Recently, the market sentiment has been overwhelmingly pessimistic, especially in the altcoin market. With Bitcoin’s overall instability, altcoins have experienced significant declines, with many projects being cut in half.
However, amid this bleak market outlook, the Ton ecosystem has shown remarkable stability. Over the past thirty days, TON has surged by 23%. Moreover, the Total Value Locked (TVL) in the entire Ton ecosystem has skyrocketed since March, increasing more than sixfold in just four months. Projects within the ecosystem, such as Notcoin, have seen substantial increases in both price and user base. Is this the summer for the Ton ecosystem?
New Highlights in the Ton Ecosystem
Backed by Telegram’s 900 million active users, Ton stands out with its largest feature. However, criticism has persisted regarding the lack of a strong connection between Ton and Telegram. The Telegram platform system has not significantly empowered Ton, leaving Ton somewhat in the air.
But starting from this year, fundamental changes seem to be underway. Since March, Ton’s TVL has surged from under $23 million to the current $145 million, a growth of over six times. Simultaneously, TON’s price has also tripled during this period, remaining robust even in the recent bearish market. What are the driving forces behind these positives?
1) Utilizing TON for Settlements in Telegram’s Advertising System
Unlike Facebook and WeChat, Telegram has refrained from targeted advertising based on user data, upholding its commitment to user privacy. Consequently, Telegram has lacked a precise user advertising platform, forgoing the profit models of other social media giants. This situation persisted for many years, until recently.
In late February, Telegram’s founder announced on his Telegram channel that their advertising platform, which sees over a trillion monthly views, would officially open to advertisers from nearly a hundred countries in March. Channel owners will receive 50% of all ad revenues, settled entirely in TON.
Next month, Telegram channel owners will begin earning money from their work. Telegram broadcast channels generate 10 trillion views per month. Only 10% of this viewership is commercialized through Telegram ads, focusing on privacy-centric promotional tools.
In March, the Telegram ad platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries. Channel owners in these countries will begin receiving 50% of any revenue generated from showing ads on their channels on Telegram.
To ensure fast and secure ad payments and withdrawals, we will use the TON blockchain, much as we handle Telegram usernames on Fragment. We will sell ads using TON and share revenue with channel owners. This will create a virtuous cycle, allowing content creators to withdraw their TON or reinvest it in promoting and upgrading their channels.
For TON, this represents a significant leap from “air” to “value.”
Previously, TON was used primarily for on-chain smart contract transactions, staking, cross-chain transactions, and other on-chain service fees. It didn’t differ much from other general-purpose blockchains. Even its use in purchasing virtual goods like anonymous accounts on Telegram didn’t significantly impact total transaction volume.
Making TON the sole settlement asset for Telegram’s ad platform is a major strategic move for empowering Ton. It effectively ties Telegram’s 900 million user base to Ton, achieving a deep integration between the Ton ecosystem and the Telegram platform, thereby unlocking the ceiling for Ton ecosystem and TON prices.
To prevent the Telegram team from acquiring more TON due to this move, potentially leading to centralization risks, Durov subsequently stated that over 10% of the team’s TON holdings would be sold at a discount to long-term holders. These sold TON will have a lock-up period of 1-4 years.
For TON, this is equivalent to Telegram using advertising revenue to continuously repurchase TON while seeking other long-term holders or institutions. This not only prevents excessive centralization of TON but also reduces circulation through lock-up, a clear win-win scenario.
2) Launching Ton Space
Ton Space, launched in September 2023, marked a departure from Telegram’s Wallet, which was KYC-compliant and only used for payments. Ton Space allows users to manage their private keys, similar to typical crypto wallets.
After using Ton Space, users can seamlessly connect their Telegram accounts with various apps in the Ton ecosystem. They can log in directly from their Telegram accounts to participate in various DeFi, GameFi, NFT, and other services.
Imagine being able to shop directly on platforms like Pinduoduo or JD.com within WeChat mini-programs. Similarly, for Telegram’s 900 million active users, participating in Token/NFT trading, borrowing, or joining GameFi projects directly within Telegram significantly lowers the barrier to entry into Web3.
For the Ton ecosystem, this is a strategic move, as no other public blockchain boasts such a large user base as Telegram.
3) Platform Push for Mini Applications
After establishing payment channels, Telegram began promoting mini-applications, akin to WeChat’s mini-programs, which users can use without installation.
For instance, the recent sensation Notcoin is a platform-embedded mini-program where users can directly participate in activities like “Click to Earn” tokens within Telegram. The built-in Web3 wallet drastically reduces the entry barriers for users. With support from Telegram’s official traffic, Notcoin amassed over 40 million users in just a few months.
Currently, many Web3 mini-program applications similar to Notcoin have emerged on Telegram’s platform, leveraging Telegram’s massive user base to engage in GameFi projects without the need for traditional gold farming studios.
In addition to these initiatives, Telegram and the Ton ecosystem have embarked on a series of deep collaborations. Since the latter half of 2023, Telegram has solidified its Web3 strategy and deepened its cooperation with Ton. These actions have propelled breakthrough growth in both TON prices and TVL, establishing a profitable model for Telegram beyond advertising and subscription revenues.
Clearly, this is a win-win situation.
Inventory of Ton Ecosystem Projects
Ton.app currently hosts 874 projects. While this number pales in comparison to ecosystems like Ethereum, Solana, or Polygon, it marks a nearly 60% growth in the number of Ton ecosystem projects over the past eight months. The TVL of the entire ecosystem has multiplied several times, demonstrating robust growth.
Let’s briefly review some of the highly regarded projects within the Ton ecosystem:
– **Notcoin**: A clicking-to-earn game and one of the most popular Web3 applications in the Telegram Apps Center. Despite criticism for its meme coin status, Notcoin surpassed 40 million users within a few months, especially after its listing on BN.
– **Catizen**: The largest gaming application platform in the Telegram ecosystem, with over 20 million users and more than 500,000 paying users. It consistently ranks first in Ton Open League for several seasons.
– **Hamster Kombat**: Another play-to-earn game, recently popular due to its airdrop expectations. Official data shows its active users exceeding 150 million, a 50% increase from last week, and ranking third in popularity on the Telegram Apps Center.
– **Gatto|Game**: A pet-raising game showcased by the Ton Foundation in the first quarter of 2024. By January 2024, Gatto had over 30,000 Daily Active Users (DAU), created more than 1 million pets, and generated a monthly income of $35,000.
– **Gamee**: A social gaming platform under Animoca Brands, highly popular on Telegram despite a price drop due to a recent hacking incident in early 2024.
– **PocketFi**: A Telegram trading bot supporting cross-chain transactions, boasting over 1.4 million users within three months of its launch, with strong popularity on the Telegram Apps Center.
– **Blum**: A DEX in the Telegram ecosystem, currently with over 10 million users, although its full functionality is yet to be rolled out.
– **Yescoin**: Similar to Notcoin, boasting over 18 million users and 6 million subscribers on its official Telegram channel, showing rapid growth.
– **DeDust** and **Ston.fi**: Both are DEXs in the Telegram ecosystem, ranking first and second in the Apps Center with TVL of $320 million and $260 million, respectively, making them cornerstones of the entire Ton ecosystem’s $634 million TVL.
– **Uxlink**: The largest social infrastructure project in the Telegram ecosystem, fostering rapid growth through acquaintances, with registered users surpassing 10 million. It has garnered investments from prominent funds like True Fund, Sequoia Capital, and GGV, promising a bright future for SocialFi projects.
In Summary
From the perspectives of TON’s price, TVL growth, and ecosystem prosperity, Ton has indeed stood out in the current subdued market. However, beneath this prosperity lie some significant challenges that cannot be ignored.
For instance, in terms of developer numbers, Ton’s ecosystem has only 39 full-time developers and a total of 175 developers, far fewer than Ethereum’s 2392 and 7864, respectively, or Solana’s 436 and 1615. This indicates substantial room for growth.
Moreover, the frequent account hijacking issues on the Telegram platform have become more rampant after the introduction of the built-in Web3 wallet, posing a critical challenge that needs urgent resolution in Telegram’s Web3 journey, particularly for newcomers with weaker security awareness. Additionally, with Ton’s recent launch and limited exposure to security incidents, the ecosystem’s overall security remains a major test in its development journey.
However, both developer resources and security issues can gradually be iterated and optimized in the future development of the ecosystem. After all, the development of the entire Web3 industry is an ongoing process of flying while repairing.
[Data Source: DefiLlama]
[Image Source: DefiLlama]
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This rewritten version retains the original article’s essence while presenting the information in a more creative and fluent manner in English.
