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| By Bruce Ng |
In the English-speaking crypto world, most discussions take place on social media.
It’s how most crypto investors and traders find out about coins, discuss them and engage with other crypto participants.
(To see what we’re saying, follow us on X.com — formerly Twitter — at @WeissCrypto and on Instagram at @weisscrypto)
Typically, these discussions are a mixed bag, as most social media conversations are. There’s misinformation and fearmongering, but there is also solid community building and some good information being spread.
I and the other Weiss Crypto analysts like keeping our thumb on the pulse of these conversations. While not every take is as well-vetted as what you’ll find here, every now and again something strikes us.
Like the fact that, recently, a bunch of newly minted crypto millionaires are all abuzz over a rather old coin called Tron (TRX, “C”).
Why?
Well, to start, it hasn’t fizzled out.
Roughly 90% of crypto projects are expected to fail, but this one has held strong through two bull cycles.
Tron is a Layer-1, blockchain-based decentralized operating system that aims to advance the decentralization of the Internet and its infrastructure.
It offers high throughput, high scalability and high availability for all decentralized applications — or dApps — in the TRON ecosystem.
The Tron blockchain is built around the usability of its native token, TRX.
I consider TRX to be an old school Layer-1 coin. It was launched by Justin Sun, one of crypto’s richest founders during the height of the ICO bubble in 2017.
In short, it’s an old coin.
I typically stay away from old coins because they have lots of old holders who bought at previous cycle tops. That means they can — and will! — sell at any time when price starts to go up.
But take a look at the TRX price since it launched.
It’s been on a steady, gradual climb since May 2023.
So, should I make an exception for this “old coin”?
Well, I’m not about to let hype decide my investment strategy. And you shouldn’t, either.
Because while sentiment and headlines can drive the market in the near term — as we’ve seen a lot recently — it won’t last forever. And when it’s gone, I want solid tokenomics underneath my investments.
But the thing is, TRX keeps showing up at the top spot when I analyze fundamental metrics like users, volumes and fees accrued.
And I found three reasons investors should keep TRX on their watchlist …
Reason 1: Tron has the Second-Highest TVL for all Chains
Total Value Locked, or TVL, measures how much liquidity is deposited onto the chain. As such, it is a good metric to measure adoption of blockchains and dApps.
As we can see above, TRX ranks second, behind only Ethereum.
But just as notable is the fact that its ahead of this bull cycle’s Layer-1 darling, Solana (SOL, “B+”). In fact, Tron has almost twice the TVL of Solana.
Reason 2: Tron Ranks Second in Monthly Active Users
Again, the number of active users measures how many people use the chain over a specific period of time. For monthly active users, Tron ranks second, behind Solana.
And those positions aren’t set in stone. In fact, when it comes to weekly and daily users, Tron occasionally ranks first.
Either way, it consistently ranks in the top five for monthly, weekly and daily active users.
To put it simply, it has many users, i.e. real adoption, supporting future growth.
However, user numbers can be faked through fake accounts. But this next reason is rock solid …
Reason 3: Tron Makes Lots of Money via Fees
No matter if an account is real or fake, there is still a fee required to send any transactions.
Fees paid to the blockchain, as shown in the image above, represent the amount of transaction fees paid by each user to the blockchain.
Think of the blockchain as a freeway, and blockchain users as drivers. Fees are like the toll paid for the freeway. It represents real economic activity on the chain.
And Tron ranking second is a big deal in my opinion. It even beats Bitcoin, as you can see above.
Bonus Reason: Social Sentiment
I know I said we shouldn’t let hype decide our investment strategy. And that is true.
But we can’t ignore the real impact it can have on the success or failure of an investment. That’s because social sentiment measures attention.
I’ve seen plenty of coins with awesome products fade to irrelevance just because they have no hype.
Let’s take a look at TRX’s social sentiment using a special tool by Santiment:
Social volume is a proprietary metric created by Santiment to measure the social media volume of a particular search term. That’s what’s tracked above.
It’s a bit messy but focus on the stats in the top left corner. There, you’ll see the social volume scores for BTC, ETH, SOL and TRX. They are …
- BTC: 27
- ETH: 14
- SOL: 5
- TRX: 2
TRX doesn’t seem to get discussed much on English-speaking social media platforms. It seems to be overlooked.
Does this mean it has more room to grow?
Possibly.
I, for one, will be keeping it on my watchlist. If you’re looking for a more established growth opportunity, you may want to consider doing the same.
Best,
Dr. Bruce Ng
P.S. You know me as a small-cap crypto expert. I make it my business to learn all I can about the best growth opportunities so you can make the most out of the crypto market.
But I am also a rocket scientist. (That “Dr.” title isn’t just for show!)
So, when my colleague, startup investment specialist Chris Graebe, found an incredible growth opportunity fueled by literal rockets, I had to do a little digging.
And what I learned has blown my mind! He’s found a little-known company that is primed to undermine Elon Musk’s SpaceX and potentially dominate this modern-day space race.
McKinsey & Co. values this opportunity at over $1.4 trillion, and the growth opportunity for investors at this stage — before it goes public — is insane.
To learn more about how you can invest for yourself, click here.
