Tron's Election Is Underway, But Who's In Control of the $2 Billion Code?

The $2 billion cryptocurrency network Tron kicked off an election this week - one of the last steps in its efforts to launch its official blockchain.

The process might be changing in one significant way - it's currently unclear the extent to which the Tron Foundation, which created the software and is tasked with managing the blockchain's development, is involved in the launch.

Prior to the launch, the Tron Foundation moved to "Guarantee" that its funds would be kept separate from the voting process.

The Tron project has frequently sought to appeal to investors with rhetoric that emphasizes democracy and transparency, with the terms figuring prominently into communications to the public made by entities such as the Tron Foundation.

According to the Tron Foundation, ethereum does not acknowledge what Tron has called "The natural rights of the token."

Tron has cited DPoS as a means of creating a superior network to ethereum, arguing that it allows for better transaction processing speeds while creating a more democratic governance process.

What we know is that on the Tron blockchain, 27 anonymous, temporary delegates dubbed "Genesis representatives" are currently being tasked with operating the blockchain until token holders select an official group of "Super representatives" by voting with their tokens.

Specifically, Tron's public statements do not make clear the means by which Tron's genesis representatives were selected, and therefore, how the entities in control of the network came into power.

In a June 21 Medium post, the Tron Foundation claimed that the Tron community had chosen genesis representatives through an election.

Tron skeptics will likely agree, and point to past allegations that the project plagiarized its white paper and failed to properly attribute the ethereum code on which its protocol is, in part, based on.