Disclaimer: Nansen has produced the following report in collaboration with Slice Analytics as part of its existing contract for services provided to TRON DAO (the "Customer") at the time of publication. While TRON DAO has the right to review and provide feedback to Nansen, Nansen maintains full editorial control over the publication of this report. All views expressed are the independent opinions of Nansen's research analyst(s) who are the author(s) named in this report. This report is intended for informational purposes only and does not serve as investment, financial, professional, or other advice. For more information, please refer to the disclaimer at the end of this report, as well as our Terms of Service.

Overview

The TRON ecosystem delivered significant progress throughout the first half of 2025. TRON further strengthened developer tooling by launching educational content for upgradeable contracts using the EIP-1967 proxy pattern, reinforcing the knowledge base for developers to launch modular smart contract architecture. Technical integrations with THORChain and support for ARM-based hardware broadened the network’s interoperability and accessibility across decentralized and mobile-first environments. DeFi activity remained strong, led by platforms like SunSwap and JustLend, while new integrations with Chainlink oracles brought greater composability and risk management to TRON-based protocols. On the enterprise front, TRON DAO advanced stablecoin adoption through global collaborations and regulatory outreach, including participation in U.S. policy summits, collaborations with Kripton Market and MoonPay, and the launch of USD1 on-chain. Daily transaction volumes consistently ranged from 7.5 to 9.5 million, peaking above 10 million across the month of June, while daily active addresses averaged 2.3 to 2.7 million, reflecting sustained user engagement. With momentum across DeFi, payments, stablecoins, and enterprise integrations, the TRON network continues to reinforce its position as a high-performance Layer-1 with global reach and real-world impact.

Key Developments: Q1 2025

• TRON developers introduced a detailed guide for deploying upgradeable smart contracts using the EIP-1967 transparent proxy pattern, inspired by OpenZeppelin. The guide outlines how to separate contract logic from storage via TransparentUpgradeableProxy and ProxyAdmin, enabling seamless upgrades of TRC-20 tokens without migrating user state. This architecture significantly enhances developer flexibility and future-proofs DeFi deployments on TRON. The example leverages TronBox, the TRON development suite, and demonstrates upgrade flows from ImplementationV1 to ImplementationV2, including proxy initialization, state retention, and upgrade safety patterns. This signals growing ecosystem maturity and adoption of secure smart contract engineering practices.
• TRON announced their plans to improve hardware compatibility with native support for ARM-based architecture, optimizing node performance and cost-efficiency for edge devices and mobile-first environments. This upgrade allows more lightweight and energy-efficient hardware to run full TRON nodes, unlocking broader accessibility and global decentralization.
• TRON completed technical integration with THORChain, with launch expected in early Q3. This enables native cross-chain swaps between TRX and assets like BTC, ETH, and ATOM without wrapped intermediaries. The integration strengthens TRON’s DeFi positioning by adding decentralized liquidity rails across Layer 1s.

Ecosystem

DeFi

• SunSwap, TRON’s flagship decentralized exchange, posted over $3.8 billion in swap volume during May 2025, sustaining a consistent monthly average above $3 billion since Q1. The exchange benefits from fast finality and low fees native to TRON, and continues to dominate TRON’s on-chain activity with a growing list of TRC-20 pairs. Liquidity mining, low slippage, and tight spreads have helped the platform retain institutional and retail volume amid broader DeFi volatility.
• JustLend, TRON’s core lending protocol, surpassed $740 million in total deposits in April, more than triple its January 2025 levels. This surge reflects increasing user trust in TRON’s native DeFi stack and the growing appeal of on-chain yield. Lending activity is underpinned by USDT and TRX pairs, with JustLend offering collateralized borrowing, yield farming, and automated interest rate adjustment tied to market utilization.
• [TRON]https://trondao.org/) collaborated with Chainlink to integrate decentralized price feeds across DeFi applications on the network. Chainlink oracles bring accurate, tamper-proof market data to TRON-based protocols, enabling features such as dynamic pricing, liquidation protection, and reliable margin tracking. The integration represents a major step toward making TRON’s DeFi ecosystem more robust, composable, and secure for developers.
• AEON integrated the TRON network to enable fast, low-cost in-store payments using TRX, USDT, and USDD. Through the AEON Pay app, users can now transact with TRON-based assets across 10,000 brands and 20 million merchants throughout Southeast Asia. The collaboration taps into TRON’s massive $77B+ stablecoin supply and high-throughput infrastructure to bring real-world utility to digital assets. With expansion plans into Africa and Latin America underway, this integration underscores TRON’s growing role as a global settlement layer powering retail payments at scale.
• Privy added support for the TRON network, enabling developers to build embedded wallets and streamlined onboarding flows into their applications. This integration allows builders to leverage TRON’s high-speed, low-fee infrastructure alongside Privy’s secure wallet tools, making it easier to create smooth, user-friendly Web3 experiences.

NFTs & Gaming

• Tron Bull Club launched TronVerse, a new Web3 gaming and social metaverse built on the TRON blockchain. It features avatar-based exploration, mini-games, NFT integrations, and creator tools, aiming to expand TRON’s presence in immersive digital environments.
• NFT transaction volume on TRON showed signs of resilience and underlying growth in Q2 2025. While overall volume decreased, total sales rose by 78%, indicating increasing demand for lower-cost and utility-driven NFTs. This trend points to a healthy shift toward more accessible digital assets with real-world use cases, such as in-game items and tokenized rewards. TRON’s low-fee environment and high throughput make it well-suited for supporting this next wave of affordable, high-frequency NFT trading across gaming and entertainment verticals.
• TRON-based casinos such as Stake, CoinCasino, and BC.Game continued to attract users in Q2, leveraging TRX payments, minimal KYC friction, and near-instant withdrawals to differentiate from traditional online gambling platforms. These gaming dApps benefit from TRON’s robust throughput and low transaction costs, enabling smoother user experiences and real-time payouts. As global demand grows for blockchain-native gaming and betting, TRON’s infrastructure offers a compelling backbone for scalable, privacy-preserving online gambling ecosystems.

Enterprise & RWAs

• TRON DAO participated in the DC Blockchain Summit, positioning itself at the center of U.S. crypto policy discussions. Founder Justin Sun appeared on the opening panel, highlighting TRON’s expanding role in stablecoin settlement and public blockchain infrastructure. The event underscored TRON’s ambition to bridge policy and enterprise adoption, especially as regulatory clarity around digital assets continues to evolve in the U.S.
• TRON DAO formed a strategic alliance with Kripton Market, a major e-commerce platform in Argentina, to drive USDT adoption and blockchain-based financial inclusion across Latin America. Over 2,000 Kripton-affiliated merchants will begin accepting USDT on TRON, with all transaction fees subsidized by TRON DAO to reduce friction in digital payments. The partnership also introduces interest-free microloans for central market workers to purchase essential tools and apparel, with projected volume reaching $2 million across 110,000 transactions over 18 months.
• Canary Capital filed a proposal with U.S. regulators for a TRON ETF that includes native staking rewards, a first-of-its-kind structure in traditional finance. The fund would offer institutional exposure to TRX while enabling passive income via on-chain staking, bridging digital asset yields with regulated investment products. If approved, the ETF would mark a milestone in bringing TRON’s infrastructure into mainstream financial markets and underscore its position alongside Ethereum and Solana as ETF-worthy networks.
• TRON DAO served as a Platinum Sponsor at the Harvard Blockchain Conference 2025, reinforcing its commitment to education, innovation, and global stablecoin adoption. The DAO co-hosted a networking event with the Harvard Undergraduate Blockchain Club and participated in a fireside chat on “Stablecoins and Real World Adoption,” where TRON emphasized its traction in emerging markets. TRON Founder Justin Sun was awarded “Best Blockchain Innovator” for his leadership in driving stablecoin adoption and Web3 infrastructure globally.
• MoonPay announced a strategic partnership with TRON DAO to streamline global fiat-to-crypto access across TRON’s ecosystem. The collaboration integrates MoonPay’s on-ramp services into TRON-based dApps, making it easier for users worldwide to acquire USDT and TRX using traditional payment methods like credit cards, Apple Pay, and bank transfers. This move expands TRON’s accessibility in regulated markets and supports onboarding in regions where stablecoins serve as critical financial infrastructure.
• TRON DAO confirmed the first on-chain minting of USD1, a new fully backed stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a DeFi platform co-founded by Eric Trump. Backed 1:1 by U.S. Treasuries, dollar deposits, and cash equivalents, USD1 represents a politically branded financial asset tied to United States political landscape. The announcement follows Eric Trump’s reveal at Token2049 in Dubai that USD1 would be used to settle a $2 billion MGX investment in Binance, and would become natively integrated with the TRON ecosystem.

On-chain Data

Daily Transactions

During Q2 2025, the TRON network sustained exceptionally high levels of on-chain activity, consistently processing between 7.5 million and 9.5 million transactions per day. This robust throughput highlights TRON’s position as a leading smart contract platform for high-frequency use cases, including stablecoin transfers, payments, and consumer applications. A notable peak occurred in early June, with transactions briefly exceeding 10 million in a single day, underscoring the network’s ability to scale in response to increased demand. The transaction curve remained steady throughout the quarter, exhibiting only minor fluctuations and reflecting a mature, resilient user base. TRON’s ability to maintain elevated transaction volumes day after day, with minimal disruption, reinforces its role as a foundational layer for real-world adoption and high-volume decentralized infrastructure.

Daily Active Addresses

Throughout Q2 2025, the TRON network demonstrated sustained user activity, consistently averaging between 2.3 million and 2.7 million daily active addresses. This stable range highlights strong user retention and ongoing engagement across diverse use cases. A notable spike in early June saw daily activity exceed 4.5 million addresses, indicating a period of heightened interaction driven by broader network dynamics. Despite short-term fluctuations, TRON maintained a healthy and resilient user base throughout the quarter. This level of consistent participation reinforces TRON’s position as a scalable, high-throughput blockchain capable of supporting widespread, real-world usage at a global level.

Top Entities by Users and Transactions

During the first half of 2025, the TRON network saw a dominant share of its user activity and transaction throughput driven centralized exchanges such as Bybit, Binance, OKX, and KuCoin collectively contributed to a significant portion of network usage, underscoring TRON’s deep integration into global trading platforms. The address represented by “Black Hole” is a system-level address and was included to display the widespread use of system-level or burn address functions. This is a common design in TRON’s protocol architecture for managing token issuance, fee mechanisms, or internal contract interactions. While major Centralized Exchanges individual shares were smaller relative to the Black Hole address, they should not be directly compared, and their consistent presence across both user and transaction metrics highlights TRON’s ongoing relevance in centralized exchange flows. This distribution reinforces the network’s dual nature as both an operational blockchain for high-frequency on-chain activity and a settlement layer for real-world value transfer via exchanges and token lifecycle mechanisms.

Closing Thoughts

TRON continued to strengthen its position as a mature, multi-sector blockchain optimized for high-throughput, real-world use cases. Building on an already robust foundation, the network’s Q2 performance reinforced its role as a scalable and reliable infrastructure layer supporting DeFi, gaming, stablecoins, and enterprise adoption at global scale. Strategic partnerships with financial service providers and e-commerce platforms extended TRON’s reach into new user segments, while on-chain data confirmed sustained levels of active participation and transactional throughput. TRON’s ability to deliver consistent performance across sectors, combined with its focus on regulatory alignment, user experience, and institutional accessibility, underscores its readiness to power the next phase of decentralized innovation.