Metacade, a new Web3 gaming project, has been drawing a lot of attention. Lately, some have been wondering what the difference between Metacade and other projects, like TRON, is. This article will explain the differences between the two and why you might want to consider investing in Metacade over TRON.
What is Metacade (MCADE)?
Metacade is a Web3 community hub that’s positioning itself as the ultimate platform for everything related to play-to-earn gaming. It’s where you can go to connect with like-minded gamers and crypto investors, immerse yourself in the world of GameFi, and explore multiple opportunities to earn while playing your favourite games.
Metacade is a unique, one-stop solution designed for the future of gaming. The team behind Metacade is aiming to capitalise on the current gap in the market for community-centric Web3 gaming platforms. To do this, they’re offering a variety of valuable features that are likely to attract thousands of gamers looking for a place to call home in Web3.
For example, on the platform, you’ll find reviews, leaderboards, dedicated forums, real-time chat, and the hottest GameFi alpha shared by industry experts. Metacade will also host frequent tournaments where you can win MCADE tokens by competing in exclusive and classic titles in the platform’s virtual arcade.
Metacade’s vision goes way beyond these features, however. It’s aiming to become the world’s first player-owned virtual arcade, responsible for producing some of the best play-to-earn games on the market – more on that shortly.
What Makes Metacade (MCADE) So Unique?
At the heart of Metacade’s philosophy is maximising user value. Right now, the gaming industry is being dictated by multi-billion-dollar game studios that put shareholder interests before the interests of gamers. This has led to companies like EA, Epic Games, and Activision Blizzard producing the majority of the games that people play. And if you’ve been a gamer over the past few years, then you’ll know that these games are frequently filled with bugs and overstuffed with pay-to-win mechanics and microtransactions.
Instead of taking value and giving nothing back, Metacade aims to put gaming back into the hands of the players. For example, that’s why it pays out MCADE tokens to anyone posting reviews, alpha, or other useful content. In 2024, Metacade will be launching its job and gig board, where you’ll be able to discover opportunities to work with and shape the gaming industry for the better. Most significantly, Metacade has an ambitious goal of financing the next wave of play-to-earn games through Metagrants.
Metagrants allow MCADE holders to play a direct role in getting games off the ground by allowing the community to decide which titles receive funding. In each Metagrant competition, developers will add their ideas to a pool for the community to vote on. The project that gets the most votes is allocated funding from the Metacade treasury. Developers can even use Metacade’s native testing environment to get real-time feedback on their games! Once development is complete, the finished title is added to Metacade’s virtual arcade for everyone to enjoy.
As mentioned, Metacade aims to become the world’s first player-owned virtual arcade. To carry out this vision, Metacade plans to become a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) once development is complete. At this point, community members will step up to take leadership roles, and MCADE holders will vote on critical decisions for these new leaders to implement, like new features, partnerships, tokenomics, and more.
What is TRON (TRX)?
TRON is an open-source blockchain that aims to provide the critical infrastructure needed for the decentralised web. It was founded in 2017 as a way for fans to directly reward their favourite content creators without a centralised company, like Google or Facebook, being involved. Nowadays, TRON crypto has evolved into a smart contract platform that competes with more popular solutions, like Ethereum or BNB Chain, to host decentralised apps (dApps) and DeFi projects.
TRX is the native token of the TRON crypto ecosystem and is used in transactions across the network. For instance, content creators receive TRX from their viewers, while those using SunSwap, a decentralised exchange built on TRON, will require some TRX for gas fees. It is also used as a governance token for the TRON DAO, which allows TRX holders to vote on changes made to the network.
Proponents of TRON point to the network’s incredibly low transaction fees and fast speeds as a reason why developers should build their projects on it. But TRON has had its fair share of criticism over the years from claims of stolen code to concerns over token centralisation.
Key Differences Between Metacade (MCADE) and TRON (TRX)
TRON is Primarily a Smart Contract Platform
The first key difference between Metacade and TRON is their functions. TRON crypto is primarily a smart contract platform designed for developers to build decentralised apps on. Meanwhile, Metacade is a community hub that allows players to immerse themselves in Web3 culture, gaming, and crypto amongst like-minded peers.
TRON’s Token Distribution is Highly Centralised
Critics of TRON crypto, like the company’s former CTO, Lucien Chen, have noted that the network suffers from a high degree of centralisation, claiming that the majority of “super representative” nodes are controlled by TRON in some way. This would allow TRON to effectively control governance on the chain, although this claim is disputed by TRON’s founder, Justin Sun.
What is irrefutable, however, is that TRX’s token distribution suffers from a lack of decentralisation. Just over 29% of TRX tokens are held by three non-exchange wallets, with the top 100 holders of TRX accounting for 44.06% of the circulating supply (CoinCarp).
Compare that to Metacade, which will be launching with 70% of tokens available in presale. There’s no VC allocation, and tokens are being sold in nine stages to allow even distribution. The other 30% is being used for development, decentralised exchange liquidity, marketing, and competitions.
TRON Faces Plenty of Competition
TRON is just one of the dozens of smart contract platforms that are competing to knock Ethereum off the top spot, and there are arguably much better projects out there. Solana, for example, offers much faster speeds than TRON. Binance Coin powers the BNB Chain, which is a much more popular option for developers looking to build decentralised apps.
This issue is exemplified when looking at TRON’s DeFi numbers. Out of $49.43 billion locked across all DeFi projects in November 2022, $4.3 billion is locked on TRON (DeFiLlama). Ethereum holds a whopping $28.49 billion, while BNB Chain holds $6.46 billion. TRON is unlikely to ever catch up with Ethereum or Binance Coin because they’re much more highly regarded in the crypto space. Put simply, TRON seems resigned to middle-of-the-pack status.
In contrast, Metacade has very little competition. Because GameFi is one of the newest trends in the crypto space, Metacade has the first-mover advantage as the only Web3 gaming community hub. While copycats might crop up down the line, Metacade is likely to have already established a loyal fanbase by this point.
TRON’s Plagiarism Claims
One of the biggest criticisms is that TRON faces claims that much of its whitepaper and protocols were plagiarised from other projects. Juan Benet, CEO of Protocol Labs, claimed that the whitepaper was “mostly copied,” including large sections from his project’s whitepaper. Although it wasn’t copied word-for-word, much of the content, vocabulary, and structure was copied from documents prepared by Protocol Labs. Justin Sun said that this was an error made during translation from the original Chinese document to English, but reviews of the Chinese version found that it had also been plagiarised.
Additionally, researchers found that much of TRON’s code had been copied from other projects like Ethereum, with certain aspects changed to obscure the code’s origin and no references given. Meanwhile, Metacade’s whitepaper is plagiarism-free, with original ideas, content, and layouts.
TRON’s Founder is Controversial
Besides being accused of stealing others’ work, Justin Sun has faced plenty of scrutiny over the past few years. From falsely announcing a partnership with Liverpool Football Club to pulling out from a lunch with Warren Buffet because of kidney stones, only to be seen laughing and joking while livestreaming a day later, Justin Sun is somewhat of a controversial figure in crypto.
In early 2022, The Verge dropped a bombshell article claiming that Sun had personally been involved with insider trading and manipulation of TRX’s price, apparently pumping up prices in coordination with whales to then sell at a massive profit. The article goes on to discuss sketchy dealings with Poloniex, possibilities of tax evasion, and outright theft, all backed up by 15 current and former employees of Sun and “hundreds of pages of leaked documents.”
Metacade’s team has a much better track record. The key personnel or “Metaheads,” as they’re referred to in Metacade’s whitepaper, have a squeaky-clean history and are fully doxxed. They’re even seeking out certification from CoinSniper and Certik to demonstrate their commitment to transparency and honesty.
Metacade (MCADE) Seems Much More Attractive Than TRON (TRX)
As seen, TRON and Metacade couldn’t be any more different. TRON has been mired in controversy for years and, honestly, doesn’t have much going for it. Issues like high competition, centralised token distribution, and claims of plagiarism are to likely drive many potential investors away from TRON, as there are simply much more promising tokens out there with none of these problems.
These investors are likely to be impressed with Metacade. With a strong value proposition, little competition, and a community-first approach, Metacade is in a prime position to outperform TRON over the coming years. Combining that with being a first-mover in a rapidly-growing industry and a token still in presale, Metacade seems like an excellent investment opportunity.
Think Metacade could quickly rise to become a leader of play-to-earn gaming? Then you’ll want to check out the Metacade presale sooner rather than later. That’s because you’ll get more MCADE the earlier you buy. For instance, in phase 1 of the presale, you’ll get 125 MCADE for $1. In phase 9, you’ll get just 50 MCADE for $1.
That means that you could potentially more than double your returns on MCADE just by being one of the earliest investors in this exciting new project! If you’ve been considering picking up some TRON, think again; Metacade could be a much better investment.
You can participate in the Metacade pre-sale here.