In the last days, there were a few headlines that resonated with the community.

• “The Tron Foundation, the organization behind the TRON (TRX) cryptocurrency, announced that it will dissolve itself next summer, leaving the blockchain’s ecosystem completely in the hands of its community”
• “Tron founder Justin Sun has revealed that he is stepping down from his position of CEO and will take up a job with the government of Grenada as its ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO)”
• “The Tron Foundation’s three original nodes—”justinsuntron,” “BitTorrent,” and “µTorrent”—have withdrawn from the list of blockchain’s “super representatives” (essentially key players in the Tron’s governance system), leaving the network in the hands of 27 super representatives hosted entirely by the community.”

Official References:
1. https://tronfoundation.medium.com/justin-suns-open-letter-to-the-community-on-tron-s-decentralization-and-his-personal-journey-853990c3d978
2. https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1471802392673161218

On reddit in the Tronix sub there were a few threads as well as discussions started (example) as of how to go forward like forming a SR, getting votes and being able to submit proposals. I did join them and tried to explain based on my experience how the last 2 and 1/2 Years played out. I am part of this since it all started and as you all know we’ve downsized starting November from 11 nodes to a single one, because of the lack of votes as it could not sustain the costs.

Not only that, but I did pay for TronLabsRO servers and yes, even if there is a risk of you believing I’m bragging, I am the one guy who used to own 1% of the nodes running on the tron main network. 2 Months ago, I decided to downsize as there was no point in paying for it, IF there is no break even in sight. You can read a detailed explanation here. The highest place the SR did ever climb was #56 and since then it only went down as voters vote for those who pay better, even if there is no project. I as a SR never achieved anything else, but at least I’ve tried. I am thou in the first 127, and I can go back to running nodes if the situation might change, but for now I’m just evaluating options.

I’ve also received questions like Why run a node?

Again, because of the love for this project. If you run a node, you will just help the network, there is no benefit nor gain, unless you are elected. IF you get elected, it will happen fast, and you will need to produce blocks. If you don’t, you will lose the associated block rewards and somehow sabotage the network because you can’t fulfill your duty.

There are also specific use cases in addition to the above like:

• In case you develop or deploy dapps (games, gamble, etc) you will also need to use a dedicated node that is synced with the network and not overload a node that is run by someone else. This usually needs to be close to where your (d)app server is and be able to reply with low latency.

• You can import the entire blockchain in a DB and then query specific transactions in case you want to offer data mining capabilities. This sort of access is a paid service. Jason from Community node had a project like this.

• help other SR’s who had no nodes running when they got elected. I can deploy and get a node running (full sync) fast.

We have also seen FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) expressed by others who moved their coins from Tronscan. Relax, your coins are safe, they are in the network.

So far everybody blamed Justin for the lack of success. I’ve seen this over and over in the Tronix sub. Now he’s gone, so we either get to work and build on what we have as a community and the existing blockchain, or just roll over and die.

I’ll put my effort and shares on “Get to work and build” and I hope you do too. This is the only way to thrive and do good.