SUN is a social experiment on the Tron DeFi space designed with the best from the Bitcoin world but powered by Tron’s decentralized platform.

Most decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms are built on the Ethereum blockchain. Unfortunately, Ethereum’s scalability issues are increasing the cost of running these applications and it would appear to take a while before Ethereum 2.0 can actually solve these. Therefore, NEO, EOS, and Tron are among the distributed networks positioning themselves as the next-big-thing in powering DeFi-focused products.

With the explosion of such products, malicious actors are infiltrating the space and creating poorly-secured platforms. In some cases, anonymous entities run DeFi-networks, further eroding the trust investors have in such systems.

However, to overcome Ethereum’s scalability and cure the trust issues, Tron’s founder, Justin Sun, has developed SUN, a DeFi-focused token. Apart from providing more options for yield farmers and liquidity providers, SUN drives the development of DeFi-themed products on the Tron blockchain. Before delving deeper into SUN, let’s take a step back.

Background

SUN is the brainchild (and the namesake) of Justin Sun. The Tron founder unveiled the new token in his Twitter account. Justin hailed the token as being fully community governed. Furthermore, its developer said that the token merged the best in encryption and artistic worlds.

What is SUN?

SUN is a social experiment on the Tron DeFi space. The token is designed with the best from the Bitcoin world but powered by Tron’s decentralized platform. Unlike some DeFi tokens, SUN did not undergo any pre-mine and doesn’t have a special allocation to the development team.

Additionally, it has no support from venture capital firms. Presumably, this puts its control and issuance at the hands of its community.

Note that by being hosted on the Tron blockchain, SUN follows Tron’s TRC-20 token standards. Notably, to enhance trust among its community, the token’s functionalities are baked into publicly available smart contract code.

Using Tron’s virtual machine, SUN operates in the same environment as other DeFi projects on the platform. Justin notes that it’s hard to anticipate the token’s future, given that it’s 100 percent community-owned. Therefore, the community decides which path to take.

SUN Token Issuance

SUN’s total supply is 19,900,730 tokens. With no team allocation and pre-mine, acquiring the token is solely done through mining by staking. Staking is done using Tron’s native currency, TRX, or any approved TRC-20 tokens.

Miners can participate in two mining stages; genesis or regular mining. Unfortunately, the chance to participate in genesis mining elapsed on September 16, 2020. The genesis mining window was only opened for 14 days.

Right now, mining SUN can only be done through regular mining. Here, miners can stake supported cryptocurrencies and stablecoins such as Tron (TRX), Tether (USDT), BitTorrent token (BTT), Wink (WIN), SUN, and JUST (JST). Note that JUST is another DeFi protocol running on Tron.

Regular mining is divided into pools. The pools are divided into TRX, TRC-20, and liquidity mining pools for tokens earned through depositing liquidity. However, the amount of SUN tokens earned when interacting with the TRX mining pool depends on two things, the amount of TRX locked and the duration it is locked.

Notably, staking and claiming SUN tokens on this pool is flexible and can be done daily. Also, SUN tokens obtained when staking TRC-20 based currencies are determined by the staking period and amount.

In addition, the schedule is flexible, allowing miners to move their tokens freely. This also applies to miners in liquidity mining pools. Note that all pools operate at a constant speed, with a new block discovered every three seconds. Apart from the speed, each SUN mined has the same reward value.

SUN and JustSwap

JustSwap is an exchange network built on the Tron ecosystem to facilitate swapping TRC-20 tokens. However, the platform charges a fee when exchanging two TRC-20 tokens. The fee is shared among the liquidity providers involved.

On October 27, 2020, the Tron Foundation announced that SUN would launch JustSwap token referral elections. The elections aim to find a spot for Tron-based projects on the exchange’s “drop-down recommendations.”

Interestingly, a project stays on the referral slot on the JustSwap website for 90 days. Notably, the slot drives a project’s community visibility.

How to Mine SUN

The process of mining SUN starts with holding supported coins, after which you should:

  • Visit the official website, SUN.io, and select a pool.
  • After selecting a pool, hit “Approve LP.”
  • On the popup window that appears, click “Approve.”
  • Specify the token amount you wish to stake with the pool.
  • Select “Stake,” then provide your signature in the popup window by clicking “Accept.”

You are done. Note that it takes up to 30 seconds for details about the staked funds to appear on the dashboard.

Claiming Rewards

After staking, it’s time to claim rewards in the form of SUN coins. To do this, you have to:

  • Locate your staking pool. Note that only active pools support claiming SUN rewards. 
  • Clicking on the active pool’s “Select” button provides two options; stake and claim.
  • Click on “Claim” then “Accept.”
  • That’s it.

Migrating and Unlocking Staked Assets

With the SUN ecosystem welcoming new pools as others become obsolete, providing a method to transfer funds between pools is important. However, what if the assets are already locked? Luckily, the SUN protocol allows them to be moved or unstaked/unlocked.

  • To migrate staked assets to new pools, especially from inactive pools, starts with accessing the pool from the list of inactive pools.
  • Next, select “Continue mining to enjoy higher profits,”
  • Then, give the pool access to your tokens > unlock the tokens > migrate the tokens to your chosen pool. Note that each of the three steps requires a signature for authorization. The authorization is presented in the form of “Accept.” Also, each step is recorded as an individual transaction on the Tron blockchain. Therefore, each step has to be confirmed before continuing.

In some cases, the migrating option may not be ideal since it can fail. If it fails, it’s time to unlock staked tokens manually. Note that the process can be applied to either active or inactive pools. To kick start the process:

  • Visit the “Active” pools tab and choose the pool with your funds.
  • On the popup, choose “Claim.”
  • Select the “My Staked” tab and specify the number of assets you want to unlock and choose “Claim and Unlock.”
  • Sign the transaction, and you are done.

On the other hand, claiming staked assets from an inactive pool follows a shorter route.  

  • Visit the “Ended” tab on the SUN.io homepage.
  • Select the pool where you have your assets locked.
  • Hit “Claim and Unlock,” provide a signature, and you are done.

Is the SUN Mining platform Secure?

Yes. The mining section of the SUN ecosystem has received a clean bill of health from a security audit. Also, the project’s smart contract code is open-source, exposing it to extra scrutiny.

Conclusion

SUN has a unique approach in that it is community-governed from the very start. This gives it an edge over other DeFi projects that employ centralized governance and slowly transition to a decentralized, community-based approach. Also, without a pre-mine and team allocation, investors have a level playing ground.

With DeFi protocols falling prey to security breaches, Justin’s decision to make SUN’s smart contract code publicly available enhances security and instills confidence among the token’s investors. The token’s open-source smart contract code further enhances trust and boosts its security.