Saw Sun Ge retweeting the 8th anniversary of the Tron chain.
Back in the day, TRON had the rep of being a shitcoin, and not many believed it could survive the bear market.
Even now, a lot of folks outside the space still don’t know that Tron was created by Sun Ge.
What really made Tron pop were two key turning points.
The first turning point was March-April 2019, when TRC20-USDT launched.
In March 2019, Tron struck a deal with Tether, and by April, they started issuing USDT on their own chain.
Before that, USDT mainly ran on Ethereum, where transfers took ages and fees weren't cheap. Over on Tron, a block gets churned out every 3 seconds, so sending a dollar takes just a few seconds and costs almost nothing.
Instead of going head-to-head with Ethereum for all those DeFi bells and whistles, they focused on one thing: making dollar transfers fast and cheap.
This demand gradually picked up in emerging markets, cross-border remittances, and OTC trading, snowballing into a core, loyal customer base.
The second turning point: April 2021.
By April 2021, Sun Yuchen tweeted that Tron’s version of USDT hit $23.9 billion, surpassing Ethereum's $23.4 billion for the first time, taking a total of 729 days.
This was Tron’s first time sitting on the throne of stablecoins.
That top spot changed hands a few times, but by May 2025, Tron had surged to $75.7 billion, claiming 50.2% market share again, overtaking Ethereum.
By May 2026, USDT on Tron had already exceeded $90 billion.
After 8 years, that once-labeled shitcoin, the Tron chain, now carries a hefty chunk of the world’s on-chain dollars.
Back in the day, TRON had the rep of being a shitcoin, and not many believed it could survive the bear market.
Even now, a lot of folks outside the space still don’t know that Tron was created by Sun Ge.
What really made Tron pop were two key turning points.
The first turning point was March-April 2019, when TRC20-USDT launched.
In March 2019, Tron struck a deal with Tether, and by April, they started issuing USDT on their own chain.
Before that, USDT mainly ran on Ethereum, where transfers took ages and fees weren't cheap. Over on Tron, a block gets churned out every 3 seconds, so sending a dollar takes just a few seconds and costs almost nothing.
Instead of going head-to-head with Ethereum for all those DeFi bells and whistles, they focused on one thing: making dollar transfers fast and cheap.
This demand gradually picked up in emerging markets, cross-border remittances, and OTC trading, snowballing into a core, loyal customer base.
The second turning point: April 2021.
By April 2021, Sun Yuchen tweeted that Tron’s version of USDT hit $23.9 billion, surpassing Ethereum's $23.4 billion for the first time, taking a total of 729 days.
This was Tron’s first time sitting on the throne of stablecoins.
That top spot changed hands a few times, but by May 2025, Tron had surged to $75.7 billion, claiming 50.2% market share again, overtaking Ethereum.
By May 2026, USDT on Tron had already exceeded $90 billion.
After 8 years, that once-labeled shitcoin, the Tron chain, now carries a hefty chunk of the world’s on-chain dollars.