdaq.
And, from a project perspective, Tron is not doing badly.
Tronix (TRX) is the 10th ranked coin by market capitalization. It briefly went above IOTA (MIOTA) at 9th and may well find its way upward if its MainNet delivers on its promises. For other factors affect the price of cryptocurrencies, Tron has done well so far. It is already listed on most major exchanges and has struck up important partnerships along the way. This is time we watch and see if Tron meets up to the lofty standards its CEO and marketing has set for it.
Whether it's offering a great product or just all hype, we will find out, and soon.
