Tron has seen better days. A week ago, the digital currency was surging and was ranked amongst the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the world. However, Tron was accused of plagiarizing two whitepapers written by Protocol Labs (the owners of IPFS and Filecoin). This has caused a lot of confusion among many people, but Justin Sun, the man behind Tron seems unfazed as he just announced a new partnership with Baofeng, a Chinese company worth billions of dollars.
The accusations regarding the plagiarized papers came after many crypto followers noticed a lot of similarities between Tron’s white papers and IPFS and Filecoin papers. Protocol Labs founder Juan Benet also joined in as he posted a photo on Twitter which alleged that Tron’s English translated white papers had copied from IPFS and Filecoin. Benet contributed in the writing of papers for both IPFS and Filecoin.
.@justinsuntron why does your TRON whitepaper make wholesale copying of @IPFSbot and @MineFilecoin without a single reference? Bitswap, PoRep, PoSt, these are not your ideas?
— Bedeho (@bedehomender) January 7, 2018
This is a serious accusation against a digital currency which has been doing quite well for itself overall. Tron had a great start to 2018 as it soared to as high as $0.3 but since then it has fallen quite a lot. It currently sits at $0.11. The altcoin decline may be credited for the sharp decrease in Tron’s value but an allegation like this can equally hurt a currency. It causes uncertainty amongst the investors who become unsure of the credibility of the people behind the currency. This also might be a reason for the downward trend for Tron over the past few days.
However, Tron owner, Justin Sun claims other reasons to be behind Tron’s recent decline and brushes it off as nothing to worry about in latest tweet:
The recent #TRX fluctuation is due to coinmakrtcap’s decision to exclude Korean exchange price from the displayed $TRX price, which causes some FUDs. Korea community is vital to #TRON. We will consistantly expand ourselves in Korea regradless of the cmc index.
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) January 10, 2018
The white paper controversy has definitely hurt Tron over the past few days, many people have also shown evidence against Tron. However, Justin Sun remained denies any plagiarism done whatsoever. He claims that poor translation is the reason that the papers seem plagiarized. He claims that the original papers were in Chinese and many ommissions and details have been made in the English translation as it was done by volunteers and not done officially.
“Our original version of the whitepaper is in Chinese and we have a very detailed reference to the latest Chinese version. The English, Korea, Japanese and Spanish versions are translated by the volunteers. The translation missed numerous important details not just reference.”
He also added: “We can provide you with the latest Chinese version of the whitepaper and hope we can learn from your advice. Again, from the beginning, we don’t expect numerous languages versions to keep update. After our SF office opens we will have a better English version of everything soon!”
Although Sun has denied the allegations and has come out with assertive statements like these, Tron has still removed both the English and Chinese white papers from its website. It hasn’t been confirmed yet whether the Chinese paper was plagiarized as well or the issue pertains to just the English version.
Many people also now claim that Tron’s success lies not in its technology but in its marketing. A proof of this comes in the form of the new partnership announced by Tron. Despite all of the controversy surrounding the white papers, Tron announced a new partnership with Baofeng. Sun had this to say about the new partnership:
What’s the best way to clear all FUDs? More partnerships, more developers, more exchanges and more efforts! #TRON #TRX $TRX
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) January 10, 2018
Baofeng, also known as the “Chinese Netflix” claims to have over 200 million users. Tron’s aim is to give media content owners ways to own and distribute their own content without having to worry about going through the process of getting their content on Google Play or the Apple Store. Thus a partnership with a media giant which Sun has called the “Chinese Netflix” can definitely help Tron move towards that aim even further.
However, this is a great example of Tron’s marketing strategy at its finest. From the looking at the information Sun has provided us about Baofeng, it appears as though Tron’s moving towards its goals. However, a closer inspection reveals that’s not the case. Claiming Baofeng to be the “Chinese Netflix” is false information. Baofeng works towards giving people internet audio and video playing solutions, it’s not a streaming platform in itself. It produces video and audio decoding technologies.
Moreover, according to the announcement, Tron will be working with BFC. This is a separate division within Baofeng which makes hardware. Although this could also benefit Tron in the long run, it’s definitely not the part of Baofeng that boasts 200 million monthly users.
The actual details of the partnership are different than what Sun markets it as. It’s a clever move on his part as it gets more eyes towards Tron and that’s what Tron needs. It may be a good strategy for Tron to become more popular through its marketing after which it can then use the immense support to start developing a proper infrastructure for the currency as well. With people like Sun, it might just work.
As for the plagiarized papers, it remains to be seen what happens. We don’t expect the issue to drag out for long, everything should be cleared up in the coming few days. Tron setting up new partnerships (with questionable marketing) shows that it’s not going to stay down after minor setbacks. Tron is still a highly popular currency even after the major setback it received with its value. It’s still ranked as the 12th best cryptocurrency in the world. With more partnerships incoming, expect Tron’s value to surge again to greater heights this time.