Looking back at 2025, TRON achieved a series of groundbreaking accomplishments, completing a crucial leap from a benchmark in the crypto industry to a new global financial infrastructure. Its strong value creation capabilities and exponential ecosystem evolution continue to attract attention from the global financial market.
Article author and source: TRON
In the stablecoin sector, TRON has demonstrated absolute dominance. The circulating supply of USDT on the chain continues to break historical records, exceeding $80 billion and steadily moving towards the target of $100 billion, making its dominant position unshakeable.
In the global financial market, TRON has been listed on the US stock market and joined the mainstream financial ranks, building a bridge connecting the crypto world and traditional capital. It has also been selected as one of the designated public chains for the official US GDP release, and its authority and reliability have been recognized at the highest level, marking its deep integration into the global core financial infrastructure.
At the same time, the TRON ECO ecosystem has achieved leapfrog breakthroughs in multiple tracks: benchmark DeFi infrastructures such as JustLend DAO and SUN.io continue to iterate and upgrade, consolidating the underlying value foundation of the ecosystem; the Meme issuance platform SunPump drives a new asset matrix to take turns igniting the market, continuously activating network traffic and completing value conversion; AINFT seizes the cutting-edge AI track, anchoring the new engine for future ecosystem growth.
Currently, the TRON ECO ecosystem has formed a mature ecosystem characterized by diversified symbiosis and efficient value flywheel operation, relying on core products such as DeFi protocols, AI infrastructure, and new meme applications. Each business segment focuses its efforts precisely and works synergistically to build a mutually empowering growth flywheel, providing core support for the prosperity and long-term development of the TRON ecosystem, injecting continuous momentum into its continued industry leadership, and leading the crypto field to explore new development spaces.
The value of the DeFi sector continues to deepen: steady iteration and innovative breakthroughs.
As the core financial engine of the TRON ecosystem, the DeFi sector successfully achieved a leapfrog development from providing basic functions to becoming the central hub of ecosystem value in 2025 through continuous iteration and innovative expansion of core protocols, building a decentralized financial service system that is both safe and efficient, as well as innovative.
The core DeFi products within the TRON ecosystem have all achieved new breakthroughs: JST is advancing large-scale buybacks and burns to strengthen asset value support; SUN.io has added the derivative SunX to enrich its product matrix; BTTC has optimized its token model to improve ecosystem adaptability; and WINkLink continues to expand its data service scenarios, solidifying the foundation for on-chain application empowerment.
Currently, TRON has built a well-defined and highly efficient DeFi infrastructure matrix: SUN.io serves as the liquidity core, providing convenient fund exchange and transfer services; JustLend DAO acts as a lending hub, facilitating fund appreciation and allocation optimization; BTTC undertakes cross-chain responsibilities, ensuring the free flow of funds; and the WINkLink oracle empowers DApps with real-time off-chain data, enhancing the security and reliability of DeFi applications. These four core applications work together to construct a multi-dimensional integrated service system encompassing "liquidity supply - asset appreciation - cross-chain interoperability - security empowerment," providing strong support for ecosystem development.
According to DeFiLlama data, as of December 25th, the total value locked (TVL) in TRON's DeFi ecosystem exceeded $4.4 billion, consistently ranking among the top five public chains globally. This data not only confirms the solid foundation and strong resilience of TRON's DeFi ecosystem but also reflects the market's high recognition of its technological strength, ecosystem development, and future potential.
JustLend DAO: From Lending Protocol to Ecosystem Value Hub
As a core pillar of the TRON ecosystem's financial infrastructure, JustLend DAO has achieved a leapfrog development from a lending protocol to an ecosystem value hub through continuous functional integration and strategic upgrades, building a full-chain decentralized financial solution that integrates asset lending and value enhancement, staking services, and gas cost optimization.
Currently, JustLend DAO has completed the deep integration of several core DeFi modules, forming an integrated product matrix covering functions such as lending market (SBM), liquidity staking sTRX (Staked TRX), and energy rental, providing users with comprehensive and diversified on-chain financial services.
Beyond its core products, JustLend DAO prioritizes user experience, launching the GasFree smart wallet in March of this year. This wallet allows users to directly deduct transaction fees from their transferred tokens, breaking the industry restriction that "only native tokens can be held for trading." Furthermore, JustLend DAO simultaneously launched a 90% transaction fee subsidy program, meaning users only need to pay approximately 1 USDT in fees for each USDT transfer using GasFree (regardless of the amount).
In mid-October, JustLend DAO officially launched its large-scale JST buyback and burn mechanism, explicitly stating that all net revenue from the protocol and over $10 million in profits from the USDD multi-chain ecosystem would be fully incorporated into the JST buyback and burn pool. Subsequently, JustLend DAO extracted approximately $59.087 million in profits from its existing holdings and initiated the first round of burning. The first phase, involving 30% (approximately $17.726 million), burned 559.8 million JST, representing 5.66% of the total token supply. The remaining 70% will be burned in quarterly installments.
This buyback and burn initiative fundamentally optimizes JST's economic model: on the one hand, by actively reducing the circulating supply, it strengthens the token's scarcity through a deflationary effect, thus solidifying long-term value support; on the other hand, it achieves a deep alignment between ecosystem benefits and the interests of token holders.
JustLend DAO has also made significant progress in bridging traditional finance with the on-chain ecosystem. As early as the end of June this year, Tron, a US-listed company specializing in TRON, completed a staking operation of 365 million TRX through the JustLend DAO platform. This milestone not only fully validates the platform's industry-leading level in compliance, security, and large-scale asset processing capabilities, but also establishes JustLend DAO's position as a core channel for traditional compliant capital to enter the TRON ecosystem.
As of December 19th, JustLend DAO's total value locked (TVL) reached $6.37 billion, consistently ranking among the top three global lending protocols. Specifically, the SBM lending market saw $3.92 billion in supplied assets; the sTRX liquidity staking platform attracted over 9.2 billion TRX; and the energy leasing service, thanks to its practicality, has reached 72,000 users. These figures fully demonstrate the platform's strong ecosystem value and widespread user recognition.
SUN.io: The Innovative Evolution and Ecosystem Expansion of a Liquidity Hub
As the largest asset issuance and trading hub in the TRON ecosystem, SUN.io successfully built a complete product matrix in 2025 through continuous product innovation and iteration, covering four core businesses: DEX trading, stablecoin exchange, meme asset issuance, and derivative contracts. It has become a key liquidity infrastructure supporting the efficient circulation of assets in the TRON ecosystem.
Currently, the SUN.io ecosystem includes product components such as the DEX platform SunSwap, stablecoin exchanges SunCurve and PSM, meme issuance tool SunPump, and decentralized perpetual contract SunX (formerly known as SunPerp), enabling one-stop access to financial transaction services across multiple scenarios.
This year, SUN.io achieved remarkable results in multiple areas of its core businesses.
In the core trading area, SunSwap handles approximately 90% of the asset trading volume on the TRON network, with a daily trading volume consistently exceeding $100 million, making it the core channel for asset flow within the TRON ecosystem.
In the field of innovative assets, SunPump continues to ignite the Meme asset ecosystem boom, becoming a key engine for activating ecosystem vitality.
In the derivatives sector, TRON launched SunX in September, the first native on-chain perpetual contract platform within the TRON ecosystem. This platform not only fills a gap in TRON's derivatives services but also redefines the DeFi derivatives trading experience with institutional-grade risk control standards and a superior trading experience. To date, SunX has accumulated over $16 billion in trading volume, ranking among the top 11 globally in the decentralized perpetual contract market.
Furthermore, as the governance token of the SUN.io ecosystem, SUN has achieved significant results in its globalization and compliance efforts this year. First, it listed on the compliant exchange Hashkey Global in March, marking a significant step in its compliance strategy; then, it was listed on the globally renowned compliant exchange Kraken in April, attracting global institutional and high-quality individual traders, significantly enhancing its liquidity and international influence; and in September, SUN/KRW (Korean Won) and SUN/USDT were listed on Upbit, South Korea's largest crypto exchage.
The upcoming trading pairs ignited the South Korean market. This series of moves not only significantly enhanced SUN's compliance recognition but also greatly strengthened its market liquidity and global influence.
From DEX trading to Meme ecosystem development and derivatives market expansion, SUN.io is building a diversified growth trajectory through continuous product innovation and scenario expansion. It is understood that SUN.io is preparing a series of significant upgrades, with related progress expected to be announced gradually in the near future.
BTTC: The Upgrade and Iteration of Cross-Chain Interconnection and Token Deflation
As the core hub of the TRON ecosystem's cross-chain infrastructure, the cross-chain protocol BTTC completed a series of strategic upgrades and iterations in 2025, achieving breakthrough improvements in both network security and cross-chain transmission efficiency.
In June of this year, BTTC officially upgraded to version 2.0, reconstructing the underlying architecture of cross-chain technology through modular layering and standardized process decomposition design. This version transforms the cross-chain process of "source chain request initiation – information transmission – target chain execution" into a universal logic and standardized protocol, corresponding to a three-layer architecture: Root Contracts (root chain layer: cross-chain request initiation) – Delivery (relay layer: information transmission) – BitTorrent Chain (execution layer: DApp application runtime platform layer), and adopts the PoS consensus mechanism. Ultimately, BTTC has built a secure, efficient, and scalable cross-chain network, providing a solid technical foundation for realizing asset transfer and application collaboration across multiple chains.
Meanwhile, BTTC 2.0 also optimizes the core economic model of the BTT token: by reducing the total supply of BTT through total amount control, it enhances the token's scarcity; and it sets a stable 6% benchmark yield for staking, supporting BTT holders to participate in network governance and security maintenance through staking. This design not only increases the participation enthusiasm of BTTC network nodes and the network's protection capabilities, but also injects continuous momentum into the long-term value of BTT.
On July 29, BTTC further launched an upgraded Layer 2 scaling solution, aiming to improve network scalability and user experience while maintaining decentralization. This solution is compatible with the Ethereum ecosystem, supports seamless migration of existing applications, and provides users with a high-throughput, low-cost transaction environment.
Leveraging continuous technological innovation and ecosystem collaboration, BTTC has evolved into a core hub for multi-chain value interconnection: Externally, it facilitates asset transfers between TRON and mainstream public chains such as Ethereum and BNB Chain, attracting efficient inflows of external funds, projects, and users into the TRON ecosystem. Internally, it provides cross-chain circulation outlets for TRON-based Meme assets and DeFi products, helping them expand into other public chain ecosystem markets and achieve cross-domain radiation of ecosystem influence.
WINkLink: A data bridge connecting the on-chain and off-chain worlds
As a core oracle infrastructure within the TRON ecosystem, WINkLink empowers DApps with real-time off-chain data, providing accurate price feeds and verifiable random numbers, thus building a bridge of trust between the blockchain and the real world. With WINkLink, developers can obtain precise price data and on-chain information, thereby improving the security and reliability of on-chain applications such as DeFi.
In August, WINkLink announced the completion of a comprehensive ecosystem upgrade and officially opened it to developers worldwide. This upgrade will provide TRON network's diverse application scenarios, including DeFi, NFT, and RWA, with higher security levels, more reliable, and scalable on-chain data services.
Since the beginning of this year, WINkLink has established integration partnerships with dozens of centralized exchanges (CEXs) and wallets: in the exchange sector, there are MEXC, CoinEX, WEEK, and others; in terms of wallet integration, WINkLink has established in-depth partnerships with multi-chain wallets such as GuardaWallet, Atomic Wallet, and Klever, as well as hardware wallets such as ELLIPAL and OneKey, to provide users with a more secure and smooth Web3 self-custody and on-chain experience, and jointly promote the large-scale application of the TRON ecosystem.
Breakthrough in the Meme Ecosystem: SunPump Takes Turns Igniting the Meme Ecosystem and Continuously Activating Market Vitality
If DeFi is the "value skeleton" of the TRON ecosystem, then the Meme ecosystem, which fully exploded in 2025, is the "traffic engine" driving the ecosystem's vitality. Through the model of "low-threshold issuance + full-link empowerment", SunPump achieved an advanced upgrade from a "Meme launch platform" to a "Meme ecosystem traffic hub + Meme ecosystem construction platform" in 2025.
Driven by the core platform SunPump, the TRON ecosystem saw multiple waves of meme fever in 2025.
In mid-March, SunPump launched several meme coins (such as KZN and $Knight), which achieved a hundredfold increase, creating a significant wealth effect and successfully igniting the TRON ecosystem's meme season (TRON Meme Seazon), quickly seizing the industry's attention.
Subsequently, the ecosystem launched multiple support measures: On March 19, TRON founder Justin Sun announced a six-month waiver of transaction fees for Meme assets; on the same day, SunPump launched the AI token issuance tool SunGenX, supporting "tweet-to-issue tokens," lowering the issuance threshold to the minimum and driving the platform's daily token issuance to nearly 700. On March 23, HTX and Poloniex launched a Memecoin listing support program, providing a fast listing channel for projects that meet the trading volume requirements (projects with a trading volume of $1 million for three consecutive days can be listed on Poloniex with one click, and those with $10 million can be listed on HTX), further expanding the liquidity and exposure of Meme assets.
With full transaction fee subsidies from SUN.io, AI tool support, and exchange collaboration, the TRON Meme ecosystem has achieved exponential growth.
From April to May, the Meme craze continued to grow. SunPump vigorously supported the Meme ecosystem through a combination of trading competition incentives and CEX alliance resources. First, on April 7th, SunPump partnered with HTX to launch the month-long "TRON Meme Carnival" Meme token trading incentive competition, which ultimately attracted over 42,000 participants, with a total trading volume exceeding 40.57 million USDT and nearly 20 million impressions across the network, achieving a breakthrough in both traffic and trading depth. In May, SunPump launched the "CEX Alliance Program," partnering with leading exchanges such as BingX, Bitget, Bybit, and HTX to provide high-quality Meme projects with comprehensive support, including fast-track listing recommendations, joint marketing, and full-ecosystem resources (such as airdrops and trading competitions), accelerating the marketization and systematization of the TRON Meme ecosystem.
In July, the TRON Meme ecosystem achieved a milestone breakthrough: the TRON ecosystem was officially integrated into Binance Wallet and the Alpha Zone, with the Alpha Zone simultaneously listing SunPump's mainstream Meme tokens SUNDOG and PePe, and launching a $4 million trading incentive competition. This move not only represents Binance's authoritative recognition of the potential of projects on the SunPump platform, but also opens a core entry point for the ecosystem's Meme assets to mainstream global trading markets, laying a solid foundation for more high-quality projects to join the Binance system and strive for listing on CEX mainnets.
In October, following the trend of Chinese-language memes, SunPump and @Agent_SunGenX quickly upgraded to support Chinese meme creation, enabling Chinese-speaking creators to create tokens with exclusive Chinese narratives and enriching the diverse expression of meme culture. In November, SunAgent, the AI assistant within the TRON ecosystem, launched a new upgraded version, allowing users to deploy meme tokens with a single click via chat, further lowering the technical barrier and activating the creative enthusiasm of the general public.
Through multi-dimensional support including official policy backing, CEX resource empowerment, diverse activity incentives, and continuous product innovation, SunPump has built an industry-leading full-cycle support ecosystem for memes, covering the entire chain from initial issuance, listing on exchanges, and long-term operation, forming a complete meme economic ecosystem development system. It not only provides an efficient growth channel for high-quality meme projects but has also become the preferred meme issuance platform and incubator for high-quality projects for global users.
More importantly, SunPump does not exist in isolation, but can be deeply integrated and synergistically developed with the core DeFi products of the TRON ecosystem. For example, the Meme project completes trading and circulation through SUN.io, and achieves asset appreciation through JustLend DAO, building a virtuous cycle of "traffic import - capital accumulation - value enhancement". This ecosystem synergy model has successfully driven the Meme ecosystem from being purely emotion-driven to becoming a core value pillar supporting the sustainable development of the TRON ecosystem.
Today, the Meme ecosystem has grown into a core growth engine driving TRON ecosystem traffic and increasing global attention. It has not only reshaped the asset structure on the TRON chain, but also built a unique ecological culture that combines wealth effect and community cohesion. It complements and resonates with the DeFi "value skeleton", injecting continuous growth momentum into the ecosystem.
As of December 25, the SunPump platform has created over 100,000 Meme Tokens, with a total issuance of 101,984 tokens. More than 1,880 of these tokens have been successfully listed on SunSwap. The platform protocol has captured approximately 38.06 million TRX in revenue, fully demonstrating its ecosystem vitality and value capture capabilities.
Strategic Layout in Cutting-Edge AI Sectors: AINFT Upgrades AI Infrastructure, SunAgent Reshapes On-Chain Intelligent Interaction Portal
With the solid foundation of ecosystem value in the DeFi field and the successive ecosystem booms in the Meme track, the TRON ecosystem has further deployed the cutting-edge new track of "AI + Web3" integration, demonstrating its forward-looking strategic vision for supporting new technologies and expanding the ecosystem.
Among these developments, the strategic upgrade from APENFT to "AINFT" is a crucial step, successfully transforming into a new generation of AI infrastructure. This provides a solid AI technology framework for the entire ecosystem and lays the underlying foundation for the large-scale deployment of AI applications. Meanwhile, the AI assistant SunAgent continues to iterate and upgrade, enabling users to automatically complete on-chain operations using AI through conversational chat. This represents a comprehensive improvement in interaction efficiency and user experience smoothness, making it an efficient AI smart entry point connecting the TRON ecosystem.
From the AI infrastructure built by AINFT to the user portal created by SunAgent, TRON has formed a dual-engine AI ecosystem driven by "AI underlying technology infrastructure + front-end user AI interaction portal": AINFT provides developers with technical frameworks, computing power and data support, incubating a wealth of AI application scenarios; SunAgent lowers the barrier to entry for users, delivering the convenience of AI technology to a massive number of users, forming a positive cycle of "developer innovation - user participation - ecosystem prosperity".
This strategic move not only gives TRON a first-mover advantage in the "AI + Blockchain Integration" track, but also extends the boundaries of ecosystem value through technological innovation, injecting intelligent momentum into existing tracks such as DeFi and Meme, and driving TRON to fully upgrade from a "decentralized financial ecosystem" to a "decentralized intelligent ecosystem," thus ushering in a new era of growth for the next generation of Web3 ecosystem.
AINFT – A Strategic Leap from NFT Trading to AI Infrastructure
APENFT, a leading NFT platform in the TRON ecosystem, launched its new brand "AINFT" on October 9th this year, completing a strategic leap from "NFT trading platform" to "crypto AI infrastructure". This also marks the official implementation of the TRON ecosystem's layout in the "AI + Web3" track.
AINFT positions itself as "the core AI infrastructure and AI Agent application innovation center of the TRON ecosystem," focusing on three core missions: supporting the large-scale deployment of AI Agents, empowering the efficient training of AI models, and promoting the compliant issuance of AI assets, ultimately building a new generation of decentralized encrypted AI ecosystem characterized by "autonomous operation of AI Agents, clear data rights and responsibilities, and a self-circulating economic system."
As a key move for TRON's ecosystem to position itself in the "AI + Crypto" new economy, AINFT will reconstruct the value dimension of NFTs through innovation—upgrading NFTs from traditional ownership proof assets to core carriers of AI data, computing resources, and application permissions. This successfully opens up a channel for the integration of AI technology and the blockchain ecosystem, helping TRON gain a first-mover advantage in the next-generation Web3 smart race.
AINFT has built a complete AI ecosystem service system covering AI Agent development, distribution, application, and model training by constructing four core product lines, which mainly include: AINFT Agent Framework, AINFT Nova, AINFT AgenTX, and AINFT Grid.
Among them, AINFT Agent Framework is an AI Agent development framework that provides developers with a modular AI Agent development toolkit, supporting the rapid construction of custom AI Agent applications; AINFT Nova is a one-click AI Agent issuance platform that allows users to "create AI Agents and issue accompanying tokens with one click," and seamlessly integrates with social media platforms such as Twitter and Discord; AINFT AgenTX is an AI-driven DeFi trading framework that focuses on on-chain financial DeFi scenarios, supporting the rapid construction of AI financial assistants with data analysis and strategy execution capabilities; and AINFT Grid is a decentralized AI model training platform that integrates idle computing power from users worldwide to form a decentralized AI computing power pool, providing low-cost computing power support for AI model training.
At the product implementation level, AINFT will prioritize building a Web3-native AI aggregation platform, positioned as the "PoE or Perplexity of the Web3 domain," aiming to become a core bridge and key hub connecting the Web3 ecosystem with cutting-edge AI services. This platform will aggregate mainstream AI models such as OpenAI GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok, supporting users and developers to directly use cryptocurrency payments for access, creating a "one-stop Web3 AI service portal."
It is reported that the platform is expected to be officially launched in early 2026, which will further strengthen TRON's technological barriers and ecosystem advantages in the AI+Web3 track.
SunAgent AI Assistant: A highly efficient and intelligent AI assistant connecting the TRON ecosystem.
In addition to the AI infrastructure provided by AINFT, the TRON ecosystem also has an AI application product that has already been implemented—the AI assistant SunAgent.
On November 24, SunAgent completed its core iteration from an "AI chatbot" to an "on-chain intelligent interactive assistant". With this product, users only need to input text commands (such as "staking, exchanging, transferring") to have the AI automatically complete the corresponding on-chain operations, completely overturning the cumbersome process of traditional on-chain operations and achieving a highly efficient experience of "commands are executed".
SunAgent's core innovation lies in integrating "cutting-edge natural language understanding technology" with "TRON's full ecosystem of scenario functions" to build an intelligent service system covering multiple financial scenarios:
On the one hand, SunAgent seamlessly integrates the entire TRON ecosystem, deeply linking core DeFi and Meme scenarios such as SUN.io, SunPump, and JustLend DAO, as well as utility applications like the TronLink wallet, achieving "one-stop" coverage for high-frequency on-chain operations. On the other hand, users do not need professional on-chain knowledge; they only need to express their needs through natural language (such as "transfer 100 TRX to a specified address," "complete the exchange of TRX and USDD on SunSwap," "staking TRX to obtain stable sTRX yields"). The AI can automatically interpret the intent, match the corresponding application, complete parameter configuration and process execution, and execute the operation process without requiring manual clicks or professional operational knowledge.
Today, whether it's financial operations such as asset transfers, trading exchanges, staking mining, and Meme token issuance, or ecosystem participation scenarios such as community voting and on-chain data queries, users can complete them efficiently with one click through the AI assistant SunAgent, truly achieving "simplification of complex operations and streamlining of professional processes," significantly lowering the threshold for ecosystem participation.
Furthermore, relying on the SunAgent technology framework, the TRON ecosystem has incubated several AI applications for vertical scenarios: such as the AI Meme issuance platform SunGenX, which is generated based on this framework and supports users to "issue tokens by tweeting"; the AI digital human SunLumi is also built on the SunAgent framework and has the ability to engage in intelligent dialogue, social interaction and content creation. It can automatically respond to social media comments, output industry opinions, participate in live interaction, etc., and become an intelligent collaborative partner for Web3 community operation.
TRON ECO: Ecosystem Collaboration Drives a Promising Future for Global Financial Infrastructure
Looking back at 2025, the TRON ecosystem achieved multi-dimensional breakthroughs, successfully constructing a synergistic growth flywheel of "DeFi-Meme-AI"—these three core components do not evolve in isolation, but rather through deep complementarity and synergy, forming a closed-loop growth system of "DeFi accumulating value, Memes igniting popularity, and AI driving innovation," becoming the core underlying logic for the ecosystem's leapfrog development.
Among them, the DeFi sector, with JustLend DAO as its value hub and SUN.io as its liquidity network, has built a secure and efficient asset storage and capital flow mechanism, enabling the continuous accumulation and appreciation of funds and laying a solid "value foundation" for the flywheel's rotation. The Meme ecosystem, relying on SunPump's low-threshold issuance and full-chain empowerment, continues to ignite market sentiment, attracting a massive number of retail users and external funds to enter the market, injecting a continuous "traffic engine" into the flywheel. The AI layout, with AINFT as its technological foundation and SunAgent as its interaction portal, continuously expands the value boundaries of assets and applications, providing an "innovative core" for the flywheel's iterative upgrades.
Looking ahead, with the continued deepening of the integration of the three major sectors and the continuous expansion of the ecosystem's boundaries, the TRON ecosystem will enter a new stage of development. While consolidating its core positioning as a "global financial infrastructure," the various tracks within the ecosystem will flourish and resonate synergistically, further releasing the potential for large-scale value and writing a new chapter of ecosystem growth in the "AI + Web3" era.
