Space Review｜Farewell to Narrative Frenzy, Web3 Enters a New Structured Phase of Pragmatic Foundation Building

As the clock struck midnight on the last day of 2025, a unique gathering of minds unfolded within the TRON ecosystem. A New Year's Eve Space, jointly initiated by five major projects—SunPump, JUST, AINFT, BitTorrent, and WINkLink—blended festive celebration with profound industry reflection, creating a distinctive annual "thought salon" through relaxed interaction.

Centered around the core narrative of "Review × Sentiment × Choice × Outlook," the event aimed to systematically review the pivotal turning points in the crypto market over the past year and, on that basis, forge consensus on the future direction of value. The discussion delved into the structural changes impacting the market while jointly exploring the genuine innovation signals and value foundations worthy of attention as the industry transitions towards a more pragmatic development phase.

This article systematically compiles the essence of the dialogue and industry insights from this Space. It not only presents reflections from market participants on extreme volatility and observations on capital flows but also deeply decodes how the TRON ecosystem, through synergistic practices in areas like decentralized finance, cross-chain infrastructure, and AI integration, is building a resilient, dynamic, and long-term value ecosystem capable of navigating complex cycles. This gathering was not merely an annual review but can be seen as a collective contemplation and forward-looking perspective on the future evolution of the Web3 world.

Looking Back at 2025: The Co-evolution and Value Accumulation of the TRON Ecosystem

The year 2025 that just passed was one of profound "realism" calibration for the crypto market. The participating guests reached a consensus in the discussion: the industry is moving away from narrative-driven frenzy and entering a calmer, more pragmatic stage. As guest Anna Tangyuan summarized, this was "a year of gradually cooling down after being educated by reality." The simplistic logic of "narrative driving price" repeatedly failed, with market sentiment shifting from optimistic expectations at the beginning of the year to prudence and pragmatism by year's end.

One catalyst for this shift was the "10.11" market flash crash, which left a deep impression on several guests. Anna Tangyuan, who experienced it firsthand, noted that even with "40% of leveraged positions," she faced liquidation, highlighting that market risk lies not only in directional misjudgment but also in a severe underestimation of extreme volatility and instantaneous liquidity drying up. In the face of systemic risk, any leverage strategy appears insignificant, and "survival" becomes the primary rule for navigating cycles.

Furthermore, the market's sobriety is reflected in capital choices. Guest web3 Monkey pointed out the structural flow of capital with the phrase "the strong get stronger": after numerous emerging projects were validated (or invalidated) by the market, capital accelerated its return to core assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, indicating the market's pursuit of more solid value anchors.

Despite significant challenges, innovation did not halt; it simply became more demanding of meticulous execution. It is precisely under this new industry tone—pursuing genuine utility and emphasizing risk management—that the annual performance of the TRON ecosystem provides an excellent case study on "how to navigate cycles."

Throughout 2025, the five core projects of the TRON ecosystem—SunPump, JUST, AINFT, BitTorrent, and WINkLink—vividly demonstrated "pragmatic building" and "ecosystem deepening" through concrete actions. They not only achieved breakthroughs in their respective fields but also, through close collaboration, jointly constructed a more resilient and dynamic decentralized ecosystem.

First, at the DeFi application level, JUST has established itself as the value anchor of the TRON ecosystem through its solid protocol performance. The Total Value Locked (TVL) of its core protocol, JustLend DAO, approached the $10 billion mark mid-year and consistently ranked among the industry's top, demonstrating high market recognition for its security and innovative model. The ecosystem's robustness is also evident in widespread participation in core activities: as of December 31, 2025, on-chain staking of TRX exceeded 9.25 billion tokens, with over 13,417 addresses participating, and the staking annualized yield remained stable at 6.65%, forming a solid yield foundation within the ecosystem.

Beyond solid protocol performance and market recognition, the community consensus-driven token buyback and burn mechanism has become a key decision bolstering long-term confidence among JST holders. This mechanism transparently links protocol revenue directly to token value on-chain. The inaugural burn utilized existing revenue from JustLend DAO, totaling 59,087,137 USDT, with 30% (17,726,141 USDT) allocated for the first buyback and burn of 559,890,753 JST, representing approximately 5.66% of the total supply. This substantive deflationary action laid a credible foundation for JST's long-term value model.

While JUST is committed to creating value through buyback and burn, it also focuses on lowering participation barriers through its GasFree feature, ensuring users can deeply engage with the ecosystem. Currently, the number of GasFree partners has expanded to 9, with total transactions in November reaching 423,173, averaging 14,105 daily, and total transaction volume exceeding $7.5 billion. This innovation significantly benefits small and medium-sized users and promotes the sustained, healthy growth of the ecosystem's scale.

Second, at the frontier of innovative applications and asset paradigm exploration, AINFT and SunPump have played the role of ecosystem pioneers. In 2025, AINFT successfully completed its brand strategy upgrade from a digital art platform to an "AI+Web3" infrastructure, aiming to empower the TRON ecosystem layer by layer, from intelligent interaction tools to decentralized AI models. Its platform token, NFT, successfully listed on Binance Alpha in September 2025, gaining liquidity support and market exposure from a top global exchange.

SunPump, by building a vibrant Meme trading ecosystem, has become a core hub connecting cultural creation and asset flow within the TRON network. Its AI-powered one-click token creation tool, SunGenX, significantly lowered the barriers to creation and issuance, seamlessly transforming cultural creativity into tradable assets. Driven by this innovative tool, the cumulative number of Meme tokens created on the platform has surpassed 100,000. Concurrently, the SUN.io ecosystem collaborated deeply with SunPump, executing a series of moves including forming a CEX alliance, upgrading the AI assistant SunAgent, and launching the decentralized perpetual contract platform SunX, thereby constructing a complete ecosystem loop from issuance and trading to derivative services.

Finally, the expansion of oracle and cross-chain infrastructure has opened channels for the ecosystem to connect with the real world and diverse blockchain networks. The decentralized oracle WINkLink, with its reliable data services, has penetrated critical areas such as payments, trading, wallets, and even privacy computing, becoming the security cornerstone driving innovative applications like DeFi and RWA. Over the past year, WINkLink established strategic partnerships with 17 new projects, bringing its total ecosystem partners to 36.

Meanwhile, BitTorrent Chain (BTTC) completed a leapfrog upgrade to version 2.0, with its total cross-chain volume exceeding $1.63 billion. More notably, its BitTorrent File System (BTFS) boasts over 2 million global nodes with annual storage capacity exceeding 800 PB. The synergy between WINkLink and BitTorrent has jointly constructed the underlying network for data and asset circulation within the TRON ecosystem, providing solid guarantees for its interconnectivity and value expansion.

As the market scrutinizes the intrinsic value of projects amidst macro volatility, the TRON ecosystem, through its solid accumulation in technical infrastructure, economic models, and community operations over the past year, has proven its ability not only to weather storms but also to continuously lead waves of innovation.

Looking Ahead to 2026: Pragmatic Development and Value Signals in the Web3 Market

In the latter half of this New Year's roundtable, the focus shifted from reviewing the past to envisioning the future. Based on their profound experiences in 2025, the guests shared their expectations for 2026 and the market signals they find most promising. Their discussion collectively painted a picture of industry consensus: the market is moving away from expectations of a broad-based bull run and entering a new, more demanding stage with more structured opportunities and challenges. Individual success will increasingly depend on building systemic capabilities and grasping core trends.

Regarding the overall market in 2026, Crypto Peter remains "optimistic" about the support for mainstream assets from a macro perspective, citing factors like continued institutional accumulation and traditional capital inflows. However, he astutely noted that capital will become more discerning, and the Matthew effect of "the strong getting stronger" will intensify the divergence between mainstream coins and altcoins.

This assessment aligns with the current trend of value flow, namely that capital is shifting from assets reliant solely on narratives to those possessing genuine utility, stable cash flows, and robust ecosystem support. For instance, the TRON ecosystem, leveraging its absolute dominance in stablecoin settlement (handling over half of the global on-chain circulation of USDT) and the powerful DeFi ecosystem derived from it, has built a "digital financial infrastructure" with endogenous circulation capabilities, independent of short-term subsidies. This ecosystem, driven by real payment and lending demands, exemplifies the resilience and sustainability the market seeks.

Regarding "which market signals are most worth carrying into 2026," the guests' analysis focused on a triangular framework of liquidity, innovation, and compliance. First, innovative application scenarios with genuine utility, such as AI, prediction markets, and RWA, are highly anticipated, reflecting market demand for high-order native on-chain applications. These are not just "narratives" but pragmatic explorations attempting to create new demand and business models.

Second, profound changes in capital structure are a fundamental signal of market maturation. This is evident in two irreversible trends: First, the sustained, large-scale inflow of institutional capital through transparent, compliant channels like ETFs. This is not merely incremental capital but also brings higher demands for risk management, custody services, and fundamental analysis, raising the market's professional threshold and stability. Second, the structural growth and multi-scenario penetration of stablecoins on-chain, elevating them beyond mere transaction mediums to become foundational assets for on-chain finance. Their scale and reliability directly determine the capacity of DeFi and the broader crypto ecosystem to absorb incremental capital.

Finally, the weight of compliance and fundamentals will continue to increase. With the rapid evolution of global regulatory frameworks and institutional investors becoming significant market participants, being "regulation-friendly" and "audit-worthy" will transition from a bonus to a prerequisite. This means a project's compliance progress (e.g., license acquisition, operational transparency), actual utility (user activity, revenue generation), and token economic fundamentals (value capture mechanisms, inflation/deflation models) will completely replace vague visions and marketing narratives as the core basis for capital decisions. As the guests insightfully noted, those capable of navigating future cycles will be projects that have built transparent, robust economic systems with genuine value capture capabilities. Their growth will rely more on endogenous value creation within the ecosystem than on external liquidity speculation.

In transforming compliance momentum into capital kinetic energy, the TRON ecosystem's practices in 2025 serve as a landmark example. Tron Inc. not only listed on Nasdaq but also initiated the "TRX MicroStrategy" plan, adding TRX to the reserve assets on the listed company's balance sheet, opening a core channel for the entire ecosystem towards mainstream compliant capital. The strong confidence and transparency dividends released by this move directly drove the simultaneous rise in its DeFi ecosystem's Total Value Locked (TVL) and network revenue, powerfully demonstrating the systemic value that compliance building can bring.

In summary, the crypto market in 2026 will reward ecosystems and projects that can establish advantages across the "triangular framework": opening new frontiers in innovation, attracting and accommodating institutional-grade liquidity, and building solid fundamentals within a compliant framework. This indicates that the Web3 market is transitioning from a speculative market chasing hotspots to a mature ecosystem based on value discovery and sustainable construction. The TRON ecosystem's advances in 2025 represent a preliminary answer delivered towards this future.