TRON‘s first non-fungible token (NFT) standard TRC-721 was officially announced on December 24th, 2020. The introduction of the standard is anticipated to help the Chinese centric blockchain realize various distributed LEDGER technology-based apps and, seemingly to keep pace with Ethereum’s growing NFT sector.
Introducing a standard interface allows applications to track and transfer NFTs on TRON. The TRC-20 token standard is insufficient for handling NFTs due to each token in TRC-721 being unique. TRON predicts its TRC-721 will play an equally important role as the TRC-20 token.
Each NFT contains owner ID, rich metadata, safe file links, and other identifying information that is recorded in its smart contract. Vital information that makes each NFT unique and unexchangeable.
NFT standards are widely used in different fields of blockchain and play a vital role in some Layer2 solutions, dapps, and projects. Furthermore, toward the end of 2020 more and more DeFi projects attempted to integrate with NFTs to enhance their ecosystems.
Justin Sun, TRON Founder & BitTorrent CEO, commented that “NFTs have huge untapped potential. We are likely to find the next big thing in the blockchain space being the TRC-721-compliant applications and base protocols that map physical and virtual assets onto the blockchain.”
CryptoFlowers
Dapps such as CryptoFlowers are looking to jump on the recent addition of the TRC-721. CryptoFlowers is a game about collecting and breeding digital flowers. The game allows you to collect, breed, and exchange unique digital flowers. Each Cryptoflower is genetically unique, it cannot be destroyed, taken away, or replicated.
The dapp is similar to Ethereum dapps such as Cryptokitties and Axie Infinity in that allows the breeding of unique items with the possibility to leverage, sell, or exchange them.
This is not the first time we have seen ‘copies’ of popular Ethereum dapps arriving on the TRON network with other notable DeFi dapps such as JustLend launching in late 2020.
TRON chasing Ethereum
TRON was the first blockchain to catch up to Ethereum in terms of growing a DeFi ecosystem during 2020. There are more than 70 dapps built on the network to date. The majority of activity is concentrated within the top three. USWAP, JustSwap, and UME generate more than 5,000 daily unique active wallets and account for 70% of total DeFi ecosystem activity.
The introduction of the TRC-721 standard represents another effort to not be left behind as interest mounts for NFTs. Developers are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the space and we expect this wave to continue in 2021.
It will be a very interesting year for TRON dapps as more and more competitors enter the scene and look to topple Ethereums dominance in the dapp space. As always we will continue to monitor and report on developments across the dapp ecosystem.
Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter below to receive updates direct to your inbox.
Newsletter 
