Memes Are More Important: Tron Promotion in Question
Tron and its founder Justin Sun are back in defensive mode as they deny any information about who was behind the recent celebrity Twitter campaign that saw the price TRX up 30% in a matter of days.
Justin Sun and his new trick
TRON is a blockchain platform running on its own TRX token. Its market capitalization is $3.8 billion, and it is currently the 24th largest asset in the market capitalization table. In the crypto-investment community, opinions on the project have been consistently divided. Its supporters believe it is a legitimate contender for platform blockchain capable of disrupting the existing digital media distribution system. The detractors, however, call it tainted software that created an inflated valuation through aggressive marketing.
In mid-February, information emerged that a “TRON partner” was offering celebrities to pay to promote the project on social media. Celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Neyo, Amanda Cerny and Lil Yachty participated in the campaign, writing optimistically on Twitter about the Tron blockchain or its native token – TRX.
The campaign caused controversy because much of the promotional content was posted without proper disclosure by celebrities and influencers. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has developed guidelines for influencers promoting goods through social media. The guide says: “If you support a product through social media, your message of support should make it obvious what relationship you have (material connection) with the brand”. The FTC says the responsibility for the disclosure lies with influencers.
Celebrity supporters were revealed when popular tech columnist YouTuber Marques Brownlee revealed that the team behind the campaign also asked him to mention Tron on Twitter, but said he “doesn’t have to make it look like a sponsored tweet”.
During his “Dogecoin: Explained” video, Brownlee shared screenshots of emails between himself and the team behind the campaign to support celebrities – Tron influencers.
The emails came from someone who says they are a Tron partner, which they then call “one of the largest crypto projects in the world with a faster blockchain that often called the killer of Ethereum.” They asked if Brownlee could “openly” tweet what he thought of Tron and post this, and for his “honest opinion” would be compensated.
The emails included several examples of tweets from Lindsay Lohan, and others advertising Tron to their followers. One celebrity involved in the campaign, Amanda Cerny, has more clearly revealed her relationship with Tron, tagging her tweet about low Tron fees with #TronPartner. Lindsay Lohan and Neyo wrote their tweets on February 12. The following week, the price of TRX rose about 30%.
Price change of TRX
The price of TRX has skyrocketed after a celebrity advertising campaign on Twitter.
Tron founder Justin Sun denies that the Tron Foundation, the nonprofit he runs, and which oversees the Tron Project, is behind the campaign.
However, he has long used celebrities to promote Tron. The Chinese-language version of Tron’s website continues to feature heavily photographs of him posing with Kobe Bryant (who died in a helicopter crash in January 2020), and Jack Ma ( which disappeared for three months recently after China’s government intervened to stop his Alibaba. IPO).
Bloomberg interviewed him before the celebrity advertising tweet failed, and Sun told the publication he would hire more celebrities and artists to better position Tron like” meme-friendly” coin. As part of the same interview, Sun discussed the paradigm shift toward young people seeking financial investment and the rise of meme-based investment strategies.
He continues to support himself to secure Tron’s huge market capitalisation, telling Bloomberg: “Elon Musk is not only the CEO of the company, but also a representative of such a kind of meme culture and this kind of new generation movement. In the future, similar community-driven trends will require company CEOs to engage more with the community, with their fans.” San can model himself after Musk, but he has yet to create products that will conquer the hearts and minds of communities in the way Telsa or SpaceX did.
Instead, the value of the TRX token is supported by a continuous hover cycle that shows no signs of abating. Whether this will be enough to sustain Tron for a much longer term remains to be seen, but a rising wave of altcoins prices has lifted Tron again in this current bull run and the token has risen up 80% since January 1.