TRON H2 2024: Dominating Stablecoin Ecosystem While Exploring AI Frontiers

The second half of 2024 was a milestone period for the TRON network. It delivered record-breaking performance across key metrics, saw $TRX hit all-time highs, and experienced a surge in ecosystem activity driven by memecoin launches. Let’s break it all down.

Key Highlights

• TRON led in the Price-to-Revenue ratio, maintaining a top-three position throughout the period.
• Fundamental blockchain metrics demonstrated TRON’s strength and competitiveness.
• A successful “vampire attack” on Solana drew significant attention to the TRON ecosystem.

$TRX Reaches a New All-Time High

The native token of the TRON blockchain achieved remarkable growth in early December, setting a new all-time high at $0.416. As of early 2025, the token’s price has adjusted to $0.225.

At this price level, 94% of wallets holding $TRX are in profit.

Historically, $TRX has displayed consistent upward price momentum. The token’s value generally increases over time, with major price drops occurring only after exponential growth cycles, which generally happens every four years. Importantly, the price has never returned to the previous lows of earlier cycles.

This price behavior sets $TRX apart from many other large-cap altcoins, as holders of $TRX tend to remain profitable for most of their holding period.

TRON Leads Across Key Blockchain Metrics

The driving force behind TRON’s price behavior lies in its blockchain metrics. Among these, the price-to-revenue ratio stands out as a crucial indicator for fundamental analysis.

At the start of H2 2024, before the native token’s price surge, TRON led the market with the lowest price-to-revenue ratio of 26.7. (A lower ratio indicates higher revenue relative to market capitalization.) While this metric is common in the tech sector of the stock market, it is exceptional in cryptocurrency.

After the exponential price growth, the ratio has shifted but TRON remains among the market’s best.

More than that, TRON has emerged as the most cost-efficient L1 blockchain in 2024, spending only $0.85 for every $1 generated in fee revenue. In comparison, Aptos spent over 300 times more on incentives than it earned in fees. Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work model spent $80 billion on miner incentives while generating $6.6 billion in transaction fees.

In terms of absolute revenue, TRON ranked second only to Ethereum. Together, Ethereum, TRON, and Solana accounted for over 95% of total blockchain revenue.

Leadership in Stablecoin Transactions

The TRON network has solidified its leadership in stablecoin activity, becoming the most popular network for transferring stablecoins between centralized exchanges. Several factors contribute to this success:

• Reliability: The network is proven both over time and by the volume of assets it handles.
• Cost-efficiency: TRON offers one of the most cost-efficient solutions for stablecoin transactions, appealing to users across various demographics.
• Broad support: The network is supported by nearly all centralized exchanges.
• Unique resource mechanism: TRON’s unique dPOS model, coupled with its Energy and Bandwidth resource system, offers cost savings and efficiency. This design is highly appealing for both individual users and payments platforms.
• Active Network Participation: TRON dPOS Staking & Voting system keeps both retail & institutional investors engaged from technological and investment perspectives.

In terms of stablecoin transfers, TRON ranked third in H2 2024, facilitating 3 trillion USDT in transfers—just behind Ethereum and Solana.

During the same period, 5 billion USDT were minted and burned on the TRON network, resulting in stablecoin volume that has remained steady despite minor fluctuations..

Returning to the overall metrics, TRON ranked among the top three blockchains for active addresses in H2 2024.

Additionally, during this period, TRON ranks among the top three blockchains in terms of transaction volume.

As for the Total Value Locked (TVL) metric, in the second half of 2024, TRON lost some ground to BSC and the rapidly growing Bitcoin ecosystem, driven by restaking protocols. However, it still remains in the top five.

Thus, TRON has established itself as a leader in blockchain performance across several key metrics, driven by its strong product-market fit in the stablecoin segment.

However, there was one hugely popular market segment where TRON did not achieve significant success in the past half-year: the memecoin sector. Recognizing the missed opportunity, Justin Sun and his team made decisive moves in mid-2024 to reclaim relevance, delivering results that exceeded expectations.

The Memecoin Summer on TRON

By mid-2024, it became clear that pump.fun on the Solana blockchain — a platform where anyone could launch their own token in just a few clicks and almost for free — was the most prominent and successful project of the cycle. It had already generated massive revenue and gained a massive following. 

On August 13, TRON responded by launching its own version, SunPump; the name as a nod to its origin, built on the AMM protocol SunSwap, with its smart contracts actively powering the platform. Despite initial skepticism, SunPump quickly proved to be serious competition for pump.fun, especially in its first month of operation.

So much so, meme tokens launched on SunPump during its early days often outperformed those on pump.fun.

Within a month, the pace of token launches on the platform and their average market performance stabilized, reflecting a shift toward a more sustainable growth phase.

This trend is not uncommon in the crypto industry, where the “first-mover” effect often gives established platforms an initial edge. However, it also allows newer platforms, like TRON’s SunPump, to innovate and differentiate themselves, leveraging fresh momentum to attract users and developers.

Illicit Activity Mitigation

In August 2024, TRON, Tether and TRM announced the establishment of The T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) – a сollaboration aimed at reducing illicit activity in the blockchain industry. In just six months, they managed to freeze over $100 million in criminal assets globally, a significant achievement in curbing financial crime tied to cryptocurrencies. 

The TRON network, in particular, witnessed the most substantial drop in illicit activity, with volumes dropping by $6 billion and the proportion of such activity nearly halving. Collaborating closely with international law enforcement, T3 FCU disrupted networks involved in money laundering, investment fraud, blackmail, terrorism financing, and other financial crimes.

New Year, New Challenges for the Ecosystem

One promising market narrative TRON has just begun to explore is the integration of AI technologies. With Justin Sun’s proven track record of innovation, 2025 could be a defining year for TRON in this space. Building on their success with fair launch platforms for meme tokens, we are confident they will introduce groundbreaking applications or adapt existing solutions to position TRON as a leader in the AI-crypto synergy.

Early signs of this direction are already visible. On January 7, TRON DAO’s official X account polled users on preferred AI use cases in crypto.

Shortly after, it reposted a community project, JustinMoonAI, featuring an English-speaking AI agent that interacts with users in a 24/7 livestream. The project clearly pays homage to TRON’s founder in both name and presentation.

Additionally, on January 10, the TRON blockchain became available as an interaction network in the EternalAI protocol, a multi-chain platform for launching tokenized AI agents.

A Resilient Ecosystem Moving Forward

TRON, launched over six years ago, has established itself as a reliable decentralized infrastructure. Its dominance in stablecoin transfers highlights its critical role in the crypto ecosystem. Justin Sun’s dynamic leadership and independent approach have given TRON a distinct identity, allowing for flexible and creative project development.

Initiatives like SunPump demonstrate TRON’s ability to address challenges and seize new opportunities, and the network’s valuation consistently reflects market confidence. With its sights set on AI integration and further ecosystem development, TRON is clearly set to maintain its upward trajectory in 2025 and beyond.