Why Should I Build A New Tron?

In the book ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’, Ursula K. Le Guin used the character Istravan to say something that I will never forget, he said, and I quote “there is only one genius of me. That is, to know when to move that great wheel of destiny, and to achieve the unity of unity and action.” Two years ago, when I chose to be the CTO to create TRON with Justin Sun, I firmly believed these words. Today I choose to leave, hoping to rebuild a new TRON, and I still believe that. The reason why I decided to name the project the project “Volume Network” is to pay tribute to these words.

During my two years at TRON, I felt the wheel of destiny spinning rapidly and I went forward to drive the wheel. At the beginning, Justin was in the USA when ICOs were banned as an unauthorized and illegal financing option in China on September 4th, 2017. Through my effort, the formation of a local team was possible, and the coding of Tron took off effectively from scratch. Our audience and ICO success helped TRX to soar immediately after the ICO sale. Up till now, when I look back to what we built at Tron, it usually seems like a dream to me. Thanks to me, today, there are hundreds of employees working at Tron. Tron Network has gone through the stages of open source, testnet launching, mainnet launching, the acquisition of BTT, ecological expansion of the TRON dApp, etc. While at Tron, we witnessed the brand-new project whose market capitalization had surged into the top 10 in just a few months. I am thankful to Justin for providing me with this platform to grow with TRON. But because of the irreconcilable contradiction between us, I believe TRON is no longer the original TRON. I chose to leave, hoping to regain my original vision and rebuild my new TRON.

The reasons for leaving the Tron Network are simple. As a technical expert, I feel very sad that the TRON Network has departed from the faith of the slogan “decentralize the web”.

· Tron Is No Longer Decentralized

In the DPOS and Super Representative node, there is a problem of centralized voting. Some nodes have more than 90% of the votes with only a few voters. Therefore, the vote of ordinary retail investors has completely fallen apart. The total number of TRX in TRON is 100 billion, while the total number of votes for the super representatives is just less than 8 billion.

· Tron Is Not Associated with The Internet

The technology platform of TRON was built by me. I certainly know that the real Internet applications cannot function in TRON network currently. The TRON ecosystem is still far from commercial applications that users can really apply to. Bad money drives out good. Thus, DAPP in TRON is basically the gambling and funding project.

· TRON has deviated from the spirit and original intention of the blockchain

The spirit of the blockchain is decentralized, while TRON project is centralized. Token distribution is centralized, Super Representatives are centralized, code development is centralized. Even the community is organized under centralization. Secondly, there are no diverse voices in TRON ecosystem. The whole project has developed into a monetary tool without any “decentralize web” spirit.

It is a pity and I am deeply sorry to see the project that was developed by me and has become like this. The dreams and visions that Justin told me have been ruined. After several months of thinking, I decided to start the Volume Network (VOL) Project. Why did you start the VOL project? What is the VOL project?

Volume Network is a truly decentralized blockchain project. This is the project I dreamt of when I first joined TRON Network in 2017. Based on my experience thus far in the industry, I’ve found the following to be true about blockchain:

1. I Realized that true decentralization is based on mining.

In fact, the DPOS mechanism of TRON is pseudo-decentralized. The top 27 SR nodes (block nodes) have more than 170 million TRX votes, and most of them are controlled by TRON. It’s hard for other latecomers to become the block nodes, so they cannot participate in the process of block production. I always believe that mining blockchain projects are the true blockchain. Contribution to the project should be determined based on proof of workload rather than the size of the holding position. The data also illustrate this viewpoint. By the end of the Q1 of 2019, mining- based cryptocurrencies accounted for more than 70% of the total digital money market.

With Volume Network, what I hope to do is to introduce more people into the digital world through a mining method with the lowest investment threshold in order to achieve true decentralization. Volume Network will be mined through a computer hard disk. At present, the high threshold of ASIC and the high price of GPU make many people hesitant to join mining sector. These kinds of projects, which eliminates subsequent players from entering the market, is unsustainable. I want miners and newcomers to participate in the use of a new generation hard drive mining method, and still get a safe and reliable digital currency while storing ‘useful’ files. This is a real sense of energy conservation and environmental protection. Hence, while significantly reducing the participation threshold, most families and ordinary individuals can participate in mining VOL with computer hard disk.

2. An Innovative proof of space and time (PoST) consensus mechanism

At present, the mainstream of digital currency based on POW consensus mechanism in the blockchain is facing many difficulties because of its high energy consumption, centralized calculation and expansion problem. In addition, many digital currencies such as ETH and GRIN based on GPU and FPGA mining, are difficult to become the mainstream choice due to the high cost of GPU.

With my experience from TRON, I think that the PoST based on hard disk capacity is more suitable for the consensus algorithm, which is the proof of space-time mechanism of Volume Network.

What is PoST — Proof of Space and Time?

Based on the original proof of space consensus mechanism, PoST introduces the concept of time dimension. By utilizing the characteristics of verifiable delay functions (VDF), miners are required to perform some intensive mathematical operations after obtaining candidate block data, and then to select blocks by combining the two elements of fast verification results and candidate block data. Thus,

A blockchain network which can save energy, protect the environment, and reduce user’s threshold, as well as protection against attacks, has been created. I believe that this will promote the greater progress and development of the blockchain consensus mechanism.

3. Zero private placement and undervalued pure community driven project

Volume Network does not have any private placement and is a pure community driven project from scratch. Only 3% of tokens will be issued for initial exchange offering on BISS.com, and the remaining 97% will be generated through mining. Volume Network is currently valued at $1 million for the first round and only $30,000 IEO hardcap for initial circulation. The reason I did this was to create a pure community project like Satoshi Nakamoto did with Bitcoin.

Leaving TRON to rebuild a new TRON is not for money as Justin did, but to bring back the origin of the blockchain so that the decentralized community can participate in it deeply. Volume Network will reject all investment institutions and adopt a very low valuation. I hope this would become a real community project. I have valued Volume Network to a total of $1 million, with an initial circulation market value of $30,000 to pilot the community, to attract new users, so that more users and developers can come to a consensus and participate in the project’s development.

This is also a strong vision for me. I and the team hope to rebuild a new TRON that will take us back to the fundamentals of blockchain technology.

In conclusion, I hope that as a new TRON, Volume Network would be a truly decentralized, community-based, innovative consensus mechanism, storing useful files, and ultra-low threshold blockchain project that everyone can participate in. I believe that this is the project that truly conforms to the spirit of the blockchain. This is the significance of our adherence to the industry of the blockchain up until this time.

Former CTO, Co-founder of TRON

Founder, CEO of Volume Network

Lucien Chen.