The second half of 2024 was a milestone period for the TRON network. It achieved record-breaking performance across key metrics, saw $TRX reach all-time highs, and experienced a surge in ecosystem activity driven by memecoin activity. Let’s break it all down. Key Highlights TRON led in the Price-to-Revenue ratio, maintaining a top-three position throughout the period. Fundamental blockchain metrics demonstrated TRON's strength and competitiveness. A successful “vampire attack” on Solana attracted significant attention to the TRON ecosystem. $TRX Reaches a New All-Time High The native token of the TRON blockchain demonstrated significant growth in early December, setting a new all-time high at $0.416. As of early 2025, the token's price is trading at $0.225. At this price level, 94% of wallets holding $TRX are in profit. Historically, $TRX has shown consistent upward price momentum. The token's value generally increases over time, with major price drops occurring only after exponential growth cycles, which typically happen every four years. Importantly, the price has never returned to the previous lows of earlier cycles. This price behavior sets $TRX apart from many other large-cap altcoins, as holders of $TRX tend to remain in profit for a significant portion of their holding period. TRON Leads Across Plenty of Fundamental Metrics The driving force behind TRON's price behavior lies in its blockchain metrics. Among these, the price-to-revenue ratio stands out as a crucial indicator for fundamental analysis. Notably, at the start of the second half of the year, before the native token's price surge, TRON led the market with the lowest price-to-revenue ratio of 26.7. (The lower the ratio, the higher the project's revenue relative to its market capitalization.) While such a ratio is fairly common in the technology sector of the stock market, it is considered exceptional in the cryptocurrency market. After the exponential price growth, the ratio has shifted, but TRON still remains among the leaders in this metric. More than that, TRON has emerged as the most cost-efficient L1 blockchain in 2024, spending just $0.85 for every $1 generated in fee revenue. This stands in contrast to Aptos, which spent over 300 times more on incentives than it earned in fees. Bitcoin, with its Proof-of-Work model, spent $80B on miner incentives while generating $6.6B in transaction fees. Additionally, in terms of absolute revenue, TRON ranks second after Ethereum. Ethereum, TRON, and Solana are the undisputed leaders in revenue generation among blockchains, accounting for over 95% of the total revenue generated by projects in this category. The TRON network has solidified its leadership in the number of addresses interacting with stablecoins. TRON is the most popular network for users transferring stablecoins between centralized exchanges. This success can be attributed to several factors: High reliability: The network is proven both over time and by the volume of assets it handles. Cost-efficiency: TRON provides one of the most cost-efficient solutions for stablecoin transactions, making it an attractive option for users across various demographics. Broad support: The network is supported by nearly all centralized exchanges. Unique resource mechanism: TRON’s unique dPOS model, coupled with its Energy and Bandwidth resource system, offers cost savings and efficiency. This design is highly appealing for both individual users and payments platforms. Active Network Participation: TRON dPOS Staking & Voting system keep retail & investors involved in the Network from both technological and investment reasons. In terms of stablecoin transfers, TRON ranks third, with a total of 3 trillion USDT in transfers for the second half of 2024—just slightly behind Ethereum and Solana. In the second half of 2024, 5 billion USDT were minted and burned on the TRON network, resulting in a stablecoin volume that remained relatively unchanged despite minor fluctuations. Returning to the overall metrics, TRON ranks among the top three in terms of active addresses for the second half of 2024. Additionally, during this period, TRON ranks among the top three blockchains in terms of transaction volume. As for the Total Value Locked (TVL) metric, in the second half of 2024, TRON lost some ground to BSC and the rapidly growing Bitcoin ecosystem, driven by restaking protocols. However, it still remains in the top five. Thus, TRON is a leader among blockchains across several key metrics, thanks to its strong product-market fit in the stablecoin segment. However, there was one highly popular market segment where TRON did not achieve significant success in the past half-year: the memecoin sector. Well, in the second half of 2024, Justin Sun and his team decided to make up for lost ground and managed to pleasantly surprise the market. The Memecoin Summer on TRON By mid-2024, it became clear that pump.fun on the Solana blockchain — a platform where anyone could launch their own token in just a few clicks and almost for free — was the most prominent and successful project of the cycle. It had already generated massive revenue and attracted significant attention. As a result, on August 13, a similar platform called SunPump was launched on the TRON network. Its name was a nod to its origin, and it was built on the AMM protocol SunSwap, with its smart contracts actively powering the platform. Despite initial skepticism, SunPump quickly proved to be serious competition for pump.fun, especially in its first month of operation. In fact, the meme tokens launched in the early days on SunPump surpassed those previously launched on pump.fun. Within a month, the pace of token launches on the platform and their average market performance naturally stabilized, reflecting a shift toward a more sustainable growth phase. This trend is not uncommon in the crypto industry, where the "first-mover" effect often gives established platforms an initial edge. However, this also provides an opportunity for new platforms, like TRON's SunPump, to innovate further and differentiate themselves from older, more familiar platforms as they continue to evolve. Illicit Activity Mitigation In August 2024, TRON, Tether and TRM announced the establishment of The T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) – a сollaboration aimed at reducing illicit activity in the blockchain industry. In just six months, they managed to freeze over $100 million in criminal assets globally, marking a significant milestone in its fight against cryptocurrency-related financial crime. The TRON network, in particular, experienced the most significant decline in illicit activity, with volume dropping by $6 billion and the proportion of such activity nearly halving. The unit has worked closely with law enforcement agencies worldwide to disrupt criminal networks involved in money laundering, investment fraud, blackmail, terrorism financing, and other serious financial crimes. New Year, New Challenges for the Ecosystem One promising market narrative TRON has only begun to explore is the integration of AI technologies. With the innovative track record of Justin Sun and his team, 2025 promises to be a transformative year for TRON in this space. Building on their success with fair launch platforms for meme tokens, we are confident they will introduce groundbreaking applications or creatively adapt existing solutions to position TRON as a leader in the AI-crypto synergy. Moreover, we are already seeing the first signs from TRON DAOitself. On January 7, the official Twitter (X) account of TRON DAO posted a poll asking users which use cases they find most interesting for AI technologies within the crypto industry. Just a few days later, they reposted a post from the account @JustinMoonAI – a community project featuring an English-speaking AI agent who hosts a 24/7 livestream, interacting with visitors on the website. The agent's name and some aspects of their appearance clearly reference the founder of the TRON blockchain. Additionally, on January 10, the TRON blockchain became available as an interaction network in the EternalAI protocol , a multi-chain platform for launching tokenized AI agents. Output The TRON network is one of the earliest blockchain technologies launched by human civilization. Over its more than 6 years of existence, it has established itself as a reliable decentralized infrastructure and has become the go-to solution for stablecoin transfers – arguably the most significant use case in the crypto industry. The charismatic figure of Justin Sun has given the project high recognition and visibility, and since Sun is an independent player in the market, it provides certain freedoms in project development. For instance, Justin Sun was able to initiate the creation of SunPump, leading it to a brief yet notable success. We believe that the initiative and persistence of the ecosystem's leader will continue to pave the way for its success, and the market clearly agrees with our optimistic outlook, consistently raising the blockchain's valuation through its native coin. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
