Ethereum Defector Network Got Censored By Tron

An Ethereum defector project migrating to the Tron blockchain was censored and erased which only increases the suspicions about the centralization of the platform as we are reading further in the Tron news.

In February, the Ethereum defector POP network was launched as a startup to try and build better decentralized peer-to-peer media streaming and they choose to migrate to Tron to take advantage of the greater speed of the platform. This is one of the migrations that the founder of Tron Justin Sun has been encouraging for weeks now. In December last year during the mass layoffs at Ethereum, Sun encouraged the developers to switch sides.

The Tron foundation as the creators of the Tron blockchain, also provided a lot of grants and contests to entice defectors. The POP network was one of the companies that chose to switch. The network created the BTTX Tron token which is the only Tron block explorer. The company was also able to start a fast crowdsale with the built-in feature on Tronscan called ‘’Participate.’’ The POP network also submitted more information to Tronscan and became a verified provider right before the sale according to Valerian Bennet who is the managing director of the project.

According to Bennett, the company contacted a lot of support channels for TronScan and didn’t get a response as to how the tokens disappeared which is something that should be impossible if Tron was decentralized. The company then went on to create another BITX token without using Tronscan. They directly created a smart contract to sell the token but a few hours later, BitTorrent’s parent company Rainberry Inc, threatened to sue. Bennet concluded:

 “At this point, we concluded the ban was likely purposeful.’’

Tronscan is the only block explorer which means that any service that uses the infrastructure provided by the Tron foundation, will not display the token including the Tron wallets. As a result, the project will not be able to develop further. By trying to resolve the issue, the POP network reached out to executives including Roy Liu, Justin Knoll, and Jonathan Yu. The POP network claims to have answered a lot of technical questions about the project and as per Bennet:

 “Tron knowingly disappeared a legitimate project from the Tron blockchain it felt was a competition to a Tron Foundation-backed initiative, BTT (‘BitTorrent Token’). We’re all seeing and living the negative effects of too few media sources. And, the idea of leaving something so important to Tron is just unacceptable to me. So rather than moan about it, we’re building better ⁠— that’s truly decentralized.”