In a recent interview with journalist Rachel Wolfson, Justin Sun, the Founder and CEO of TRON Foundation, talked about a wide range of interesting topics, with perhaps the most important being his plans to add privacy features to TRON.

(Rachel’s exclusive interview with Justin, which covered a wide range of interesting topics, is available on episode 212, season 1 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.)

Project Atlas

  • Being introduced in 2019.
  • “We use blockchain technology to help BitTorrent build a more efficient way.”
  • “First of all, when people try to download something in the BitTorrent network will use a mechanism called “tit-for-tat”. So, basically, how much you upload, how much you download. But this mechanism doesn’t [always] work… For example, if I finish the downloading, I don’t have the incentive to upload anymore… So, we provide a cryptocurrency token [called the “BitTorrent token”]issued on the TRON network… as a solution to provide incentive for the users. So, basically, the more you upload, you can get the token incentive from the other users, or you can get the token distributed by the system. So, that’s why you have this incentive to maintain the whole network, to contribute to the network.”
  • “BitTorrent is popular in 138 countries. So, it’s very important that we find a solution like a payment channel [so] all countries are the same. Right now, the banking system and all these payment channels are fragile. You can’t find a way to exchange the value instantly globally… For the TRON network, we handle like 2000 TPS.
  • “The second [thing] is that we want to have a unique currency for the whole blockchain system so everyone exchanging data can use this currency.”

User Privacy

  • “Everybody nowadays, don’t want their privacy stored by Facebook or Google because those people can more easily manipulate the data so they can push ads to you. You don’t want to share those data with them. That’s why I think the decentralized way becomes a good way to do that.”
  • “Privacy is important for the network. That’s why I think next year, in Q1, we will adopt zk-SNARKs (zero-knowledge proofs) into our network. This is how we can improve privacy of the whole network. So, in the future, if you want to have these private transactions and a private [shielded] address, if you use the address, we can make sure that nobody sees you. The transaction can be untraceable… I think we release this roadmap in Q3 this year, and will be shipping next year in Q1.”

How Justin Got Into Crypto

  • “First of all, when I got into crypto, I was at graduate school. When I first got into Bitcoin, it was 2013, and [an article in] The New York Times introduced how Bitcoin works and how blockchain works. At that time, I [thought] the blockchain was just the technology inside Bitcoin, not the concept we have today.”
  • “I think the first thing I heard about the blockchain and Bitcoin was that this was like the internet currency…. I think also that this is very young people friendly… When I first introduced this [idea] to my father, he actually needed a long time to figure out what that was.”
  • “I kept reading Bitcoin news every day… At that time, I was preparing for law school…  I took the LSAT and I actually got a good score. Then, I applied for law schools, but Bitcoin disrupted my whole life… That’s why I dropped [those] applications. And then I went from Philadelphia to San Francisco to join the crypto community, and start my crypto career… So, definitely, I believe that crypto changed my life.”

 

Featured Image Courtesy of TRON Foundation