While Tron, a brainchild of Justin Sun, is one of the most popular Web3 development and token creation chains, we noticed a severe lack of materials revealing its features. Meanwhile, Tron has several very distinctive concepts, like energy and bandwidth, and being familiar with them is crucial for utilizing Tron’s potential fully. In other cases, users may be discouraged by high fees, which weren’t supposed to be high.
Let’s explore the Tron blockchain in deep detail to understand what it means—and how cool it can be for blockchain users and developers!
Tron basics and highlights
Tron is a programmable blockchain, similar to Ethereum in many ways, but operating on its own Tron Virtual Machine that proceeds with smart contracts. It uses TRX (aka Tronix, Tron’s native token) for staking, smart contract deployment, and gas fee payments. Additionally, a smaller price unit called sun is used: 1 TRX = 1,000,000 sun.
Here, we’ll overview:
- Why Tron uses the delegated PoS consensus mechanism and how it contributes to the network’s democratization
- What are energy and bandwidth and why it’s essential to understand them to ensure cheap transactions on Tron
- What are Tron’s token standards and what blockchain enthusiasts can find in the Tron ecosystem in 2025
- How various types of Tron nodes work to maintain consensus, create blocks, provide voting rewards, and empower dApps
Let’s start with the Tron consensus mechanism.
Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism
To maintain blockchain integrity and secure transactions, users stake TRX, which is called voting. Staked assets are used to generate blocks, and all transactions are recorded in them. Let’s explore this process.
In Tron, six hours are defined as one Round (basically, a blockchain’s epoch), and three seconds as one Slot (a block creation time). The top 27 voters are chosen as super representatives (SRs), while other voters may vote for them. To get voting rights, a user must stake at least 1 TRX at their account.
New SRs are chosen each Round among full nodes, after which they verify transactions and participate in block creation. Therefore, each of them gets staking rewards. Sometimes, there are maintenance periods between slots, which take 2 slots (6 seconds) and are used to calculate votes.
Source: Tron Documentation
Nodes between 28 and 127 become super representative (SR) partners who don’t participate in block creation but can earn staking rewards directly. Other voters may vote for SRs and SR partners to earn rewards, which are distributed among SRs/SR partners and other voters with the proportion called brokerage ratio. A default ratio is 20/80: 20% of rewards are paid to SRs and partners, while 80% to the rest of the voters.
Brokerage ratio change proposals, as well as other proposals regarding Tron upgrades, are submitted by the chain participants constantly, after which each participant votes for them. As a result, Tron develops according to the community’s votes, steadily and democratically. One can see an example of Tron's voting proposal list below.
Source: Tron Documentation
Basically, that’s how the delegation works here. As new delegates (SRs) are chosen each Round and every participant can vote for them, every active member of the Tron community can get voting rewards or submit a proposal.
Tron also doesn’t use validator nodes like Ethereum and other PoS chains: instead, each account with TRX on its balance can participate in voting. SR nodes are analogs of validator nodes, but they are selected anew each Round among full nodes.
We’ll return to this topic when exploring Tron nodes, and for now, let’s proceed to other basic concepts.
Energy and bandwidth for transaction processing
These two concepts are at the core of how Tron calculates gas fees.
People who started to use Tron may be confused by the fact its transaction fees are sometimes much higher than expected. The reason is that Tron uses energy and bandwidth to proceed with transactions and calculate gas fees.
It adds to the blockchain’s efficiency and security but may confuse beginners and lead to inefficient gas fees, as Tron burns TRX during each transaction if there is an insufficient energy balance in the account.
Let’s see how this concept works and how it may actually be very cost-efficient.
Bandwidth is a measure of data that should be transmitted. Every day a Tron wallet user gets a free quota of 600 bandwidth. Additional may be obtained by staking TRX, otherwise 1 bandwidth point costs 1,000 sun (or 0.001 TRX).
Energy is a measure of computational power required for transaction processing. Unlike bandwidth, there is no free energy quota: to get it, a user must lock (stake) TRX, or else 1 energy point will cost 210 sun (0.00021 TRX).
Thus, users can get additional bandwidth and energy by locking their TRX, which is similar to voting. Those high fees follow from the fact that Tron burns TRX to compensate for the deficit. For example, a USDT transaction takes around 65,000 energy and 300 bandwidth, while the energy amount is doubled to 130,000 if the target account doesn’t have USDT.
While bandwidth requirements are usually small, energy requirements are much larger: taking the 1 energy point price, 65,000 energy translates into 13.65 TRX (about $3.6–$3.9), which is quite a large price for a single transaction—and even larger if a transaction requires 130,000 energy!
The answer is to get energy by staking TRX or renting it on specialized services.
The number of TRX required to get energy and bandwidth fluctuates, as it depends on how much TRX is already locked. Usually, to get free 65,000 energy per day, one needs to stake about 6,000 TRX (about $1,650), which is costly, too. One can also monitor the exact number using the Tron documentation.
For those who don’t make transactions very often, the best option is to use energy borrowing services. With the borrowed energy, transactions become much cheaper.
As of 2025, good examples are:
- JustLend (along with a variety of DeFi features)
- TronPulse
- Tron Save
- Tron Energy Market
- TrEnegry
Make sure to do your own research and check each of these services before using them. For the first payment, it’s always better to buy a small amount of energy to check how it works.
GetBlock reminds you: NEVER share your wallet’s private key with anyone. If any of the services above ask you to share a private key —it’s 100% an impersonation scam!
Usually, renting costs for 65,000 energy will start from 4 TRX (~$1), as the price is fluctuating. Still, it’s much more cost-efficient than burning TRX during transactions, so Tron can be competitive in terms of transaction fees if using energy right.
Source: Tron Energy Market
For a better experience, use a non-custodial Tron wallet like TronLink that enables you to monitor your energy balance directly.
Now, as we understand how the chain works, we can explore its token standards and the rich ecosystem.
TRC-20, TRC-721, TRC-1155: Tron token standards
Tron has several token standards, reserved for different purposes. Each of them is an extensive set of smart contract patterns that determine how the tokens will interact with each other and dApps.
- TRC-20 is a smart contract standard for fungible tokens. It can be used to deploy various utility tokens, which can be utilized in DeFis and used for governance.
- TRC-721 is a simple NFT standard: it allows the creation of indivisible and unique tokens with detailed metadata describing each asset.
- TRC-1155 has instruments for both fungible and non-fungible tokens. With extensive smart contract features, it’s especially useful for game or virtual assets.
Read more about the TRC-20 standard and its deployment in our detailed guide!
Let’s explore the Tron ecosystem in detail now.
Tron ecosystem: Applications, tokens, and assets
While Tron has been active since 2017, its true popularity began in the 2020s. Look at the graph below to see how its total value locked (TVL) has been growing since 2021, while its cumulative dApp income surged in 2024, which we also noticed at GetBlock by an increased node usage.
Source: DefiLlama
For smart contract development and token creation, Tron uses Solidity programming language, but here we won’t explore it in detail. Instead, let’s focus on popular Tron app types and overview several examples of each.
Financial applications
Tron offers robust functionalities for tools and applications where users can manage their finances. Let’s explore three popular examples from different categories:
- Sun is a DeFi suite and ecosystem with various financial tools.
- JustLend is a protocol where users can stake, lend, borrow, and trade assets
- TronLink is a non-custodial Tron wallet with a seamless dApp connection
Source: Sun
Sun is among the largest DeFis on Tron. It offers features like token swapping, yield farming, and governance participation tools. Moreover, Sun offers additional projects: SunSwap for trading and SunPump for quick memecoin creation and deployment.
JustLend is a lending protocol, which also has a variety of features for Tron users. The service allows them to lend and borrow various assets using collaterals and stake them with different APYs. It also offers an energy borrowing service, helping users make their transactions cheaper.
TronLink is a non-custodial Tron wallet where users can keep all Tron assets, swap them, participate in voting, and monitor their energy balance. It also offers a seamless connection with Tron dApps, so users can search and interact with them without closing the wallet app.
Social applications and memecoins
Social applications constitute a large segment of Tron applications. It has a reputation as a highly suitable network for memecoins, due to its high speed and low fees, so users can easily deploy various tokens and create communities around them.
Already mentioned Sun includes a memecoin tool, SunPump, which can be used to create and deploy memecoins on Tron very quickly. Users only need to upload the picture and describe the token, and the service will deploy it onchain for a price of 20 TRX. After that the token will appear in the service and users will be able to buy or sell it.
Read more about SunPump and popular Tron memecoins in our specialized article!
Among social apps, TaskOn is an example: a quest-based social platform, where users can create tasks and assign them to other users, who earn crypto rewards after completing them. While it’s multichain, the Tron ecosystem takes a prominent place in the project’s functionality.
Tron has robust functionalities to integrate into social apps and games, and as Tron dApps rise in popularity, it’s likely new projects will emerge.
NFTs, marketplaces, and art objects
If the chain is well-suited for token management, it’ll certainly attract the NFT folk's attention!
Let’s be short here and just explore the largest Tron marketplace and NFT collection.
APENFT is a leading Tron NFT marketplace, where users can find and purchase various examples of digital art and other collectibles. It also has a simple interface for creating and minting one’s own NFTs.
Tpunks is an example of the popular NFT collection, and also among the first ones. It contains 10,000 unique characters painted in a pixel style.
Source: Tpunks
All these applications and tokens, from financial management apps to funny memecoin collections, require RPC nodes to run. So, let’s explore how Tron nodes work.
Tron nodes and their types
Similar to other blockchains, Tron relies on nodes that maintain its integrity, participate in consensus, and enable Web3 devs to deploy blockchain functionalities via the API. Each of these nodes belongs to different types, depending on their functionality and purpose.
Full node and how to run it
It contains a full copy of Tron’s current state and synchronizes with other nodes, maintaining the blockchain integrity. They cannot participate in consensus by default but each of them can theoretically be chosen as super representatives (SRs) and participate after that.
According to the Tron Foundation, the full node hardware requirements are as follows:
- CPU: 16 cores
- RAM: 32 GB
- Internet: 100 Mbit
- Disk: 2.5 TB SSD
After gathering the hardware, one can set up the node by completing the following steps.
- Install the Unix operating system, such as the Linux distribution or macOS
- Install dependencies: Git and Oracle JDK 1.8
- Get Fullnode.jar by downloading directly or using the command line
- Launch the node using the configuration file main_net_config.conf
- Set up additional configuration, depending on one’s purpose
As the full node is launched, a node owner can participate in consensus by applying to become a super representative and earn staking rewards, or use the node’s API for Web3 development. Let’s explore both use cases.
Super representative nodes
Unlike most other PoS chains, Tron doesn’t use specialized validator nodes. Instead, it selects super representative (SR) nodes that participate in block creation, which is called delegation.
SR nodes are chosen from the full nodes every 6 hours to vote in each Round and get blockchain rewards. To be chosen, they should have hardware powerful enough and 9,999 TRX on account connected to the node. Any other account can vote for them, earning their share of voting rewards.
As mentioned, each full node can apply and theoretically be selected as an SR node. In practice, there are at least two additional requirements.
- It has larger computational requirements: according to the official docs, an SR node should have 64 GB RAM and a 32-core processor, compared to 32 GB and 16 cores which are enough for an ordinary full node.
- It should have a sufficient TRX account balance: every account with at least 1 TRX can obtain voting rights by staking it, but SR nodes should pay 9,999 TRX for application, so requirements are much higher.
After the application, a node owner may set a unique name for the node and participate in proposal creating and suggesting. Tron encourages super representatives to set unique names and participate in community activities, as it contributes to blockchain development.
One can see an example of the rewards obtained by super representatives with the 10% brokerage.
Source: Tron Documentation
Thus, while it costs a lot to become a super representative, rewards are usually even higher, which encourages users to participate in the Tron consensus.
Lite full node
This is basically a Tron version of the light node.
It keeps only a state data snapshot, which is much smaller than the full blockchain data kept by full nodes. Therefore, it requires only about 100 GB of disk space (which can be adjusted), compared to the 2.5 TB necessary for a full node.
RPC nodes
RPC (remote procedure call) nodes are Tron full nodes with RPC functionalities, so to set it up, one needs to deploy a full node and install a Tron API client. RPC nodes are necessary to implement blockchain functionalities in decentralized applications.
They use the RPC mechanism to send requests to the blockchain, calling its methods and making smart contracts work. Each RPC node has an API endpoint, which can be used to call its functionalities.
If one doesn’t want to spend time and money to set up their own RPC node, one can order a Tron API using a node provider—our GetBlock is an excellent example. While running a node gives direct control and contributes to the network development, using a Tron RPC node service saves a lot of time and money, as a user only pays a fixed subscription fee.
Tron node comparison
Refer to the table below to view the differences between various Tron nodes and their respective applications.
| Node type | Description | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Full node | Contains the full blockchain copy and synchronizes it with other full nodes | Blockchain integrity maintenance, voting |
| SR node | Participates in proposal voting and block creation, is selected among full nodes | Block generation, voting reward gathering |
| RPC node | Uses API endpoint to connect with dApps and realize blockchain functionalities | Tron Web3 development |
| Lite full node | Contains only a state data snapshot, has much lower hardware requirements | Transaction processing |
Read more about Tron API and how to get it here.
Tron use cases and future development
With all its peculiarities and benefits, Tron attracts blockchain developers with different ideas.
It has a stable niche in the blockchain market, especially regarding social apps and memecoins, which require high transaction speed and low fees. While Tron’s fees may seem high at first, as one becomes familiar with its energy concept and finds a way to get it, they become cheap. Its consensus mechanism implies democratic community participation so that every Tron user can make themselves heard with their proposals.
With all of that, and as the market suggests, Tron will continue to develop. We hope this guide will serve you well and clarify everything you’ve ever asked about Tron. Good luck with your exploration and development!
GetBlock develops along with the global blockchain community and seeks new ways to empower Tron developers in their enterprises! We offer shared and dedicated nodes for different purposes: from small developing projects to large enterprises with thousands of active users each day. We also support young projects and help them promote themselves. Sign up now at GetBlock, select the plan you need—and start (or resume) your dev journey with us!
