Airdrops are becoming the new normal in the world of cryptocurrency. Owners of popular cryptocurrencies will regularly see some free tokens show up in their wallet, assuming they have control over that wallet at all times. The Tron team, for example, recently completed a 30 million TRX airdrop to the Ethereum community.
Another Milestone for Tron
The year 2018 will prove to be rather interesting for Tron if all things go according to plan. Earlier this year, the project launched its testnet to bring their technology to the masses. Although this is not the same as a live network for building real-world applications or conducting real transactions, it is still an important milestone in the history of this particular altcoin. Developments on this scale always generate a lot of initial interest.
Additionally, it seems the Tron token will undergo some interesting changes as well. With the mainnet launching pretty soon, Tron can move away from the Ethereum blockchain, which currently hosts its TRX token. More specifically, TRX was initially introduced as an ERC20 token, which allowed the team to create a convenient initial coin offering some time ago. It was never a permanent plan of action to remain part of the Ethereum network, though.
With the team preparing to ditch the Ethereum network in the future, the time was right to conduct an official airdrop. More specifically, a total of 30 million TRX were sent out to Ethereum holders with at least 1 ETH in their wallet at the time of the airdrop. As such, one would expect there to be more Tron holders by now, even though the tokens were distributed to ‘just’ 602,881 addresses.
Quick math shows that every eligible address received around 49.76 TRX, worth just under $4 at current prices. It was not the most profitable airdrop in the world of cryptocurrency, though distributing $1.7 million worth of TRX tokens to Ethereum users shouldn’t be overlooked or underestimated by any means.
Considering that TRX is still an ERC20 token at this stage, users will not have to undertake any special action to claim their tokens. Popular wallets which support ERC20 tokens should reflect the new balance automatically. For those users who do not use a compatible wallet, running the wallet address through Ethplorer should show the tokens associated with a given address. Claiming one’s tokens can be done through a compatible wallet or online solution such as MyEtherWallet.
By distributing the TRX tokens held by the Tron Foundation, this altcoin is entering the next stage of development. Getting altcoins into the hands of more people has never been easy, but airdrops like this one seemingly make it a lot easier. Whether or not Ethereum holders will keep these tokens or sell them on exchanges immediately remains to be seen.
