Space Review｜When the Tide Recedes: The Survival Logic of Long-Termism and the Tron TRON Ecosystem's Practices

When the rising tide recedes, the market faces its true test. In a sustained downtrend, short-term narratives gradually lose their effectiveness, and more projects reveal weaknesses that make it difficult to survive across cycles. The real test quietly arrives. In the absence of incremental capital, lacking sentiment-driven premiums, and with narratives fading, what does a project or ecosystem rely on to navigate through cycles?

The answer is: continuous, genuine value creation that does not depend on market sentiment. Even during overall market downturns, we can still see such ecosystems in action. Taking TRON as an example, its ecosystem has not stagnated due to market volatility: from the major launch of SUN's Chinese brand "Sun Wukong," to JST initiating its second buyback and burn, to the full launch of the AINFT AI service platform, these actions collectively outline an ecosystem that remains proactive in construction and advances on multiple fronts.

TRON's multi-pronged practices reveal two key focal points for long-termism in the current context: the infrastructuralization of AI and the structural resilience of DeFi. This edition of the SunFlush roundtable revolves around these two dimensions, delving into the conditions an ecosystem needs to survive bull and bear markets, as well as TRON's practices in AI infrastructure and the DeFi track. The following is a review of the key insights from this Space roundtable discussion. 

Three Conditions for Ecosystems to Survive Bull and Bear Markets: Healthy Operation, Cost Advantage, and Endogenous Cycle

Against the backdrop of an overall market downturn and liquidity tightening, a series of once-hot phenomena are receding. This forces industry participants to cool down and examine a core question: when the noise fades, which ecosystem designs can withstand the cold, rather than relying solely on seasonal prosperity?

Addressing this core issue, Crypto.0824 clearly stated in the discussion: long-termism is essentially the result of system design. He summarized the conditions that truly enable an ecosystem to survive bull and bear markets into two must-meet criteria: First, the infrastructure must operate healthily even under low activity; its economic model should not rely on high transaction volume to sustain itself—this is the underlying logic of being cycle-resistant. Second, the cost structure must be transparent and extremely low, constituting a key competitive advantage in a bear market where users are extremely fee-sensitive.

OxPink further elaborated from the perspective of an ecosystem's "pressure resistance" and "internal circulation" capabilities, pointing out that the core of truly resilient infrastructure lies in its ability to maintain the cyclical operation of internal system functions even in an environment lacking external sentiment and traffic. He emphasized that what is tested during market downturns is not grand narratives, but whether the ecosystem truly addresses users' real needs.

Miya used the TRON ecosystem as an example to specifically explain this mechanism: through highly competitive low transaction fees, the TRON ecosystem continuously attracts and accumulates massive stablecoin flow. This flow not only forms the cornerstone of network usage but also naturally translates into DeFi activity, thereby further consolidating trust and forming a brand effect, thus constructing a self-reinforcing closed loop that continuously converts "real usage volume" into "network value". The operation of this endogenous engine does not depend on short-term price fluctuations in the token market but is rooted in sustainable, real on-chain behavior and user demand.

In summary, the insights of the three guests build upon each other, collectively outlining a complete portrait of a cycle-surviving ecosystem: it begins with systematic design (healthy operation, low cost, high autonomy), is tempered by endogenous pressure resistance and circulation capabilities, and is ultimately validated by the practical closed loop of converting real usage into lasting value. When these elements work together, the ecosystem can build lasting resilience that transcends short-term prosperity amidst market fluctuations.

Counter-Cyclical Construction and Value Discovery: Long-Termism Practices in Bear Markets from the Perspective of the TRON Ecosystem

Based on the aforementioned theoretical framework for surviving cycles, the TRON ecosystem provides a key practical case study. While the overall market is in a downturn, the TRON ecosystem continues to advance infrastructure construction in areas like AI and DeFi. These actions themselves offer the most direct observation window for "how long-termism should be implemented," shifting the discussion from theoretical deduction to concrete practice.

Why Has AI Become a Main Theme in the Bear Market? The Counter-Cyclical Insights from TRON's AINFT

As the market enters a downward cycle, the AI sector has counter-intuitively become a focal point. Guests in the discussion pointed out that this is not merely a sector rotation but the market's active screening for real value after the liquidity recedes. The bear market acts as a touchstone, filtering out short-term hotspots dependent on narratives and allowing underlying innovations with long-term value to surface.

The TRON ecosystem's choice to officially launch the AINFT AI service platform at this time is precisely an active response to this trend. It is not only a technological layout in the AI track but also a practical response to a fundamental proposition: what kind of innovation dares to, and can, persist in construction even at the trough of the cycle.

AnDY, the head of HI Labs, stated: AI's return to the main stage is not another round of trend switching but an inevitable result of market screening. When the market tide recedes, models reliant on sentiment and subsidies become unsustainable, while AI, as a tool that can improve efficiency and reduce costs, sees its practical value highlighted. It does not need market conditions to prove itself; its ability to survive cycles will be naturally validated in a cooled market.

It is under this logic that the launch of the AINFT AI service platform holds symbolic significance. This platform is not a single model but an open service network integrating multiple mainstream large language models, aiming to provide developers and users with stable, accessible on-chain AI capabilities. By lowering the barrier to entry and cost, it truly integrates AI tools into daily on-chain interactions, content generation, and data analysis scenarios, becoming "usable infrastructure" for the crypto world. This practice itself is the best interpretation of the long-termism principle that "tool value surpasses narrative hype."

How Does DeFi Survive Cycles? An In-Depth Analysis of the Structural Resilience of the TRON Ecosystem

This emphasis on "tool value" and "endogenous demand" not only defines AI's role in a bear market but also constitutes the underlying philosophy of the DeFi ecosystem. TRON's DeFi system, with its continuous operation and genuine user accumulation, also serves as a vivid example of "cycle resistance." The guests, centered on this example, deconstructed the key resilience logic layer by layer.

Crypto.0824 pointed out that the key to TRON's DeFi system's ability to survive cycles lies in "low friction and real-scenario-driven" mechanisms. He observed that many bull market DeFi projects essentially rely on high APY designs to attract liquidity, their models resembling a game of capital. Once market sentiment recedes or incentives decrease, the entire system becomes unsustainable. In stark contrast, the TRON DeFi ecosystem is consistently built around real and high-frequency on-chain demands such as stablecoin swapping, staking, and lending. It does not rely on "incentive binding" for users but retains them by becoming the most practical and economical natural choice.

Wang Feng Anc and OxPink further added the crucial dimension of user experience. They believe that the reason TRON DeFi can survive cycles lies in providing a burden-free experience of "open and use, leave when done, but return repeatedly." It does not deliberately package complex financial models but focuses on serving massive real on-chain behaviors, thereby accumulating the most solid user base.

TianTian supported the effectiveness of this structure with specific data: Even during market fatigue periods, TRON protocols maintain stable profitability. In January this year alone, total protocol revenue exceeded $216 million. Its leading DeFi protocol, JustLend DAO, also consistently maintains a stable TVL of around $6 billion, with lending rates always within a healthy range.

Simultaneously, the TRON ecosystem is not content with merely financial resilience; it also feeds development results back to the community through governance mechanisms. To date, the governance token JST has completed two rounds of buyback and burn, with a cumulative burn exceeding 1 billion tokens, accounting for 10.96% of the total supply. Furthermore, SUN.io has also established a mechanism to buy back and burn tokens from protocol revenue. The cumulative burn to date has exceeded 650 million SUN tokens. These continuous value returns and deflationary practices not only strengthen the tokens' economic models but also clearly demonstrate the ecosystem's commitment to sharing long-term development value with the community.

From the continuous revenue-generating capability of protocols to the active value management of multiple tokens within the ecosystem, these facts collectively illustrate that ecosystem structures represented by TRON—rooted in real demand and equipped with closed-loop value feedback—not only exhibit anti-volatility resilience in bear markets but also accumulate a solid foundation of value at the bottom layer, reserving sufficient elasticity for market recovery. Thus, the key to surviving cycles lies in constructing a structure rooted in real demand and possessing a value closed loop, as practiced by the TRON ecosystem. This is not only a survival strategy in bear markets but also the fundamental logic for continuously creating value.