Money 3.0: Justin Sun from TRON

This episode of Money 3.0 is all about TRON, a decentralized blockchain platform that allows developers to deploy their own decentralized applications. Joining us to discuss this project is the one and only Justin Sun, Founder and CEO of TRON. He and Abra’s CEO, Bill Barhydt, cover a lot of ground in this conversation, everything from how Justin got the idea for TRON, the number of developers working on the protocol, and some of the DFs running on it to why he’s such a huge believer of the token economy, and some of his thoughts on what blockchain projects he thinks will get support and adoption in China.

Listen to the full episode or find a transcript of the show below.

Bill Barhydt: Hi, everyone. Bill Barhydt here. Welcome to another exciting episode of Abra’s Money 3.0. Joining me today is the infamous Justin, Justin Sun from TRON. Justin, welcome to Money 3.0.

Justin Sun: Hi. Nice to meet you.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah, good to meet you. Good to have you on. It’s been a long time coming. I’m really excited about our conversation. Let me just kind of forgo the intros and just jump right into, I think, the question that’s on everyone’s mind. When does crypto become useful? What do we have to do as a community as well to make crypto useful for everyone, whether they know it’s there or not?

Justin Sun: I think there are several factors or facts on the crypto user case. First of all, I think it’s the fiat on-ramp. So, I think lots of the companies already doing this. For example, like Circle are doing USDC, Tether, they’re doing USDT, and Poloniex, Binance, like, all these kinds of companies are trying really hard to help on fiat on-ramp. So, that’s why I think this I think is one of the most important things, because if users can’t easier to buy the crypto in the first place, it’s very hard for them to get into our industry. I think this is the first one.

Justin Sun: And second one I think is the infrastructure. So, we need to have like a better infrastructure for the cryptocurrency. For example, right now we have several collaborations also doing this. First of all, we collaborate on Samsung on have the Samsung device embedded with TRON blockchain. So it makes Samsung device available to everyone, so you don’t need to install a blockchain wallet anymore, so you can, right now Samsung supports for blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Klaytn, and TRON.

Justin Sun: So, I think that’s also very important, since Samsung is right now the largest Android phone in the world. I think, imagine if Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi, and Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, like all the phone manufacturers embrace the blockchain, it will definitely bring more people into our industry too.

Bill Barhydt: But what’s the killer app, or what is the application that you think is going to drive adoption for people to even care about fiat on-ramps having secure elements on a Samsung smartphone? Why is my mother going to care?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure. First of all, I think there are two things I think are very interesting in our industry. First of all, still, I think it’s the dApp. So, after Samsung and all the phone manufacturers embrace the blockchain infrastructure, we can see more and more apps they can use like blockchain as one of their currency, or payment solution, or even there has lots of interesting change. For example, they can change the tokens in their games into the real tokens, right? So you can even trade with those tokens.

Justin Sun: And I think this is a very big change, because before that, we only have like very small developers, like CryptoKitties. They’re like very small developers. But in the future, we can have EA or like Supercell, those like, very large game developers, they will move to the blockchain. So that’s why — first thing I think is very interesting — will bring lots of people onboard.

Justin Sun: Second thing, definitely I think is one of the jobs we are doing right now. So, we integrate the TRON blockchain with the BitTorrent protocol. So, lots of people will start to use the blockchain because BitTorrent has more than 100 million active users amount, so they can easier to download the files with incentive. Also, they can pay the tokens to accelerate their downloading. So that’s also something I think has a very large user base. At the same time, it uses the blockchain to accelerate the process.

Bill Barhydt: Can you expand on that? So, let’s take a step back, because I don’t think everyone knows that effectively, TRON owns BitTorrent. So, one, can you explain why you did that?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure.

Bill Barhydt: The use case around being able to provide more seeds, effectively, potentially in the future for TRON, I assume. Could you explain that as well, and I think that’s a very interesting use case.

Justin Sun: Yeah, totally. So, first of all, I will introduce how BitTorrent works. So, the traditional downloading system is there is a file, so everybody go to download the files, right? So, the more people download the file, actually the speed gets slower, because people split the bandwidth and split the resources. So, BitTorrent actually is the first P2P user case, even before the Bitcoin.

Justin Sun: So, BitTorrent, the mechanism is very simple. So like, everybody join the network, they got a piece of the files, and they upload and download the files with each other. So, that’s actually changed the entire mechanism. So, basically this is how BitTorrent works in the first place. So, we can bear in mind is, the more people get onboard, actually the protocol gets faster.

Justin Sun: But BitTorrent has been running okay for almost like, 15 years, but it also has a problem inside of the BitTorrent protocol. It’s because all the BitTorrent users, when they join the protocol, right now they just upload the files in good will. So, in the beginning, of course, they join the protocol by uploading the files because they can download the files, right? After they finish downloading the files, they only upload the files for free, basically, in good will. So, that’s why there’s lots of the Torrent clients even help the user to shut down the upload once they finish downloading, because they don’t want to waste the bandwidth, right?

Justin Sun: So, that’s why we want to introduce the cryptocurrency into the BitTorrent protocol. So, we invented a token called BTT. So, if you can download files, you can earn BTT from other people. And then, if you have BTT, you can spend BTT to accelerate the downloading process. So, that’s why I think this is a very good user case, because lots of people these days can just open their computer, upload the files, and they can earn money, right?

Justin Sun: So, of course this will make the BitTorrent protocol more available to everybody in the world, because there’s more seeds, actually. Because these days, for example, only the top-est files has the seeds, because lots of the people download it, and they’re uploading, right? And lots of the files, if less people care about it, most of the people will exit from the protocol, and there is no people uploading the files at all.

Justin Sun: So, that’s why I think once we introduced this kind of incentive mechanism into the BitTorrent, it will definitely, on one hand, make the BitTorrent protocol stronger, and on another hand introduce a very large blockchain user case, easier for everyone.

Justin Sun: So, I also want to emphasize why blockchain is better than other channels. Because the piece of the files is so small. If you want to use like a traditional fiat channel to pay other people, it is impossible, because every transaction, it’s going to cost lots of money. But with right now the TRON blockchain, it’s merely like zero trading fee, zero transaction fee on that. So that’s also, the lower fee of the cryptocurrency and blockchain really helped to build this kind of new mechanism.

Bill Barhydt: So, what happens in that use case if there are 100 million people using BTT on TRON? Can it still support microtransactions to deal with these, let’s call them congestion charges?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure. So, first of all, I think right now we are in a test mode, so right now we are building the whole infrastructure and release to our limited amount of users, to see if we can take the traffic. And then, on the other hand, we have several side chain solutions. So, basically the idea is very simple.

Justin Sun: So, we need to deposit a certain amount of BTT and TRX on the side chain. So, the side chain will process on its own, and after this, they will upload the results onto the main chain. So that’s how we try to scale our blockchain to meet the requirements of the BitTorrent protocol.

Bill Barhydt: Got it. So, there’s a lot of talk right now about Ethereum’s plans for scalability, proof-of-stake versus proof-of-work. I’m curious, where do you come out on that, and how does that relate to how people should think about why TRON is better?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure, totally. So, first of all, I think both PoW, PoS, DPoS, like, all the different kinds of consensus mechanisms all have their advantage and disadvantage. So, that’s why I think, like, everybody actually has their position. So, I’m not like preferring, for example, proof of state rather than proof or work, right? This is the first point.

Justin Sun: And then, the second point, I think, this is, like, all the protocol and internet product is all about, like, serve the users, provide better user experience. So, for, like, since the beginning years TRON was founded, we’re always focusing on improving the user experience of the blockchain. So, that’s why after like a year development, TRON right now is one of the most popular dApp blockchain in the world, because we’re always trying to provide better transaction experience and user experience.

Justin Sun: I can give you several examples. First of all, we’re much faster than Ethereum, so lots of the blockchain, if they want to use the faster blockchain, or if they want to use dApps, if they want to use the blockchain freely, they can use TRON rather than Ethereum. And then, the second thing is, Ethereum has a very high gas fee. So, it’s very hard for you to use the Ethereum blockchain in the first place.

Justin Sun: But for TRON, all the gas fee is free. So, we give all the costs to the developers, so the developers can pay for all their users’ guest fee. So that’s why the users, they don’t even know they need to pay the guest fee in the TRON blockchain, because the developer take all the cost.

Justin Sun: And then, third thing of course is, we’re building on like a very good infrastructure for the developers in our whole ecosystem. So, we have like a very good dedicated team to serve the developers. So, most of the Ethereum developers, they can’t get support from the foundation, and also Ethereum itself. But we have a very dedicated team. They will educate the developers and educate everyone how to use the blockchain, and help them, to bring them onboard.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah. Do you think that in China, it will be open, decentralized project like TRON that ultimately get adopted, or do you think that it will need to be more permission models, like what the government’s talked about, or like the Libra model, where you can basically roll back a transaction, that will ultimately get the support of China?

Justin Sun: Yeah. I think first of all, eventually, I think China will embrace the blockchain industry. Because for example, recently, Xinhua News, one of the most official government news channel in China, they published an article about like, Bitcoin actually is the first use case of blockchain.  That’s why I think eventually, for those permission-ist blockchain, as we said, like public chain these days, will eventually get adopted in China.

Justin Sun: Second, I think definitely, from the beginning, China will more advocate for those alliance chain, so-called the alliance chain, which means you need to get the permission to use those blockchain. So, it’s more like a giant enterprise, they join each other, and then they form like a blockchain, more like this. So, for example, the newly introduced Chinese, the government digital currency, DCEP, released some detail of their blockchain. So, you can see, it’s fully invited. So, it’s just like Libra. So, the nodes need to be invited by the Central Bank of China.

Justin Sun: So, they invited, for example, Ali, Tencent, and also other commercial banks as well. So, I think they will first go with the alliance chain first, and then gradually move to the public chain.

Bill Barhydt: Are they forking an existing project to do that, to your knowledge, or is it something they developed in-house within the government?

Justin Sun: Oh, sure. First of all, I don’t think they … I think eventually they’re going to use one of the solutions in our industry, so basically fork. They haven’t introduced the detail of their blockchain yet, so it’s not like opensource, you can’t check it.

Bill Barhydt: Maybe TRON.

Justin Sun: Yeah, I think so. Because one of the reasons, DPoS actually is one of the perfect examples for the government if they want to use like, introduce the nodes and also at the same time have high scalability, actually. The consensus mechanism we use, like DPoS, is actually one of the, I mean, the best solution actually for the government.

Justin Sun: Because the only alteration you need to do is, you just change the election part, right? So, right now the TRON super representative is elected by the community. You just eliminate the election part, so just make those nodes to be get permission from the government, so you can download the whole blockchain.

Bill Barhydt: Let’s come back to TRON. I could talk about China all day. So, do you have any developers are working on using TRON today in some way?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure, totally. I want to introduce some of the biggest user case right now running on our blockchain. First of all, we got a very dedicated team. They work on a product called WINk.org. I encourage everyone to check out the website. So, W-I-N-K.org. So, this is basically a gaming platform. There’s lots of the game running on the platform. It’s actually very fascinating.

Justin Sun: I play the WINk.org all the time, to check if they introduced any new games on the blockchain. I think this is very interesting, so definitely I encourage everyone to check on that.

Bill Barhydt: And do those games generally use the TRON token, or do they create their own tokens?

Justin Sun: Oh, they have their own tokens, called WIN, W-I-N. But the WIN token is more like Binance, BNB token. So, it’s more like the revenue they earn and the profit they earn on the platform. They distribute, operate the token. So, but right now still, originally they support the TRON blockchain and the BTT, TRX, USDT on TRON, so those tokens. And right now, they also are moving on support Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum as well. So, they are aiming to be like one of the biggest gaming platforms on blockchain.

Justin Sun: I think this is the first one. It’s a very good use case. And of course, right now TRON already has more than 650 DApps running on TRON blockchain. WINk is right now the largest on the TRON blockchain. But still, I think we have other DApps as well. They are running like very good on TRON blockchain.

Justin Sun: And then, the second thing I want to introduce is USDT on TRON. So, it just start very lately, so just like start from December, so it’s just a month ago, start from like, less than $90 million. But right now, we already have $8 million right now issued on the TRON blockchain. So, this is right now the third-largest stable coin in the whole industry. I think that’s also a very good use case. Lots of people use the TRON blockchain to pay each other. I even know some of the companies started using the USDT on TRON to pay their employee, to make the payment as well. So, that’s why I think this is also a very good user case in our blockchain.

Justin Sun: And then, the third, of course, is the BitTorrent protocol we want to introduce. I think this will release at the end of this year, so you can see lots of updates. And also, I think this is also driving a lot of traffic and attention into our industry as well.

Bill Barhydt: Do you think that, well, first of all, just coming back to the developer community, how many developers work on TRON inside of the foundation or the organization?

Justin Sun: Oh, sure. First of all, I think for foundation itself, we have 300 employees, but most of our employees is still like, working on improve the protocol itself, the governance of the protocol, and also help to serve the developers to make their own development. So, for example, we have a very active Discord group. So, the Discord group is all for the TRON development.

Justin Sun: And also, we have more than 3,000 developers working on TRON right now. For example, our Discord group, we have thousands of the developers, and in different languages. You have like Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, lots of other languages as well. And also, even in China, we have a WeChat group. We have a 500 people group. It’s also dedicated developers working on TRON, on the protocol as well.

Justin Sun: So, that’s why I think right now, even though we are in a bearish market, but the TRON development and the developer community still stay very strong.

Bill Barhydt: Do you see people moving? I mean, basically the solidity contracts work more or less in the TRON environment, right? So, do you see people moving from Ethereum to TRON, and do you have kind of real-world examples of that now?

Justin Sun: Yeah, totally. I want to introduce two cases. First of the case, like, right now, before it’s largest developers are the EOS. They developed EOS Knights. It’s a very popular EOS game. So, they migrate to TRON blockchain to develop like a new game called Knight Story. So, they will release very soon. And also, one of the largest Ethereum developer called the Fomo3D, so, they create like-

Bill Barhydt: Fomo3D?

Justin Sun: Yeah, at that time very good Ethereum Fomo game, actually, on the Ethereum blockchain. They also migrate to TRON, and they will release a new version of the TRON game very soon. So, I think this is just like two examples, like, Ethereum and the EOS’ biggest developer migrate to TRON. But definitely, we have more developers migrate to TRON as well.

Justin Sun: Because these days, I know Ethereum is more migrate to develop DFI rather than DApp in the future. So that’s why I think we embrace the DApp industry still. So, we have lots of developers right now is working actively on TRON blockchain to develop lots of interesting games.

Justin Sun: And for the DFI actually, we also have some updates. First of all is the USDT TRON, of course. We have $8 million right now running on TRON blockchain. And also, we have like the TRON version of the MakerDAO. It will be also introduced at the end of the year. So, we will also have these two different kinds of stablecoin. One is like USDT, so you have like a real currency, US dollar currency, as a reserve. And also, of course, like the MakerDAO, you have a cryptocurrency as a reserve, and issue the stable coin. So, we will have these two stable coin at the end of this year.

Bill Barhydt: Do you find that the exchanges are willing to provide liquidity options for TRON based coins, like TRON Dai, or TRON Tether, or is that an uphill battle for you guys?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure. So, this is definitely one of the biggest important things we are doing right now. So, in the August, we collaborate with Huobi, Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Poloniex on TRON, USDT TRON. So, that’s why we drive a lot of the attention and the user case on the TRON blockchain.

Justin Sun: And also, this month, we will collaborate with OKEx, Bitfinex, and other exchange as well, to further drive the user case of the USDT TRON. I think at the end of this year, we are expected to have like over $1 billion issued on TRON blockchain. And also, for the Dai, of course it’s the same. So, after we introduce at the end of this year, we will try to make this stable coin available in all the major exchanges as well.

Bill Barhydt: Yup. What do you think about the future of banking as it relates to crypto? Do you think that crypto has an important place in the future of retail banking, or do you see it as kind of its own thing, separate from the rest of banking?

Justin Sun: Oh, sure. Even though lots of people is pessimistic about the banking and the crypto world, like they join together, but actually, I feel like actually we have several good use case, actually, in our industry. For example, like, Silvergate recently go IPO in United States. And Silvergate actually is famous for serving the OTC desk and lots of the trading platform.

Justin Sun: I think this is actually a very good news in our industry, because you know, before that, I have get into the crypto industry since 2012. At that time, a lot of the people, if they want to become like the banking channel for crypto exchange or OTC desk, they will get arrested or even charged for money laundering at that time, you know? Like, lots of the people provide the channels for the [inaudible 00:27:56] got arrested, and at the early days, like Bitfinex, their banking channel also get shut down lots of the time.

Justin Sun: So, this is the first time I think we have like a very legit bank start to provide the services for the blockchain industry. And also, of course as you know, recently, Fidelity and also other very big large institutions start to getting ready for the trading exchange business or the custodian business as well. So, that’s why I’m optimistic about banking and the crypto world.

Justin Sun: Even I believe still, the crypto world itself, they will have their own ecosystem. So, like always crypto to crypto. But I definitely see the trend actually, the banking also is trying to embrace the blockchain.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah. What was the original attraction for you in the first place to get into this crazy crypto world?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure. It’s around 2012. I just read an article in the New York Times about blockchain, and at that time, there’s no blockchain, there are only Bitcoin. So, I read the article about Bitcoin, and I think Bitcoin is very cool, because in the article, they gave like an example. It’s, before the Bitcoin, if you pass the custom, if you want to pass the custom, there is a dog sniff, like trying to get you arrested if you bring like more cash in your bags, right?

Justin Sun: So, actually, the blockchain and the Bitcoin is the first use case. You can bring like no matter like how much of the money just in your UBS or just in the files with the secret key, right? You can’t even get to know by the customs actually you are bringing a lot of the money with yourself.

Bill Barhydt: What do they call it, the brain key, where you basically memorize-

Justin Sun: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Bill Barhydt: [inaudible 00:30:11] And nobody can steal your money, right? Because [crosstalk 00:30:14]-

Justin Sun: This is in the 2012. At that time when I read the newspaper, I think this is, in the human’s history, this is the first time you can fully own your assets, actually, without like, robbed by anybody.

Bill Barhydt: So what did you do? You read this article, what did you do? You bought some Bitcoin? What happened next?

Justin Sun: Oh, yeah, sure. I bought lots of the Bitcoin at that time after I read that article, even though at that time I was just like a college student. Actually, I don’t have lots of money. And then, I start trying to join like a Bitcoin company to see I can find the job. Because the day I find out the Bitcoin is the same day, because I graduate in 2013, so it’s the same time I need to graduate, like find a job.

Justin Sun: At that time, before I find out, I had two choices, even like join the investment banking, because I graduated from U Penn, so U Penn is famous for go to the consulting firm and the investment banking firm. And also, the second thing is I may apply for the law school. So, I study SAT. But actually, read this article changed my life entirely, because I know the Bitcoin has a bright future.

Justin Sun: And at that time, there’s a conference called Money 2020, and then they said like, in the day of 2020, everybody’s going to start using fiat change to like Bitcoin, right? So, even though, I mean, next year is 2020, we definitely didn’t see people change to use Bitcoin, but-

Bill Barhydt: So, what was your first job related to crypto then?

Justin Sun: Oh yeah, so that’s when I found out the job opportunity in Ripple. So, that’s why I joined Ripple and joined the company in California. So, that’s how I get to the crypto industry. So, I buy the Bitcoin and then find my first job in the blockchain world. So, yeah.

Bill Barhydt: So that was working in Chris at the beginning of the [inaudible 00:32:40]?

Justin Sun: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I worked very closely with Chris Larsen in 2014 and 2015. So, I think this has also helped me a lot on building my career, and also know a lot of the people in this industry.

Bill Barhydt: Got you. So, what gave you the idea for TRON? Was this while you were at Ripple?

Justin Sun: Oh yeah, sure, totally. So, when I joined Ripple, because you know, the Ripple is doing more like enterprise business, or like banking blockchain. So, I actually put lots of effort on finding the banks to see if they are willing to use like a blockchain, at that time, it’s like Ripple XRP, as one of the solution to accelerate the banking system.

Justin Sun: And also, the same time, I find out there’s actually a lot of the demands on the user, demands on the blockchain. So, that’s why, first, when Ethereum comes out in 2015, I think Ethereum actually a good opportunity for like, serving the individual developer, or the small enterprise, or the consumer blockchain. So, that’s why I believed the consumer blockchain actually have like a bigger chance, actually, in our industry. So that’s why I left the company to start TRON, facing on the consumer blockchain.

Justin Sun: I think first of all, we have the bright future also on enterprise as well, but as you know, the first industry at that time to first adopt the internet is the consumer, right, rather than like a big enterprise, like IBM or other companies. So, that’s why I think if we believe the blockchain is the same as internet, we will be, at the early stage, we need to focus more on the consumer rather than the enterprise. So, that’s one of the reason why I start the consumer-facing blockchain as branded TRON.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah, yeah. So now it’s, what, almost seven, eight years since you read this New York Times article?

Justin Sun: Yeah.

Bill Barhydt: If you could snap your fingers and have one thing magically happen in our cryptocurrency world, what would that one thing be? What would you change?

Justin Sun: Yeah, so, I wish like someday it’s like, so, basically, for example, from my perspective, I wish like one day, all the computer, and phone, and also other device, they can all embedded with blockchain, so they can easy, very easier to interact with each other. So, that’s also the reason why we started TRON in the first place. We want to build the infrastructure, the finance infrastructure for all the device in the world.

Justin Sun: So, that’s also why I name after the blockchain is TRON. So, Tron is the first virtual world, actually, introduced by the movie, you know, even before matrix. So, I want blockchain to be the instructor, finance instructor for the virtual world. So, in the future, maybe after like 100 years later, there is no even reality exists, right? Everybody is on the virtual world, just like matrix, right?

Justin Sun: At that time, the people in the virtual world, they will use the blockchain as their payment channel, and also the way how they are around the finance services.

Bill Barhydt: So maybe after the singularity…

Justin Sun: Yeah, exactly.

Bill Barhydt: Chip embedded with say, IoT connectivity, and the blockchain, and…

Justin Sun: Yeah, and you can upload your-

Bill Barhydt: Real money any further virtually, and it will land in my head, and be recorded on the blockchain.

Justin Sun: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Bill Barhydt: So, let’s maybe get a little more realistic, I guess, for the next year or so. So, what do you think will be the most important development in crypto for the next six to 12 months?

Justin Sun: First of all, I think from our side, I think still I believe BitTorrent will be a very large user case or adoption of the blockchain. I think this is very promising, and also will introduce a lot of the users into our industry. And also, I think the next six months, the change, also I think the Samsung will be a very good example.

Justin Sun: Because next year, in Seoul, we will have like a niTROn summit. We will introduce the Samsung join our summit as well. Samsung will release a new blockchain phone on our niTROn summit as well. So, I will show like one of the new Samsung phone with blockchain inside of the Samsung phone.

Justin Sun: So, this time they release the folding phone, you know, Galaxy Fold. And also, the next year, in t March, at the end of February, they will release a new blockchain phone. So, that’s why I think after the phone manufacturer provides this kind of infrastructure for the developers, we will see a very large game developer start to use blockchain, which I think is also very fascinating.

Justin Sun: And also, of course, we will see like, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and OnePlus, and other Android phone manufacturer start to embrace, or even Apple, start to embrace the blockchain. That’s why I think after this kind of infrastructure built for the blockchain, we will see lots of the changes happen in our industry.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah. We track hundreds of tokens at Abra. So, kind of ICO-oriented tokens, obviously the most important protocol tokens that we consider you part of. Do you foresee a future where there are thousands of tokens running on your chain or on your protocol, or do you see most of them go away? I mean, what do you think happens there?

Justin Sun: Yeah, sure, totally. First of all, I’m a huge believer of the tokens. I think in the future, there are going to be millions or even tens of millions tokens will issue on the blockchain. The reason is very simple, I can just give you an example. For right now, Samsung builds the blockchain already, and in the next six months, lots of the game developers, they will start to build on Samsung, and they will issue their token definitely on the blockchain.

Justin Sun: The token will be like a very easy token, like just like these days we play like, for example, like PlayerUnknown, right? And also, lots of the game, like all the games on the Apple store, Samsung store, Google Play. Each game will all have their own token, so you can feel free to exchange on the blockchain, to trade them, just from the trading engine inside of the games. You can feel free to trade the token, earn the token.

Justin Sun: So that’s why I think every game should have their own tokens, and you can make free to trade, you know. Even like every game, you can have, for example, like two tokens, three tokens, right? So, you know, these days, every game, they have like diamonds, they have coins, they have golden coins. They already have different kind of tokens.

Justin Sun: So, right now, there is already like over one million games available in the industry. Imagine like every game has their own tokens. That’s why I think we are facing an era, we’ll have lots of the tokens actually issued on the blockchain. So, those tokens is all utility tokens. It’s all used to buy the stuff in the games, or kill the monster, earn the token. So, that’s why I think we will see a lot of the tokens issued on the blockchain.

Justin Sun: And remember, the last time, why the 2017, we have a bull market. The biggest reason is Ethereum actually opened a gate for everybody to issue tokens. Before that, there is only like Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin, and also, issue tokens is very hard, actually, right? Even at that time, it’s very simple, actually. If you call several developers, they can easily forge the Bitcoin data, right? It’s how Litecoin come into place in the first place, just change some features in the Bitcoin and you can make Litecoin.

Justin Sun: But still, the threshold is too high, you know, compared to Ethereum. So, Ethereum, when they have the ERC-20 standards, you can easier to issue tokens, right? So we start to facing like a big bull market. I think the third wave will still like the same, but the reason is different. So, the second wave is because people want to raise money and use the token, so they create the Ethereum and this kind of bull market.

Justin Sun: I think the third wave is more like lots of the games and other developers start to issue the token on the blockchain because this is easier for them to communicate with each other and easier for them to make settlement inside of the computer. Because you know, if you introduce the blockchain into the ecosystem, you don’t need to have any collaborate with PayPal or any other Apply Pay, other payment channels anymore. You can just do the settlement inside of the game. That I think is very revolutionary.

Justin Sun: Actually, lots of people have been thinking about this. You can actually do the settlement inside of the game. You don’t need to go out of the game anymore, right? They all turn to fiat, turn to USDT, turn to your other tokens. And then, you can feel free to sell the token and earn money. So, that’s why I think if millions of the games start to issue tokens on the blockchain, it’s definitely going to bring like a huge bull market in the future.

Bill Barhydt: It’s like gaming is almost showing us the future of banking.

Justin Sun: Yeah, exactly.

Bill Barhydt: [inaudible 00:44:16] economy, right?

Justin Sun: And the game is also a virtual world, you know? When you play all those games, you are like 100% inside of the games, right? So, actually the blockchain provides the infrastructure for those virtual games to make settlements inside of their games without going to other pages or without going to, like, other places to change for the token.

Justin Sun: I don’t know if you know, at that time, lots of the very popular games, like LoL and other games, they also have those golden miners, so you can exchange your gold for money. But it’s very hard for you to do that. Because all the like, Steam and other platform, it’s shut down those channels. You need to go to another website, right? You need to put in your accounts, and also, and because the Steam shut down all the channels, and if they find out you trade tokens, they’re going to shut down your account, you know? It’s very hard for people to trade their assets, what their earnings in the games.

Justin Sun: But eventually, I think with the Samsung, and also developers start to support the blockchain, you can easier to make the settlement inside of the game. So that, I think is definitely going to bring a huge traffic and a massive understanding of how blockchain means for the whole industry.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah, we can hear how excited you get when we talk about the token economy as it relates to gaming. You’re saying that’s personally very interesting for you, as somebody who’s been looking at peer to peer networks like BitTorrent or since you could. That’s been an interesting topic for me pre-Bitcoin. I’m really fascinated about how crypto, and file-sharing networks, and gaming, it’s all kind of coming together now in kind of this rebirth of decentralization, which was the whole point of the internet.

Justin Sun: Yeah, totally.

Bill Barhydt: And really hoping that we can get back to that, as opposed to these kinds of things.

Justin Sun: And also, I think it’s very, before the blockchain was introduced, there is also a very sad fact, is even though the internet is free, but lots of the regulators or lots of the people outside of the internet, if they want to try to control the internet or strangle the internet, they have a very good solution, is just become, block the fiat on-ramp. You can kill the internet.

Justin Sun: If you make like a website, but nobody can pay for the website or nobody can pay the money to the website, the website’s going to die, right, because you don’t have the money to sustain the website. The game is the same. So, if the game, they can’t receive the money from like, Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay, or other payment channels, it’s going to kill the game.

Justin Sun: So, that’s why all those regulators, they can easier to impose their orders on those internet creators, because if you didn’t listen to me, I’m going to shut down all the fiat on-ramp for you. I can close your business very easy. But after the blockchain, it’s all changed, because imagine all the games, website, they can settle on their own, you know, with all the tokens, Bitcoin, and other blockchains in the world. There’s actually, I mean, free the internet entirely. They can just depend on their own. They don’t need to listen to any authority anymore, because they have like a self-sustained business model, right, just on their own, you know, use the blockchain.

Bill Barhydt: Yup, yup. So, I love your enthusiasm. If people want to follow you or find out more about your work, what’s the best way to do that?

Justin Sun: My Twitter account, so @justinsuntron. It’s very easy.

Bill Barhydt: Fantastic. So, Justin, we’re really excited about the TRON projects. We support TRON inside the Apple wallet now. People can deposit, withdraw. They can buy in dollars or they can buy in Asia in other currencies. So, on behalf of the community, thank you very much for your efforts in building such a really cool project, and we love the way you brought BitTorrent and TRON together, and we’re really excited to see what comes of this over the next several years.

Bill Barhydt: We know this is not a one-inning game, as we say in the US. It’s a multi-inning game. I think we’re in inning one. And people like yourself are the reasons why we have this really vibrant ecosystem now. So, thank you for your efforts, and we look forward to supporting you guys at Abra, and seeing what comes next.

Justin Sun: Thank you, thank you so much.

Bill Barhydt: Yeah, my pleasure. So, hey, we’ll stop there. This has been one of my favorite episodes, I think, to date, so thank you so much, Justin from TRON. Can’t wait to get this out there. So we’ll call it a day and this is a wrap for another episode for Abra’s Money 3.0. Thanks, everyone.

Justin Sun: Thanks.

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