TRON (TRX)–To commemorate TRON’s Independence Day on June 25th (the official start of Main Net’s genesis block), the TRON Foundation is planning a coin burn of 1 billion TRX, worth nearly 50 million USD. As the press release states, the burn will constitute the largest destruction of money in human history. In addition, the 33 billion TRX combined fund of founder Justin Sun and the TRON Foundation will be placed in a locked account until the start of 2020, which further negates the rumor of Sun selling his primary holding in early January.
The amount of TRX at the beginning of mainnet launch will be reduced to 99,000,000,000TRX, and the remaining 33,251,807,524 TRX held by TRON foundation will stay locked until January 1th, 2020.
Purpose of the TRX Coin Burn
While TRON is no stranger to marketing stunts, the one billion TRX coin burn has a much larger purpose. In addition to increasing the individual value of each token, the burn will have a systemic effect on investor attitudes towards TRON.
Installing a Sense of Scarcity
The 100 billion coin supply currencies have found themselves in a bit of a predicament. Regardless of the inherent divisibility of cryptocurrencies, high supply coins offer greater market liquidity, which is a benefit to both exchange speculators and users of the coin. It also keeps the price-per-coin low, which, from a buyer’s standpoint, provides some psychological distance from the intimidating price of Bitcoin (the average, non-crypto investor will see BTC’s elevated price as a barrier to entry).
However, the high coin supply also negates the feeling of scarcity that has arguably driven the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum so high over the preceding year. Fear of Missing Out is a strong, enabling force for Bitcoin investors, in the sense that BTC has a relatively small circulating supply (which also increase the danger of contentious hard forks).
By burning 1 billion TRX (which amounts to 1% of the total circulating supply of the coin), Justin Sun and the TRON Foundation are signaling to investors that they are committed to raising the intrinsic value of the currency. The immediate aftermath of the coin burn is not to bring about a 1% increase in price, but to offer long-term leverage to the investment base, and to provide a touch of the aforementioned scarcity that has proven valuable to low-supply coins. In effect, the TRON Foundation is burning 50 million USD they have control over now to further the interest of the currency as a whole in the future. This move comes in addition to Project Genesis, a 2 billion USD resource fund to grow the development of Main Net and TRX-based applications. The TRON team has proven they are willing to forgo immediate profit in an effort to raise long-term value, which is a sentiment investors can easily recognize.
Catering to the Needs of Investors (and Eventual Users)
The TRON Foundation has figured out the game of cryptocurrency-related marketing: almost all of the currencies on the market, even Bitcoin (in the absence of Lightning Network), are not ready for the type of adoption necessary for real usability. That’s not to say the currencies don’t have potential in the world of digital marketplaces and fintech development–they are just not at the point of feasibility. This past January’s bull run, when average BTC transaction fees jumped above 55 USD, proved that cryptocurrency has a long way to go before achieving the scale necessary for market saturation.
TRON is targeting the needs of investors now, in an effort to draw greater attention to the currency and build the foundation for its user base. The honest truth is there is little reason to own TRX (or almost any currency), outside of what it offers through price speculation–at this point in time. That will drastically change with the development of the Main Net platform and the integration of crypto into IoT devices and smartphone app marketplaces. The TRON Foundation is getting ahead of the war for growing user bases by building a fervent and committed investment base. Yes, investors drive up the price of the currency which directly benefits the TRON Foundation and Justin Sun’s holdings. But it also keeps the currency in market spotlights and media headlines, in addition to giving incentive to current holders to refrain from selling their TRX. Despite the massive fall in value for cryptocurrency over the last six months, there is a hesitancy to sell TRON if TRX continues to decrease in availability. While markets rarely behave in a rational nature, coin burns on the scale of billions do grab the attention of investors and give TRON a small degree of appreciation that has largely been lacking since its release.
Some will continue to view the coin burn as another attention-grabbing, publicity gimmick by the TRON Foundation to keep the currency relevant in the news cycle. After all, even with the destruction of one billion tokens, Sun and the TRON team command over 33 billion TRX (worth 1.4 billion USD). However, keep in mind the company is actively destroying 50 million dollars worth of currency. Even if the burn is a calculated attempt to raise awareness for TRON, it still comes at a personal cost to the developers of cryptocurrency. Instead, TRON’s coin burn is furthering the interaction between the team behind TRX and the growing investment base. As opposed to most transactional currencies, TRON is relying upon its growing user base to both develop and participate on Main Net, thereby increasing the overall value of the technology.
A 50 million USD investment today could bring billions in return if the TRON team can manage to establish a digital platform to rival other media networks.
