Tron (TRX), the native token of Justin Sun's Tron network, rallied about 80% in the past day, fueled by multiple factors, including political chaos in South Korea, home to one of the largest and and most reactive retail cryptocurrency markets in the world.
TRX rose 78.4% to currently trade at $0.40, according to The Block’s price page. It once rose to a high of over $0.43 at around 11 p.m. on Tuesday. Just (JST), the token for Tron-based DeFi protocols, jumped 50% to trade at $0.06.
Some on the social media platform X attributed Tron’s sudden rally to the chaos in South Korea that occurred overnight.
On Tuesday night, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared emergency martial law, a first in over 40 years. Martial law in South Korea refers to the imposition of direct military control over civilian government functions, typically in response to a significant threat to public order.
Yoon called off martial law five hours later after lawmakers present at the national parliament voted unanimously against the declaration.
“It seems that during martial law, all of crypto is moving out to foreign exchanges as south korean exchanges blew up,” X user @toy7594 wrote. “TRON is rallying.”
The two largest centralized exchanges in the country, Upbit and Bithumb, reported service suspensions lasting one to two hours due to a sharp uptick in activity.
“The recent rally in Tron (TRX) appears to be partly driven by political instability in South Korea,” said Rachael Lucas, crypto analyst at BTC Markets. “TRX’s role as a widely used transfer token between exchanges, especially in South Korea, makes it a tool for traders looking to move funds across platforms quickly.”
Lucas said trading restrictions on Upbit, which at times owns over 80% of the country’s spot trade volume, could drive traders to look for alternative solutions for transferring assets, thereby increasing TRX's trading volume.
Meanwhile, Presto Research analyst Min Jung told The Block that while the political event likely held some part in the Tron rally, it is unlikely that the surge is solely driven by the event.
“It could also be part of a broader 'Dino rotation,' where legacy cryptocurrencies like $XRP have been rallying under current market conditions,” Jung said. Other crypto considered legacy tokens such as Iota and Vechain were also seen surging recently.
“Additionally, rumors suggest that a significant portion of $TRX's supply is controlled by Justin Sun, raising questions about whether the rally is organic or influenced,” Jung told The Block.
Justin Sun, the founder of TRON Foundation has been in multiple news headlines recently, as he was named advisor to World Liberty Financial, the DeFi project backed by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.
Last month, Sun also spent $6.2 million to buy Maurizio Cattelan's famous duct-taped banana artwork “Comedian,” which he ate in a press conference held last week.
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