The Tron Foundation has apologized for mistakenly claiming that its user base has exceeded the planet’s population.
In a mea culpa posted on its official Twitter account, the organization revealed that the claim that was widely circulated across social media communities was in fact a typographical error.
On Sept. 19, Tron Founder Justin Sun’s Twitter account published as a (now deleted) tweet saying “#TRON users exceeded 10B! Next goal 100B.” The incredible claim caused confusion and mirth in equal measure across the crypto community for several reasons, chief among which was that the planet’s total estimated population has yet to hit 8 billion people.
Mockery and Speculation Over Unlikely Claim
The original tweet was widely circulated and reposted across several Tron social media platforms around the world. It can still be viewed on the Tron Foundation’s Vietnamese Twitter handle, among others.
Predictably, it triggered backlash from many within the crypto ecosystem who mercilessly mocked the claim in the typical manner of social media.
While some speculated that the 10 billion user figure could be genuine as a result of multiple accounts, most chose to disregard the claim.
Retraction and Apology
Eventually the Tron Foundation posted a thread on its handle apologizing for the misleading claim. According to Tron, the social media handler accidentally replaced an “M” with a “B” in the tweet, which led to the confusion.
The statement reads as follows:
The TRX price is currently trading lower with the broader cryptocurrency market and is down about 4%.
