As the clock struck midnight on the last night of 2025, a unique thought-provoking gathering unfolded within the TRON ecosystem. The New Year's Space, jointly launched by five projects—SunPump, JUST, AINFT, BitTorrent, and WINkLink—blended the festive atmosphere with profound industry insights, creating a distinctive annual "thought salon" through relaxed interaction.
This event, structured around the core narrative of "Review × Emotion × Choice × Outlook," aimed to systematically review the key turning points in the crypto market over the past year and, based on this, build consensus on future value trends. The discussions delved into the structural changes impacting the market and explored the truly noteworthy innovative signals and value cornerstones as the industry transitions towards a more pragmatic development phase.
This article aims to systematically summarize the key conversations and industry insights from this Space event. It not only presents market participants' reflections on extreme volatility and observations of capital flows, but also deeply decodes how the TRON ecosystem, through collaborative practices in decentralized finance, cross-chain infrastructure, and AI-driven innovation, is building a resilient, vibrant, and long-term growth potential value ecosystem amidst complex cycles. This gathering was not only an annual summary but also a collective reflection and forward-looking perspective on the future evolution of the Web3 world.
Looking back at 2025: The co-evolution and value accumulation of the TRON ecosystem
The year 2025, which just passed, was a year in which the crypto market underwent a profound "realistic" calibration. Guests who experienced the market firsthand reached a consensus in their discussions: the industry is moving away from the frenzy of relying on narratives and entering a more calm and pragmatic phase . As guest Anna Tangyuan summarized, this year was "a year of gradually calming down after being educated by reality." The simple logic of "narrative driving prices" repeatedly failed, and market sentiment gradually shifted from optimistic expectations at the beginning of the year to caution and pragmatism at the end.
One of the triggers for this shift was the unforgettable "10.11" market crash, which left a deep impression on many guests. Anna Tangyuan, a participant who experienced it firsthand, pointed out that the market risk lay not only in misjudging the direction, but also in severely underestimating extreme market conditions and the sudden depletion of liquidity. Faced with systemic risk, any leverage strategy appears insignificant; "survival" becomes the primary rule for navigating market cycles.
Furthermore, the market's calm is also reflected in its choice of funds. Guest Web3 Monkey used the phrase "the strong get stronger" to highlight the structural flow of capital: after many emerging projects are validated (or disproven) by the market, funds are instead flowing back to core assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum at an accelerated pace. This means that the market is seeking a more solid value foundation.
Despite the numerous challenges, innovation has not stopped; it has simply become more demanding in terms of meticulousness and execution. It is precisely within this new industry climate, which prioritizes real utility and emphasizes risk management, that the annual performance of the TRON ecosystem provides an excellent example of "how to navigate economic cycles."
Looking back at 2025, the five core projects of the TRON ecosystem—SunPump, JUST, AINFT, BitTorrent, and WINkLink—have vividly demonstrated "pragmatic construction" and "ecosystem deepening" through their actions. They have not only made breakthrough progress in their respective fields, but also jointly built a more resilient and vibrant decentralized ecosystem through close collaboration.
Firstly, at the DeFi application level, JUST has established its position as the cornerstone of the TRON ecosystem's value through its robust protocol performance. The total value locked (TVL) of its core protocol, JustLend DAO, approached the $10 billion mark mid-year and has consistently ranked among the top in the industry, demonstrating the market's high recognition of its security and innovative model. Meanwhile, the ecosystem's stability is also reflected in the broad participation in core businesses: as of December 31, 2025, the on-chain staking volume of TRX has exceeded 9.25 billion, with over 13,417 addresses participating in staking, and the annualized staking yield remaining stable at 6.65%, forming a solid foundation for returns within the ecosystem.
Beyond the protocol's solid performance and market acceptance, the token buyback and burn mechanism driven by community consensus has been a key decision in boosting the long-term confidence of JST holders. This mechanism directly links protocol revenue to token value in a transparent on-chain manner. The initial burn utilized JustLend DAO's existing revenue, totaling 59,087,137 USDT, of which 30% (17,726,141 USDT) was used for the initial buyback and burn of 559,890,753 JST, approximately 5.66% of the total supply. This substantial deflationary action lays a credible foundation for JST's long-term value model.
While JUST is committed to creating value through buybacks and burns, it also strives to lower the barrier to entry through its GasFree feature, ensuring users can deeply participate in the ecosystem. Currently, the number of GasFree partners has expanded to nine, with a total of 423,173 transactions in November, averaging 14,105 transactions per day, and a total transaction value exceeding $7.5 billion. This innovation has significantly benefited small and medium-sized users and further promoted the continued healthy growth of the ecosystem.
Secondly, at the forefront of innovative applications and asset paradigm exploration, AINFT and SunPump have played the role of ecosystem pioneers . In 2025, AINFT successfully completed its brand strategy upgrade from a digital art platform to an "AI + Web3" infrastructure, aiming to empower the TRON ecosystem with layers of capabilities, from intelligent interactive tools to decentralized AI models. Its platform token, NFT, successfully listed on Binance Alpha in September 2025, gaining liquidity support and market exposure from a top global trading platform.
SunPump has become a core hub connecting cultural creation and asset flow within the TRON network by building a vibrant meme trading ecosystem. Its AI-powered one-click token issuance tool, SunGenX, significantly lowers the barriers to creation and issuance, seamlessly transforming cultural creativity into tradable assets. Driven by this innovative tool, the platform has created over 100,000 meme tokens. Simultaneously, the SUN.io ecosystem collaborates deeply with SunPump, establishing a CEX alliance, upgrading the AI assistant SunAgent, and launching the decentralized perpetual contract platform SunX, among other initiatives, to build a complete ecosystem loop encompassing issuance, trading, and derivatives services.
Finally, the expansion of oracles and cross-chain infrastructure opens channels for connecting the ecosystem to the real world and diverse blockchain networks . The decentralized oracle WINkLink, with its reliable data services, has penetrated multiple key areas such as payments, transactions, wallets, and even privacy computing, becoming a security cornerstone driving innovative applications like DeFi and RWA. In the past year, WINkLink has established strategic partnerships with 17 new projects, bringing its total number of ecosystem partners to 36.
Meanwhile, BitTorrent Chain (BTTC) completed a leapfrog upgrade to version 2.0, with total cross-chain transactions exceeding $1.63 billion. Even more noteworthy is its BitTorrent File System (BTFS), boasting over 2 million nodes globally and an annual storage capacity exceeding 800PB. The collaboration between WINkLink and BitTorrent jointly constructs the underlying network for data and asset circulation within the TRON ecosystem, providing a solid guarantee for the ecosystem's interconnectivity and value expansion.
As the market examines the intrinsic value of projects amidst macroeconomic fluctuations, the TRON ecosystem, through its solid accumulation in technological infrastructure, economic models, and community operations over the past year, has proven that it not only withstands the storms but also possesses the potential to continuously lead the wave of innovation.
Looking ahead to 2026: The pragmatic development and value signals of the Web3 market
In the second half of this year-end roundtable discussion, the focus shifted from reviewing the past to looking towards the future. Based on their profound insights from 2025, the guests shared their expectations for 2026 and the market signals they were most optimistic about. Their discussion collectively painted a picture of industry consensus: the market is moving away from expectations of a broad-based bull market and entering a new phase with higher demands and more structured opportunities and challenges . Individual success will depend more on building systemic capabilities and grasping core trends.
Regarding the overall market in 2026, Peter from the crypto maintains an "optimistic" attitude towards the support for mainstream assets based on macro factors such as continued institutional buying and the influx of traditional funds. However, he also astutely points out that funds will be more selective, and the Matthew effect of "the strong getting stronger" will exacerbate the divergence between mainstream coins and Altcoin.
This assessment aligns perfectly with the current market trend, where funds are shifting from assets that rely solely on narratives to projects with real utility, stable cash flow, and robust ecosystem support . For example, the TRON ecosystem, leveraging its absolute dominance in stablecoin settlement (carrying over half of the global USDT on-chain circulation) and the resulting powerful DeFi ecosystem, has built a "digital financial infrastructure" that is independent of short-term subsidies and possesses endogenous circulation capabilities. This ecosystem, driven by real payment and lending needs, demonstrates the resilience and sustainability sought by the market.
Regarding "which market signals are most worth carrying into 2026," the panelists' analysis focused on the triangular framework of liquidity, innovation, and compliance. Firstly, innovative application scenarios with real-world utility, such as AI, prediction markets, and RWA, are highly anticipated , reflecting the market's demand for high-level, native on-chain applications. These are not merely "narratives," but rather pragmatic explorations attempting to create new demands and business models.
Secondly, the profound changes in the capital structure are a fundamental signal of market maturity. This is reflected in two irreversible trends: First, the continuous and large-scale inflow of institutional funds through transparent and compliant channels such as ETFs. This is not merely incremental capital, but also brings higher requirements for risk management, custody services, and fundamental analysis, raising the professional threshold and stability of the market. Second, the structural growth and multi-scenario penetration of stablecoins on-chain have enabled them to transcend the medium of exchange and become the basic asset of on-chain finance. Their scale and reliability directly determine the ability of DeFi and even the entire crypto ecosystem to absorb incremental capital.
Finally, the weight of compliance and fundamentals will continue to increase . With the rapid evolution of global regulatory frameworks and the increasing importance of institutional investors in the market, "regulatory friendliness" and "auditability" will shift from being advantages to becoming entry requirements. This means that a project's compliance progress (such as license acquisition and operational transparency), actual utility (user activity, revenue generation capacity), and token economic fundamentals (value capture mechanisms, inflation/deflation models) will completely replace vague visions and marketing narratives, becoming the core basis for capital decisions. As the guests have observed, those projects that have built transparent, robust economic systems with genuine value capture capabilities will be able to weather future cycles. Their growth will rely more on intrinsic value creation within their ecosystems than on external liquidity speculation.
In terms of transforming compliance momentum into capital momentum, the TRON ecosystem's practices in 2025 serve as a landmark example. Tron Inc. not only listed on Nasdaq but also launched the "TRX Micro Strategy" program, listing TRX as a reserve asset on the listed company's balance sheet, thus opening a core channel for the entire ecosystem to access mainstream compliant capital. The powerful confidence and transparency benefits released by this move directly drove the simultaneous increase in its DeFi ecosystem's total value locked (TVL) and network revenue, powerfully demonstrating the systemic value that compliance building can bring.
In summary, the crypto market in 2026 will reward ecosystems and projects that can establish advantages within all three "triangles": those that can innovate, attract and support institutional-grade liquidity, and build solid fundamentals within a compliant framework. This indicates that the Web3 market is transforming from a speculative market chasing trends to a mature ecosystem based on value discovery and sustainable development. TRON's advance in 2025 is a preliminary answer to this future.
