Buying TRX in Mexico, the fuel for your USDT

A familiar story among remote workers and freelancers in Mexico: a client pays you in USDT on Tron, you try to move it to an exchange to cash out in pesos, and your wallet throws an «insufficient energy» or «insufficient TRX» error. The dollars are there. What's missing is the coin that pays for the transfer.

This page is about that coin. We cover, briefly, why it happens, then focus on what matters in practice: how much TRX to keep, where to buy it from Mexico with or without a CURP, when staking is worth it, and the regulatory history of Tron's founder, Justin Sun.

Why USDT on Tron needs TRX

USDT on Tron (TRC-20) is the dominant version in Mexico's P2P market and in many remittance routes. Each transfer runs a smart contract that consumes two network resources: bandwidthTron resource that covers the size of a transaction. Every activated account gets a small free daily allowance., which comes with a free daily allowance, and energyTron resource that pays for smart contracts like USDT. You get it by staking TRX, having it delegated to you, or the network burns TRX from your balance., which doesn't. With no energy of your own, the network burns TRX; with no TRX, the transfer fails. Exchanges absorb this and charge you a flat USDT fee instead. The resource model, the Proposal 104 price cut and how Tron compares with other networks are covered in the USDT networks guide; here we stick to TRX itself.

How much TRX to keep

Industry figures after Proposal 104 put a USDT transfer at around 6.4 TRX when the recipient already holds USDT and around 13.4 TRX when the address is empty. With TRX near MXN 6.17 when we checked, that's roughly MXN 40 and MXN 83 per transfer, or about USD 2 and USD 4.50.

For an occasional user, 40 to 50 TRX is a sensible buffer. Buy MXN 300 on Bitso and, after the taker fee, you get about 48 TRX; Bitso's 3 TRX withdrawal fee leaves about 45 in your wallet, enough for three transfers to fresh addresses or around seven to addresses that already hold USDT. If you get paid weekly, keep more, or read the staking section.

One more quirk: a Tron address that has never received anything isn't activated yet. The first incoming TRX triggers an activation charge on the sender, around 1 TRX according to the network's public parameters, which is why a first withdrawal to a new wallet can cost slightly more.

Tron and TRX in brief

Justin Sun founded Tron in 2017. It runs on delegated proof of stakeDelegated proof of stake: TRX holders vote for a small set of validators, and those validators produce the blocks.: TRX holders vote, and the top 27 candidates, called Super Representatives, take turns producing blocks every few seconds. TRX is the native coin that pays for resources, carries voting weight and gets locked when you stake.

Tron's relevance comes from USDT. Tether's transparency page showed roughly 92.5 billion USDT circulating on Tron when we checked, against about 85.4 billion on Ethereum, which puts more than half of all USDT on this one network. The USDT guide covers the stablecoin itself.

Where to buy TRX from Mexico

Bitso's public order book list includes trx_mxn, a direct peso market, plus TRX/USD. Binance's public API shows no TRX/MXN pair; there, TRX trades against USDT, USDC and bitcoin.

Residents with a CURP get the shortest path on Bitso: SPEI in, buy TRX/MXN, withdraw. The book is small, though. In our snapshot, 24-hour TRX/MXN volume was about 13,500 TRX, roughly MXN 83,000, with a spreadThe gap between the highest bid and the lowest ask in the order book. It's a cost that never shows up as a fee. near 0.2%. That's fine for a few hundred pesos; use a limit order for more.

If you already hold USDT on Binance, buying TRX there is cheaper per withdrawal but the 20 TRX minimum applies. If you're a visitor without a CURP, a card purchase or an international exchange is usually less friction. Our Binance review and Bitso review cover verification for foreigners.

Staking TRX for energy (Stake 2.0)

Instead of burning TRX on each transfer, you can lock it. Under Stake 2.0 you stakeLocking coins in the network in exchange for something: on Tron, energy or bandwidth plus voting power. Locked coins can't be sold. TRX and choose energy or bandwidth in return. You also receive TRON Power, one vote per staked TRX, which you can assign to a Super Representative candidate. Voting is what earns rewards: per the official docs, the network pays 128 TRX per block to voters of the top 127 candidates, and each candidate keeps 20% by default before sharing.

The number nobody mentions is how much TRX you need. Your energy is your share of everything staked network-wide, so it keeps shifting. When we queried Tron's public data, each staked TRX produced about 9.7 energy per day. A USDT transfer to a funded address uses on the order of 64,000 energy, so covering one transfer per day meant roughly 6,600 TRX staked, over MXN 40,000 at that day's price. Twice that for empty addresses.

So staking for energy fits businesses, P2P merchants and people moving USDT daily. For a freelancer cashing out twice a month, holding 50 TRX is simpler and cheaper.

What can go wrong

• 14-day unstaking. Getting your TRX back means starting an unstake and waiting 14 days, a network parameter that validators can change by vote. You can cancel and restake, but not speed it up, and the price can fall meanwhile.
• Variable returns. Energy and voting rewards depend on how much everyone else stakes. No one can promise a fixed yield.
• Exchange «earn» products are different. They are custodialCustodial: the platform holds your coins and the keys. If it freezes your account or fails, you can't move them.: the platform holds your coins and sets the rules.
• Energy rental sites. Some are legitimate, others are fake pages asking you to connect your wallet and sign permissions. Never sign what you don't understand.

Justin Sun, the SEC and the controversies

Tron is hard to separate from its founder, so his record is part of the due diligence.

The SEC lawsuit. On March 22, 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Sun and three of his companies (Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation and Rainberry) with offering TRX and BTT as unregistered securities. It also alleged he directed more than 600,000 wash trades of TRX between accounts he controlled from April 2018 to February 2019. Eight celebrities were charged for promoting the tokens without disclosing payment; most settled.

Pause and settlement. In February 2025, after the change of US administration, the SEC and Sun jointly asked the court to stay the case to explore a resolution. In March 2026, The Block reported a settlement under which Rainberry would pay a USD 10 million penalty and claims against Sun and the two foundations would be dropped, without admitting or denying the allegations. That report said the judgment still needed court approval.

Political ties. According to press reports, Sun invested tens of millions of dollars in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-linked crypto venture, and became an adviser, which critics in Congress cited when questioning the pause. Sun and World Liberty later sued each other over frozen tokens.

Public markets. In July 2025, Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment became Tron Inc. through a reverse merger and announced a TRX treasury, with Sun as an adviser.

None of this changes how the network processes your USDT. It does mean the ecosystem carries concentration risk around one person and closely linked companies.

TRX, savings and taxes

TRX is volatile; it is fuel, not savings. If you want to hold dollars, compare the stablecoins in USDT vs USDC vs MXNB. If you're a Mexican tax resident, selling TRX at a gain is taxable; US citizens also report to the IRS, which treats staking rewards as income once you control them. The Mexico crypto tax guide has the details, the remittances guide shows full USDT routes into pesos, and the top coins page compares TRX with litecoin and the other peso-market coins.