TRC20-USDT issuance accounts for the largest proportion of USDT issuance, and TRON has fully established its dominant position in stablecoins

As one of the most important tracks in the crypto field, the total market value of stablecoins is close to the 200 billion US dollar mark. It is the most dazzling star in the crypto field after Bitcoin and Ethereum. As a form of cryptocurrency, stablecoins have unique functions and values ​​in the digital currency market due to their characteristics such as anchoring to legal currency and stable currency value, and constitute an important aspect of the cryptocurrency market. Paying attention to the trend of stablecoins is of great significance to the development of the crypto market.

Currently, the valuation of USDT, the largest stablecoin by market value, has exceeded the 80 billion US dollar mark, accounting for 42.78% of the total market value of stablecoins. The latest data shows that the circulation of TRON's USDT has exceeded 41.7 billion, and its share in the total circulation of USDT has further increased. In addition, the number of TRC20-USDT holding accounts has now exceeded 11.86 million. In the face of such impressive data, what unique interpretation does Sun Yuchen, the founder of TRON, have? Golden Finance interviewed Sun Yuchen, the founder of TRON, to see what are the reasons behind the rapid development of TRC20-USDT from his perspective?

It is worth mentioning that Sun Yuchen, the founder of TRON, also made judgmental views on the next development of TRON and the trend of the crypto industry in the interview. The following is the transcript of the interview:

Golden Finance: According to official news, the circulation of TRC20-USDT has exceeded 41.7 billion, accounting for the first place in the total issuance of USDT. What is the current proportion? What does this mean for TRON? What are the further expansion plans and goals of TRC20-USDT in 2022?

Justin Sun: Stablecoins are the stepping stone for most people to enter the blockchain field. The global crypto market is currently showing a steady upward trend, and stablecoins have made an indelible contribution. The TRON stablecoin is undoubtedly the mainstay of the entire stablecoin market. Currently, the circulation of TRC20-USDT exceeds 41.7 billion, and ERC20-USDT is 39.8 billion. According to CoinMarketcap data, TRC20-USDT accounts for 50.9% of the total issuance of USDT, firmly holding the dominant position in the stablecoin market.

Undoubtedly, this is another milestone achieved since TRON was fully upgraded to the world's largest decentralized autonomous organization, which is of epoch-making significance for the development of both TRON and stablecoins. Compared with the praise from media organizations, I personally prefer "honors" in the form of data, because this is the choice of the majority of users and represents the market's trust in the TRON ecosystem and underlying technology.

At the beginning of this year, we made it clear that the core of the TRON ecosystem in 2022 is the dual-chain drive of TRX and BTT. Whether it is the TRON protocol that is committed to becoming the underlying global clearing platform for mankind in the future, or the second-layer (Layer2) expansion solution that focuses on undertaking applications, the TRON version of USDT will continue to play a key role.

Recently, the Bitcoin documentary "Aligning The Future" in which I participated has been released. In it, I also mentioned that countries in the world will eventually be divided into three categories. One category of countries will continue to use traditional legal tender, while some countries will begin to adopt CBDC, that is, issuing central bank digital currency. But there is another category of countries that may adopt cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as their legal tender or financial settlement currency in the future. Considering the volatility of most cryptocurrencies, stablecoins will still be the best use case for the financial settlement layer. Relying on the safer, low-cost and efficient TRON network, the TRON version of USDT has great potential, and the gap between it and other versions of USDT will be further widened.

Golden Finance: Why do you think TRC20-USDT ranks first in the total issuance of USDT? What are the advantages of TRC20-USDT (in terms of characteristics, application scenarios, etc.)?

Justin Sun: Before we talk about the specific reasons, let's talk with numbers. According to Tokenview data, since August 2021, Tether has issued a total of 31 billion USDT, of which 22 billion are on the TRON network and only 9 billion are on the Ethereum network. The TRON version of USDT not only holds half of the total issuance of USDT, but its market value also exceeds one-fifth of the total market value of global stablecoins.

The TRON version of USDT can achieve such a brilliant result, first of all, it is inseparable from the trend of the crypto market. Affected by the global situation, Bitcoin fell by more than 20% on the 7th at the end of February this year. Its labels of "safe haven tool" and "digital gold" began to be questioned. Affected by panic, users' demand for stablecoins for value preservation and risk aversion continued to rise, and the increase in USDT is reasonable. The TRON version of USDT has the endorsement of the safe and efficient TRON network, and it is natural for it to achieve continuous breakthroughs in data.

Let's talk about security first. When users choose stablecoins as a tool for payment settlement, investment and financial management, network security must be the primary consideration. Since its inception, the TRON network has never had a security incident, which has won praise all over the world. As for efficiency, I believe that many users are attracted by the low cost and smooth experience of TRON version of USDT transfer in seconds. Once used, they can't leave.

All these are due to TRON's focus on user experience, continuous technological upgrades and expansion, which allows it to remain invincible in the stablecoin market under the pressure of new and old public chains. We have noticed that the slogans of some other emerging public chain versions of USDT are also moving closer to the TRON version of USDT, but all the experience and innovation of the TRON version of USDT are based on the safety red line. The essence of a high-quality and conscientious public chain cannot be expressed in slogans.

Golden Finance: What is the status of TRC20 version of USDT in the development of TRON ecosystem? What is its relationship with the development of TRON DApp? How to promote the development of TRON ecosystem?

Justin Sun: In fact, stablecoins play an indispensable role not only in TRON, but in all public chain ecosystems and even blockchain projects. Taking TRON as an example, TRC20-USDT, as the leader of TRON's stablecoin ecosystem, plays a vital role in many core tracks such as financial settlement, DeFi, GameFi, NFT, Web3, and cross-chain.

Taking Argentina, one of the countries with the most widespread adoption of cryptocurrency in the world, as an example, TRON is the most widely used Layer 1 solution by Argentine users and also ranks among the top in terms of payment use cases. TRC20-USDT has made an indelible contribution to this.

On the other hand, TRC20-USDT is an excellent entry point for users to enter the TRON ecosystem and experience TRON DApp. On February 14 this year, the 2022 TRON Hackathon Competition was officially launched. The first season of the competition has ended, and more than 120 excellent works have emerged in the four major tracks of Web3, NFT, GameFi, and DeFi. From this exciting competition, it can be seen that TRC20-USDT provides a compliant USD stablecoin channel for developers and users, which is also the fundamental guarantee for the continuous prosperity, innovation, and rapid development of the TRON ecosystem.

In addition to vigorously supporting new projects, the existing leading projects in the TRON ecosystem are also constantly iterating and upgrading, providing TRC20-USDT with a broader development space. For example, the new integration of SUN.io and SunSwap deeply integrates the TRON stablecoin platform with the TRC20 token trading platform, greatly enriching the application of TRC20-USDT. For example, the BitTorrent ecosystem launched the industry's first heterogeneous chain cross-chain interoperability expansion protocol BTTC, which broadened the potential user base and usage scenarios for TRC20-USDT.

It can be said that the TRON ecosystem and TRC20-USDT are mutually beneficial. Relying on the high throughput, high scalability, and high reliability of TRON's underlying infrastructure, TRC20-USDT has achieved milestones one after another. At the same time, TRC20-USDT has also given the TRON ecosystem higher liquidity, driving the continued vigorous development of the entire TRON ecosystem.

Golden Finance: Since last year, DeFi, NFT, and Metaverse have been booming. How do you view the development of the current crypto market? What do you think are the key words for the development in 2022? What will be the industry's development rate and expansion speed? Which tracks will TRON focus on in 2022? Why?

Justin Sun: Since 2021, the entire crypto market has made breakthrough progress in multiple fields, presenting a prosperous scene of flourishing. On the one hand, the entry of traditional institutions and large companies has pushed the price of Bitcoin to a record high. On the other hand, NFT and DeFi remain popular. Specifically, Boring Ape quickly became popular with the celebrity effect, and DeFi has become a new financial management method chosen by more people with higher annualized returns.

At the same time, the concept of GameFi, which combines NFT and DeFI, began to explode, and P2E gameplay became popular. In 2022, we saw DAOs begin to blossom everywhere. TRON also actively embraced the changes and evolved into the world's largest decentralized autonomous organization, TRON DAO.

However, in my opinion, the keyword for the development of the entire industry in 2022 is still cross-chain. At present, there are hundreds of schools of thought in the public chain ecology. If everyone is self-centered, it will inevitably cause a lot of waste of resources. I believe that win-win cooperation will be the theme of the development of the blockchain industry this year. TRON and BitTorrent launched BTTC, the optimal solution for the cross-chain track, at the end of last year, and put forward the great vision of realizing the interconnection of all chains.

The exchange of information between outstanding projects on different public chains will help the development of the entire industry achieve twice the result with half the effort. In order to accelerate this process, TRON and BTTC jointly organized the 2022 TRON Hackathon Competition, aiming to provide a stage for outstanding developers across the industry to showcase their talents.

With the support of the competition, TRON will achieve more brilliant achievements in core tracks such as Web3, NFT, GameFi, and DeFi. This is also in line with TRON's basic strategy for 2022: TRX BTT dual-chain drive, SUN JST responsible for the DeFi ecosystem, and WIN NFT layout of GameFi and NFT. With both mature projects as the foundation and new projects to promote innovation, I believe that TRON will reap great rewards in all mainstream tracks in 2022.

Golden Finance: What do you think of the current status and role of USDT stablecoin in the crypto market? What do you think of the trust crisis that USDT once encountered? What are the risk control measures?

Justin Sun: Stablecoins play a role in bridging the crypto world and the real world due to their characteristics of anchoring to legal tender and stable value. USDT, as the leader of the stablecoin market, is obviously the largest and most critical traffic entrance for the entire industry. In fact, there is a discussion about the trust crisis of USDT every once in a while.

In fact, the so-called crisis is not limited to USDT. We can see that companies such as Facebook and VISA have also launched stablecoin plans. The regulatory concerns are actually facing the entire stablecoin market. TRON's strategic layout in the stablecoin market has fully considered the potential risks at the market and regulatory levels, created a super-strong pattern of four stablecoins, and fully avoided the exposure risk of a single stablecoin.

In addition to cooperating with Tether to issue USDT, we also have the TRON version of TUSD issued in cooperation with TrueUSD, the TRON version of USDC issued in cooperation with Circle, and USDJ issued through the decentralized contract of the TRON network. The rich stablecoin industry provides a more secure and compliant stablecoin choice for the majority of TRON users.

Since the beginning of this year, the circulation of TRC20-USDC has exceeded 620 million, and the supply of USDJ has reached 278 million US dollars. The TRON stablecoin is undoubtedly the most secure and competitive in the industry.

Golden Finance: At present, the official level has paid more attention to the regulation of stablecoins. What impact do you think this will bring? How do you view the regulatory situation of stablecoins?

Justin Sun: Compliance is crucial not only for stablecoins, but also for the entire cryptocurrency industry. Countries around the world are currently studying whether stablecoins need to be regulated and how to regulate them, with the United States being particularly radical. In fact, TRON has always taken safety and compliance as its mission since its inception. We actively embrace regulation because both regulators and us regard the safety of users' assets as the top priority.

In addition to Valkyrie Investments recently obtaining the first batch of US Bitcoin ETF listing licenses, we have also previously launched TRON listed ETNs that can be traded in compliance with regulations in 14 EU countries and the US TRON Trust Fund. These are strong evidence of TRON's active exploration in the field of compliance.

TRON is committed to becoming the global clearing infrastructure for the future of mankind, and the role of TRON stablecoin is self-evident. Active cooperation with supervision is the key to achieving this great vision. As before, TRON will continue to make arrangements for compliance and communicate with financial regulatory authorities related to crypto finance in various countries.

We are not in an antagonistic relationship with regulators, but a relationship of mutual need. As Grenada's permanent representative to the WTO and ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, it is my responsibility and mission to build a bridge between the cryptocurrency industry and governments of various countries and help countries around the world achieve large-scale popularization of cryptocurrency.

I believe that stablecoin regulation is an inevitable trend, but regulation is not about restriction or prohibition, but about encouraging innovation while protecting personal property security. We agree on this point.

Golden Finance: How do you expect the global stablecoin market to develop in 2022? What are the potential risks? How can TRON seize the opportunities and avoid the risks?

Justin Sun: In 2021, the size of the stablecoin market grew from $29 billion at the beginning of the year to $140 billion at the end of the year, an increase of nearly 400%. Many analysts, including those at home and abroad, believe that by the end of 2022, the size of the stablecoin market will exceed $500 billion. I am also optimistic about this.

The main reason for the continued rise in data is the booming development of DeFi applications, through which people can get higher returns than traditional bank accounts. However, people generally measure assets in US dollars, which makes the use of stablecoins in DeFI only increase.

The potential risks in the stablecoin market mainly come from the policy risks of regulators and the verification and audit risks of stablecoin entities. We need to see that the competition among various stablecoins is also intensifying, and this healthy competition can also help reduce the risks borne by users.

Although Tether still has the highest market capitalization in the stablecoin market to date, the growth of other stablecoins cannot be underestimated. Thanks to more open communication with US regulators, USDC has quickly climbed to become one of the most trusted stablecoins in the market. On July 1 last year, Circle reached a cooperation with TRON, and USDC was issued on the TRON chain. On the same day, the circulation exceeded 100 million.

In the future, TRON will further enrich the stablecoin ecosystem and cooperate with new forces in the stablecoin market. The stablecoin market is the trump card track that TRON has been working hard to cultivate. Through bull and bear markets, the market demand for stablecoins has remained consistent. Together with the community, I will continue to optimize the underlying technology, promote technological innovation, and bring a more prosperous ecosystem and better experience to developers and users.