Tron (TRX) recently launched Tron Accelerator, an incubator that aims to “empower developers and foster innovation within the blockchain industry.” The Tron Accelerator will use funds from the Tron Foundation to help fund decentralized applications (dApps) in their start-up phase. As the name implies, their goal is to accelerate the growth of dApps on their platform.

Since the Tron mainnet launched in June of this year, the focus in the Tron community has shifted from finishing the protocol to building dApps. The Tron Foundation hopes to be a catalyst for dApp adoption, and this Accelerator shows how they’ll use the 33 billion TRX they currently hold. Although most of these funds are frozen by the foundation, only to be unlocked in the future, that 33B still represents 34% of TRX’s final circulating supply, or $639M.

The Tron Accelerator will award a total of $1M, split up between 56 winning projects. The prize ceremony will be held in January 17 & 18 2019, at the Tron niTROn Summit in San Francisco. This will be Tron’s first international summit, and will give “[attendees] a chance to participate in high-level conversations and engage with Tron’s vibrant community.”

The awards will be divided as follows:

  • 1st Prize (1 Winner): $200,000 + free travel and accommodation to niTROn
  • 2nd Prize (2 Winners): $100,000 + free travel and accommodation to niTROn
  • 3rd Prize (3 Winners): $50,000 + free travel and accommodation to niTROn
  • Special Prize (8 Winners): $30,000 each awarded to winners in 8 different categories: Best Blockchain Game, Application Tool, Decentralized Exchange, UI Design, Innovation, User Experience, Most Influential DApp, Most Onchain Activity DApp.
  • Finalist Prize (42 Winners): $5,000

The timeline for projects wishing to participate is:

  • Dec 1, 2018 – Project Submissions Opening
  • Jan 4, 2019 – Project Submissions Closing
  • Jan 5, 2019 – Judging Begins
  • Jan 10, 2019 – Winners Picked
  • Jan 18, 2019 – Prize Ceremony in San Francisco

Judges include Justin Sun (CEO & Founder, Tron), Vincent Niu (CEO, DappReview), Alex Wearn (CEO, Aurora), and many more. Full rules and documentation can be found on the Tron Accelerator website.

Dueling dApps

Could this accelerator help TRX catapult over ETH? Over the past few months, TRX has seen substantial growth in transaction count, so much that TRX has, at times, surpassed Ethereum (ETH) in transaction volume, as celebrated by Tron CEO Justin Sun:

Despite this steady growth, some critics claim that transaction count is not a reliable metric of blockchain activity. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what happens as more dApp platforms come online and challenge ETH’s status as market leader.