TRON, one of the most popular blockchain platforms in the world, boasts more than 310 million user accounts, US$78 billion in stablecoins and over US$20 billion in daily transactions by August 2025. Justin Sun may be the charismatic marketing founder and public face of the protocol, but the real story of how TRON reached such great heights is a tale of forge by a diverse series of visionaries, engineers, architects and community leaders. This article highlights those others who made TRON what it is today, from its formative days until now, and how their efforts support everything including the TRON Energy ecosystem and working energy rental markets such as netts.io.
Early Visionaries and People that Started It All
The TRON story started with the dream of decentralizing the old-world web by building towards a billion-user blockchain. Justin Sun lit the match but a small team of moonshot technologists poured the kerosene:
Lucien Chen — TRON's first CTO and chief architect of the original Java-Tron codebase. He oversaw the mainnet launch, developed the early consensus protocol, and established the technical vision for the first 2 years of the project. TRON was born from Chen's previous experience at distributed systems and his obsession with scalability — both of which ended up as the bottleneck problems behind TRON's high throughput and low fees.
Marcus Zhao: one of the earliest core devs who became now the head of the TRON public chain His contributions include overseeing the transition to Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), spearheading the development of the TRON Virtual Machine (TVM), and spearheading EVM compatibility. Zhao was also the backbone of the transition to a DAO, decentralizing governance and giving power to the community.
Cong Li: Li was a core developer for Java-Tron and was responsible for an array of consensus and network upgrades that improved the security and performance of TRON. His contributions on protocol optimization as well as resource management enabled TRON to achieve millions in daily transactions.
Haifeng Zhang: Zhang is one of the designers behind TRON's resource model, which includes the Bandwidth and Energy system that allows for near fee-less transactions and the birth of TRON Energy rental market. Every time a user sends a transaction or interacts with a smart contract, they feel his legacy in staking, resource allocation and the TRON Energy ecosystem.
Per his role, Taihao Fu is the lead developer for the Sun Network, which is the scaling solution for TRON. Fu architected sidechains and cross-chain bridges that were used to expand TRON and seamlessly interoperability with other blockchains.
TRON Core Devs Collective - apart from these folks, a rotating cast of engineers collectively referred to as the TRON core devs has kept the engine running on Java-Tron, the TVM, and protocol upgrades. The backbone of TRON's technical evolution stems from their optimization of EVM compatibility, performance and security.
Building the TRON Energy Ecosystem
And the main reason — TRON resource model, where Bandwidth is allocated for basic transactions and Energy is allocated for smart contracts. This system, by Haifeng Zhang & Cong Li et al, to freeze TRX to generate resources or take part in renting TRON Energy.
Also, until 2025, for example, an ordinary USDT transfer to a wallet containing USDT costs around 65,000 Energy (costs 2.6 TRX if renting, at $0.31/TRX this $0.81). If the recipient wallet has never received USDT before, the transfer costs approximately 131,000 Energy (8.8 TRX if renting, $2.73). By staking 10,000 TRX you will earn approximately 65,000 Energy every day, which is enough for 1 USDT transfer per day to a non-empty wallet.
These days, the majority of users and businesses utilize energy rental platforms to save on costs by as much as 80% in both TRX locked.
They made TRON not only affordable for everyday users, but also allowed and nurtured a thriving market for renting TRON Energy. This is just a fraction of the work they do, and why services like netts.io can provide with real-time price comparison, instant energy delivery, and API integration for dApps and businesses.
DAO Transition & Community Builders
We saw the watershed moment of TRON moving to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). The initial change was initiated by Marcus Zhao and the TRON DAO committee, moving away from closed governance towards a global governance model. Presently, Super Representatives — chosen by TRX holders — help secure the network, vote on upgrades, and offer energy to the ecosystem.
From developers, validators, and community managers, the DAO model has enabled a new class of contributors to help with their projects. These Validators are also Builders, Teachers, and Advocates — the Super Representatives. Operating infrastructure, dApp development and onboarding. They play an essential role in ensuring the security and availability of resources and services in TRON Energy ecosystem.
Builders of TRON's Ecosystem: DeFi and dApps
The story of TRON success is also the story of its ecosystem builders:
- SunSwap, JustLend and APENFT and their teams were responsible for some of the earliest large-scale DeFi and NFT platforms on TRON, locking up literally billions of total value and drawing in millions of users.
- TRON engineers significatively expanded TRON through cross-chain bridges, wallet integrations and developer tools.
- These energy rental APIs and market integration building blocks set up the explosion of services like netts.io with more than 276 billion Energy in 24h and over 1.3m delegations daily.
Either way, these founders, overseers and contributors (often most working in the shadows) are why TRON is the default home for stablecoin transfers, DeFi and NFT activity in 2025.
In fact, a succession of blockbuster upgrades have been delivered by the TRON Core Devs
TRON's TVM is now partially EVM-compatible. After the Cancun upgrade, completed with the efforts from Marcus Zhao (TRON co-founder) and core team, full compatibility with Ethereum features was achieved the weekend before SNEX launch date. Migration and cross-chain development of dApps are seamless now.
Thanks to Cong Li and Haifeng Zhang, respectively, the TRON underlying network has remained fast, reliable, and resistant to attacks. The maturation of the energy rental market enables real-time price comparison, instant delivery, and flexible rental period.
The Key TRON Builders Who Are Not Justin Sun
Below is an overview of the key individuals and entities that drove TRON to where it stands today:
- Lucien Chen - Co-founder and original architect of Java-Tron.
- Marcus Zhao - Public chain lead, DAO transition lead, TVM and EVM compatibility.
- Cong Li - Core developer, concensus and protocol upgrades.
- Haifeng Zhang - Resource model, staking, and TRON Energy eco system.
- Taihao Fu - Sun Network and scalability and cross-chain bridges.
- TRON Core Devs collective - Continuous protocol maintenance and enhancements.
- Super Representatives - Network security, governance & energy providers.
- DeFi/NFT dApp Teams - SunSwap, JustLend, APENFT, et cetera.
Gratitude and Legacy
Thousands of hours of effort from engineers, architects and community members have gone into transforming TRON from an audacious dream into a global financial powerhouse. These people are critical to TRON Energy ecosystem, TRON Energy renting and all of the DeFi/NFT boom in TRON! It is a realization of their vision and hard work in every transaction, every smart contract, and every dApp.
The Netts Energy Market: Built on the Shoulders of Giants
The Netts.io TRON technical evolution has a direct beneficiary in Energy Market. As a result of the work of TRON's architects and developers, users can compare energy prices in real-time, rent energy instantly, and save transactions costs up to 90%. And it is only through the open, modular design of the TRON protocol that such unified features — market API integration, instant delivery, and flexible rental options — can be achieved.
When we utilize and develop upon TRON, we have to thank the people behind the project. What is the future of the TRON Energy ecosystem and services like netts.io? The groundwork they lay builds on TRON. And let us always acknowledge and tip our hat to the oft-forgotten fathers of TRON who have continued to give millions upon millions of people around the globe the means to pursue their own dreams.