About This Report

This report, commissioned by TRON and produced by CoinDesk Research, provides an update on the TRON blockchain for Q3 2025. The report is intended to support institutional allocators, developers, and market participants with a neutral and technical assessment of TRON's design and strategic positioning. The report also outlines TRON’s strategic roadmap and its role in financial inclusion and peer-to-peer payments.

Executive Summary

Between July and September 2025, TRON reinforced its status as one of the most active blockchain networks by user count and transaction volume. The network maintained an average of 2.6 million daily active users, ranking second only to Solana, and remained the leading chain for retail-sized USDT transfers (<$1,000), with a 65% share of global retail stablecoin activity.

During the quarter, TRON’s ecosystem underwent significant technical and governance updates:

• Fee reduction: The TRON Super Representative community approved a 60% reduction in base transaction fees, implemented on August 29, lowering average daily fees from $1.9M to $1.2M by the end of September.
• Cross-chain integration: TRON launched NEAR Intents integration to enable cross-chain stablecoin transfers, and PayPal USD expanded to TRON via LayerZero.
• Mainnet upgrade: The v4.8.1 upgrade has entered the verification phase. The upgrade improves stability, security, and throughput for DeFi and stablecoin operations.
• Ecosystem expansion: MetaMask added native TRON support, Kraken xStocks extended tokenized equities to the network, and SunSwap volumes rose 18%, supported by a new SunPerp DEX and ongoing SUN token burns.

Despite competition from newer stablecoin networks such as Plasma, TRON maintained a 26% share of global stablecoin market cap and achieved positive chain value capture of $4.5M, outperforming most peer networks. Ecosystem TVL climbed from $4.9B to $6B, led by JustLend, which added USD1 as a collateral asset and expanded its USDD v2.0 Supply Mining Program.

Market activity remained strong, with TRX trading volumes hitting a quarterly high of $82B, supported by stable liquidity conditions across centralized and derivatives markets.

TRON Developments

Network & Ecosystem Developments

July 2025

• Kraken was elected as a Super Representative on the TRON network.
• Plume Network (Skylink): Added real-world yield products to TRON’s global payments ecosystem.
• The Graph integration: Improved infrastructure for data indexing and query.
• MoonPay launches TRON wallet, broadening retail accessibility.
• TRUMP token launch: Introduced on TRON using LayerZero’s OFT standard and Stargate bridge.

August 2025

• MetaMask collaboration announcement: TRON to be added as a natively supported network.
• Kraken xStocks: Expanded to TRON on August 20, enabling tokenized equity exposure.
• TRON Super representative community passes governance proposal to slash network transaction fees by 60%, effective from August 29, 2025.
• TRON announced v4.8.1 upgrade of the mainnet has entered the verification phase. The upgrade is aimed at enhancing network stability, security, and DeFi / stablecoin throughput.

September 2025

• NEAR and TRON enable seamless cross-chain stablecoin transfers with NEAR Intents integration
• Paypal USD Expands to TRON Network as PYUSD0, an Omni-Fungible Token (OFT) standard via LayerZero

Core Metrics

TRON averaged 2.6M daily active users between July and September 2025, ranking second only to Solana (3.1M) and ahead of both Ethereum (525,000) and BNB Chain (2.4M). Activity levels remained broadly stable across the period, in line with overall market trends.

About 74% of TRON’s daily active users transact wallet-to-wallet as of 30th September 2025, the highest proportion among benchmarked chains - reinforcing its role as a retail-focused payments network.

TRON’s share of global retail-sized (<$1,000) USDT transfers stayed consistent at ~65% between July and September 2025, the highest among all tracked networks, making TRON the leading network for retail USDT activity.

TRON’s share of the total stablecoin market capitalization decreased from 32% in early July to 26% by the end of September 2025. The loss came largely due to the introduction of new stablecoin chains such as Plasma. Overall, for TRON, this still suggests that the majority of consistently active wallets - primarily engaged in P2P activity - are concentrated on stablecoin usage.

Average daily fees on TRON decreased from $1.9M in early July to $1.2M by the end of September. This was mainly due to a 60% fee cut implemented on the TRON network on 29th August 2025. The core idea behind the fee cut is to ensure stablecoin transfers on TRON remain affordable and maintain its USDT retail transactions dominance, as covered above.

Chain value capture, defined as protocol revenue minus token emissions, provides a measure of whether network activity is generating net positive returns after incentives. In Q3 2025, TRON recorded approximately $4.5M in positive value capture, placing it ahead of all benchmarked chains except Hyperliquid and Base. This highlights TRON’s ability to sustain profitable network economics, with revenue generation exceeding token issuance during the period.

Ecosystem Updates

Beyond headline user and stablecoin metrics, TRON’s ecosystem protocols continued to show steady growth, led by lending and DEX activity. The TRON ecosystem's Total Value Locked (TVL) grew from $4.9B to just over $6B between July and September 2025. The distribution of TVL by sector remained largely unchanged during this period, with lending protocols continuing to dominate.

Lending

JustLend remains the dominant lending protocol in the TRON ecosystem, accounting for a significant portion of the network's Total Value Locked (TVL) at $5.3B. From July to August 2025, the protocol’s active loans remained within a range of $160M and $180M. During this same period, the price of JST$0.03222, the protocol's native token, followed a similar trend.

In August 2025, JustLend added USD1 as a collateral asset. The protocol also launched phase VIII of its USDD v2.0 Supply mining program on August 16, 2025, which offers an approximate 6% annual percentage yield (APY) for deposits of USDD, TRON's decentralized stablecoin. These updates build on earlier changes, including the mid-July adjustment of its sTRX & Energy Rental market parameters. The update lowered the rental APY to reduce user costs while simultaneously boosting yields for staked-TRX holders. These adjustments were made to improve the affordability of on-chain bandwidth and energy and to reward long-term stakers.

Spot and Perpetual DEXs

TRON's share of global spot DEX volumes has consistently hovered just under 1%, with some spikes above this level. Overall DEX activity on the network has remained constant.

SunSwap, the primary spot DEX on TRON saw its daily volumes go up by 18%, from $49m at the start of July 2025 to $67m by the end of September 2025. Sun also launched a perpetual DEX called Sunperp in August 2025. By the end of September, SunPerp was doing $65m in daily volumes, and was a significant reason for a pickup in price of SUN$0.02406, the native token of the Sun ecosystem.

SunSwap has continued its aggressive SUN token buyback and burn program. This program is funded by all revenue generated from SunPump, which is directed towards the repurchase and destruction of SUN tokens to promote a healthy and sustainable ecosystem. The most recent phases of the program include: 3.84M SUN tokens burned between July 10 and August 7 (Phase 45), and 1.6M SUN tokens burned between August 7 and September 4 2025 (Phase 46).

In total, approximately 5.5M SUN tokens were bought back and burned between July and September 2025, which represents 0.02% of the total supply.

TRX: Performance and Exchange Metrics

From July to September 2025, TRX delivered moderate performance, outperforming BTC$110,901.10 and performing in line with HYPE$37.73 but underperforming other majors.

Spot, Derivatives and Liquidity

TRX’s trading volumes on centralized exchanges recorded a quarterly high as Q3 2025 volumes reached $82B across spot and derivatives. The increase was predominantly driven by spot markets, which accounted for $61B of the total volumes. This mirrors a broader market trend of higher trading engagement, as covered in CoinDesk’s August 2025 Exchange Review.

In spot markets, TRX is widely available, trading on 70 centralized exchanges. Spot volumes totalled just over $22B in August, a yearly high. A select group of exchanges; Binance, MEXC, and HTX, accounted for 43% of activity, underlining their importance to TRX’s liquidity profile.

TRX perpetual futures volumes also picked up in Q3 2025, with July 2025 volumes ($8B) marking their highest level since January 2025 ($9B). Binance, Bybit, Gate, Bitget, and HTX were the leading venues for these trades overall, while Kucoin (288%), Hyperliquid (278%) and Gate (180%) led the way in terms of year-to-date volume growth.

Daily mid-price depth (1%) for TRX-USD and TRX-USDT pairs remained consistent from July to September. Mid-price depth, defined as the total order book volume within ±1% of the mid-price, indicates a market’s ability to absorb larger trades without significant slippage. That liquidity conditions held firm while volumes reached yearly highs underscores the maturity of TRX markets and their capacity to support institutional-scale activity.

Conclusion

Q3 2025 further solidified TRON’s position as a leading retail, payments, and stablecoin-focused blockchain, supported by steady user activity, consistent network profitability, and ongoing ecosystem growth. The successful fee reduction, governance upgrades, and mainnet improvements have strengthened its competitiveness as a settlement layer for dollar-denominated transactions.

Ecosystem progress - including JustLend’s continued dominance, SunSwap’s expansion into perpetuals, and the addition of major integrations such as MetaMask, LayerZero, and NEAR - points to a maturing infrastructure capable of supporting both retail and institutional-grade use cases.

Looking ahead, TRON’s opportunities include diversifying TVL into non-lending sectors, managing revenue dynamics in the face of lower fees, and further translating network integrations and user growth into expanded institutional interest. With its combination of scale, low costs, and liquidity depth, TRON remains a central player in the digital payments and stablecoin economy.

Disclaimer

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