In brief

  • Justin Sun spoke about DeFi at the LA Blockchain Summit today.
  • Sun made the case for users and developers to migrate to the Tron blockchain.
  • Tron is consciously trying to replicate Ethereum's DeFi ecosystem.

Justin Sun, creator of the Tron blockchain, has consistently made the case that Ethereum users and developers should switch to Tron.

Speaking at the LA Blockchain Summit today, Sun contended that Tron is also a better blockchain for DeFi, which predominantly lives on Ethereum.

And the reason it's better? Because it's totally the same.

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"We are creating the same kind of DeFi ecosystem as Ethereum," Sun said. "All the Ethereum network products, you can see a same version of Tron products. For example, the MakerDAO on Tron is called JustStable, created by the JUST team. And UniSwap is called JustSwap."

The success of these projects, Sun claims, is Tron's superior scalability and low transaction costs, making the suite of decentralized finance tools—from collateralized loans to interest-bearing accounts—accessible not just to current DeFi devotees but potential users from the developing world.

The Tron whitepaper contends that the blockchain network's delegated-proof-of-stake system can handle 2,000 transactions per second, dwarfing Ethereum's estimated 15. But that whitepaper has come under scrutiny for apparent plagiarization, rendering Tron's actual balance of speed and security in some doubt.

Yet despite that controversy, Sun is approaching DeFi the same way: by lifting its most popular aspects. In addition to Tron versions of Uniswap and MakerDAO, Sun pointed to direct Tron counterparts for YFI, Aave, and Compound, three DeFi protocols that leverage the Ethereum blockchain.

The thing is, the tactic might just work.

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From a marketing perspective, Sun's Ethereum metaphors make sense. Instead of creating a new vocabulary, he's pointing to examples of currently used products. It's like if Microsoft had said Word is their version of WordPerfect. (What, you don't remember WordPerfect? Exactly.)

The sentiment, too, tracks, regardless of its accuracy: Hey, if you want all the great stuff about Ethereum without the wait or the fees, try us!

As for whether that will all become moot when Ethereum 2.0 is released, Sun downplayed its impact. "If you are a developer, you don't even need to wait for Eth 2.0," Sun said. "I don't even know when they're going to accomplish it. You can just move to Tron network."

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