Did Justin Sun Just Buyout $100.7M Market Cap Steem Blockchain?

A new strategic partnership between blockchain-based social media platform, Steemit, and the Justin Sun-led Tron Foundation raised a question: Will the Steem blockchain network whose token is currently ranked 70th on CoinMarketCap not become obsolete soon?

Announcing the new partnership in a press release, the Tron Foundation reported that development teams at both projects will now put all hands on deck to “bring Steemit and other Steem blockchain-based dApps to TRON blockchain and its community of over 20 million users, products, and services.”

Whatever that means, the essential message is that Steemit is migrating to the TRON Network. This is because a major pact in the new strategic partnership between Steemit and TRON is that Steemit will migrate its thriving social media platform and tokens to the TRON blockchain.

STEEM token holders have also been advised to swap their Steem-based tokens to Tron-based STEEM tokens while dApps on the Steem network will be migrated to the TRON network as well.

Another interesting twist is that Poloniex, the crypto exchange which Justin Sun’s Tron Foundation recently acquired a major stake in, almost simultaneously announced that it will support the token swap for Steem-based tokens to Tron-based STEEM tokens.

Was it a Buyout?

At this point, it is vital to note that this is arguably the first time that such a ‘strategic’ partnership, that is, migration of assets and dApps across blockchains is taking place. The announcement also did not state that the TRON Foundation is investing in Steemit.

Accordingly, a representative according to TheBlock’s coverage said,

No, Steam chose to move to the Tron blockchain and the two will launch a joint accelerator to promote more development of the Steemit platform.

Despite that denial comment though, Steem co-founder Ned Scott mentioned on Twitter that he has sold Steemit to Justin Sun.

Steemitans and Twitterers, after four beautiful years, I have sold Steemit to @justinsuntron. AMA tomorrow at 9am PT. https://t.co/ZlCKRZbq3L https://t.co/XOCjyjd0TQ

— Ned Scott (@realNedScott) February 14, 2020

The Implications

The Steemit social media platform moving to the TRON blockchain arguably takes away the Steem network’s primary dApp and perhaps utility since some or all of the supposed 324 dApps currently on the network will also move to the TRON blockchain.

At this point, the chances are that the newly migrated Steem tokens will still maintain a value, perhaps up to $100.7M even though the Steem blockchain network becomes less useful.