Possible new details regarding the rumored TRON-Baidu partnership have come out, but may have some disappointed — for the time being.
TRON’s much ballyhooed partnership with Baidu – the Beijing-based tech giant – may in the short term only consist of renting cloud server space, according to Chinese crypto news website Odaily.
The translated press release states that:
Wave Field TRON will build compatibility with Baidu Cloud to build, operate and debug blockchain products to optimize compatibility and optimize the development experience.
The statement adds, critically, that “[a]t present, the cooperation mainly focuses on the purchase and use of basic cloud computing resources”, which may indicate use for a TRON testnet.
The press release implied a more substantial exchange of resources and expertise down the road, however, with plans to “build a blockchain ecosystem that is mutually beneficial”.
The statement also made mention of Baidu’s own blockchain project, the recently announced Super Chain, without specifying any particular role vis-a-vis TRON. Once Super Chain is released, Baidu plans to “explore technology and share revenue” with partners, presumably including TRON.
It is safe to say that expectations were high for what began as a mystery partnership, which TRON CEO Justin Sun hinted at a few days ago in a twitter post.
TRON’s price surged up to 10% when unconfirmed reports specified Baidu as the mystery partner.
The top-20 crypto project has already made big acquisitions lately, picking up renowned software platform Bittorrent in July.
Announcement of the Announcement
Justin Sun has been accused in the past of overly hyping projects and announcements, even drawing wisecracks from Vitalik Buterin.
Some crypto-industry notables are already taking to social media expressing mild annoyance — or comedy — with the new details of the Baidu partnership, with Ari Paul retorting:
Assuming the below is accurate, this deserves to be called out as misleading marketing. If I buy a computer with Microsoft Windows installed, I should not claim to have partnered with Microsoft without clarifying the limited nature of the ‘partnership.’ https://t.co/MbOhaYgkvD
— Ari Paul (@AriDavidPaul) October 15, 2018