The Tron price rallied by 15 percent on Monday, defying the sluggish performance of the overall cryptocurrency market. Tron Price Makes 15% Advance in Defiance of Sluggish MarketThe cryptocurrency market cap shed $4 billion on Monday, continuing a reversal that began on Sunday. Eight of the 10 largest cryptocurrencies fell against the US dollar, while another — Ethereum — rose just one-half-of-one percent for the day. Only Tron managed to extend its momentum into the new week, surging by more than 15 percent to a present global average of $0.099 and a $6.5 billion market cap. The rally propelled Tron back into the top 10, and it currently ranks ninth on the charts, where it sits approximately $900 million ahead of 10th-ranked NEO. Source: CoinMarketCapThe majority of Tron’s trading volume is concentrated in South Korea, where it trades at a slight premium over other exchanges. At present, the TRX/KRW pairs on Upbit and Bithumb alone account for more than 51 percent of the token’s global volume. Source: CoinMarketCapAn Organic Rally or a Rumor-Related Pump? It’s not immediately clear what is fueling Tron’s market-leading performance, as the cryptocurrency’s weekly update includes no information that would justify this uptrend. Tron investors point to the network’s upcoming mainnet launch as the trigger for the recent rally, but there may be more insidious factors at play as well.#TRON Main Net Launch Countdown: 31 days, 744 hours, 44,640 minutes, 2,678,400 seconds! #TRONSR $TRX— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) April 30, 2018It’s well-known that Tron founder Justin Sun is an alumnus of Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba, and rumors have circulated for months that the cryptocurrency will leverage this relationship to ink a strategic partnership with the firm. These reports have thus far proven to be unsubstantiated in every case and are likely the product of pumpers looking to artificially inflate the Tron price. These rumors resurfaced on Monday in an article published by a cryptocurrency news blog, which speculated that a partnership would be bullish for Tron but also included no data indicating that such a development was in the works. The article was widely-shared on social media, and may have influenced the token’s short-term performance. However, as CCN reported, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has made it clear in past statements that — at least for the foreseeable future — the firm has no intentions to engage with cryptoassets, though it continues to believe blockchain technology is a promising field. Update 4/30: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that the current TRX price was $0.99 rather than $0.099