Repositioning Public Chains
As the cornerstone of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, public chains have always been the focus of the core narrative. Whether it’s Layer 1 or Layer 2 public chains, the pursuit of high performance is important, but even more crucial is having real active users and rich application scenarios.
TON (The Open Network), as the official and sole supported public chain of Telegram, has created a unique narrative by leveraging Telegram’s massive 900 million monthly active users in various aspects such as payments, social interactions, and mini-applications.
Without increasing user migration costs, TON can reconstruct the Web2 business model into a Web3 model using Telegram’s existing social network.
Despite being an important base for cryptocurrency users, TON’s adoption among these users is still lacking. Many Alpha Telegram groups require NFTs as tickets, but these NFTs are not based on TON’s Jetton. Additionally, trading bots like Unibot and Banana Gun have deepened the application of Telegram among cryptocurrency users, but a large number of transactions still occur on Base or Solana rather than TON.
The TON team and TON Foundation are actively working to break down existing barriers and unleash the full potential of TON. By allowing a large number of real users to directly own cryptocurrency wallets, users can easily make encrypted transfers, similar to sending WeChat red packets. Coupled with Mini Apps similar to WeChat’s, TON has the potential to bring true mass adoption to the cryptocurrency industry.
Ecological Status
According to Defillama data, TON’s TVL is currently $310 million, ranking 25th among all public chains. Due to the joint and coordinated efforts of the TON Foundation, Telegram, and its partners, the on-chain ecosystem has experienced explosive growth in recent months.
At the end of March, the TON Foundation announced the distribution of 30 million $TON as liquidity incentives within one month. In April, Tether announced direct integration of USDT on TON, allowing for minting and redemption. These consecutive stimuli have rapidly increased TON’s TVL from $22 million in early March to $300 million currently, achieving nearly 15 times growth in less than three months, with further momentum to maintain.
Accompanying the blockchain activity, there has been significant growth in various indicators:
– Daily trading volume has increased by over 50 times, from 100,000 transactions per day to 4-9 million transactions per day since March 2024.
– Daily active wallets have grown 8 times, from 60,000 in March 2024 to nearly 500,000 currently.
– The number of activated wallets on the chain has quadrupled, from 1.5 million addresses to 6.2 million.
– TON’s daily fees average $100,000, with half of the fees being burned.
According to data from ton.apps, the TON ecosystem currently has a total of 787 apps, including development tools, games, NFTs, social applications, launchpads, groups, and more.
Interaction Directions
In terms of TON ecosystem interaction, there are mainly two perspectives:
1. Established DeFi projects that can receive additional rewards through foundation liquidity incentives.
2. Games and meme projects with strong virality, such as Notcoin-like games that can easily attract a large number of real users based on Telegram.
Below are some interaction opportunities.
Wallets
The first step to participate in the TON ecosystem is to use wallets, and currently, there are 43 wallets that support the TON chain.
Wallet:
Wallet is Telegram’s native centralized custodial wallet, similar to WeChat Wallet for WeChat, which allows users to directly exchange tokens. Users can deposit funds into Wallet through P2P or bank cards.
TON Space:
TON Space is a self-custodial wallet based on Telegram launched by the TON Foundation. It is embedded in Telegram and can be accessed through Ton Space in Wallet. Users can directly connect to TON-based dApps through Ton Space. The experience of using TON Space is similar to using other non-custodial EVM wallets. Wallet recovery can be done through mnemonic phrases, private keys, email, and Telegram accounts.
DeFi
Although TON’s TVL has experienced explosive growth in the past two months, the asynchronous calling design of TON has improved performance and scalability but also increased the difficulty of development and maintenance for developers. Therefore, unlike Ethereum Layer 2, large-scale leading projects migrating to TON are not seen on TON, and there is still great potential for diversity in the DeFi ecosystem.
TonUP:
TonUP is a LaunchPad based on the TON chain, helping promising projects on TON with asset issuance and financing, and promoting the development of the TON ecosystem. Early supported projects like Tap Fantasy have already gained over 730,000 users. TonUP has received official support from the TON Foundation and TONCoin.Fund, as well as funding from well-known investment institutions like Foresight X.
STON.fi:
STON.fi is the largest DEX on TON, providing almost zero-fee, low-slippage trading services, and integrating directly with TON wallets. According to Defillama data, excluding LSD-like projects not included in the TVL of public chains, STON.fi ranks first in the TON ecosystem with a TVL of $222 million, accounting for 71.4% of the total TVL. It is the biggest beneficiary of the TON liquidity incentive program and has grown 20 times in TVL within two months.
Tonstakers:
TON is a POS blockchain, and Tonstakers is the first LSD-like liquidity staking platform in the TON ecosystem, developed by TOP Labs and integrated into Tonkeeper. Similar to Lido, users can stake $TON to receive $stTON and redeem $TON after the staking period ends. Currently, more than 50,000 users have staked $220 million worth of $TON. Although the APY is only 2.76%, it is still a good investment choice for long-term holders optimistic about $TON.
Games
Compared to the relatively scarce DeFi ecosystem, TON is very strong in the gaming field. Mini apps based on Telegram naturally fit with social-oriented casual games. With simple gameplay and the ability to easily share games through Telegram, gaming can spread most effectively.
Recently, $Notcoin, a small game on TON, was launched on Binance Launchpool. Players can mine $Notcoin by clicking on coins in Telegram. With its simple gameplay, team mechanics, and real profits, it has spread like wildfire, attracting over 35 million users with a daily active user count of 5 million. $Notcoin not only effectively utilizes the massive user base of Telegram’s cryptocurrency users but also introduces many people to digital currency in a simple way, fully demonstrating the application potential of the TON chain.
Catizen:
Catizen is the second Telegram Bot product developed by Pluto Studio. As an early development team and co-builder in the ecosystem, the Pluto team has received multiple supports from the TON Foundation in terms of economics and resources. In August 2023, the team launched its first Telegram Bot game, Tap Fantasy, in the TON ecosystem, which currently has over 730,000 users worldwide. Catizen is a game themed around cats, combining GameFi, AI, and the metaverse to provide users with highly immersive interactive experiences. In just two months, Catizen has attracted over 10 million player users, bringing 695,000 users to the TON chain.
Catizen players can participate in the game by raising cat characters and earn token rewards through in-game activities. The game provides a mining mechanism that allows players to earn $wCATI tokens presented in the form of cat paws by completing tasks and activities.
In addition to the game itself, Catizen also serves as a platform for Launchpool. The first round of Launchpool, which ended at the beginning of the month, distributed 840 million $wCATI to over 24,000 participants, with a total staking amount exceeding $39 million. In the next stage, Catizen will transform into a Telegram gaming platform and has already signed contracts with 18 popular WeChat mini-games. With the team’s valuable experience in blockchain development and deployment in the TON ecosystem, these games will gradually be launched on the Catizen gaming platform and initiated on Launchpool. Considering Catizen’s unique positioning, experienced team, and on-chain performance, it is worth tracking and participating in for the long term.
Hyper:
Hyper is the first metaverse project on TON that simulates real-life character scenarios. It is similar to Notcoin but with upgraded gameplay that cannot be replaced by simple clickers. Players start the game by clicking on the bot, dragging the character to collect coins according to instructions, and can obtain higher scores by purchasing boxes. The game also has a viral strategy of inviting friends to earn coins. With the success of Notcoin as a reference, the improved graphics and enhanced gameplay make this upgraded version of Notcoin have great potential.
The Open League (TOL):
TOL is a competition for projects and users in the TON ecosystem. It aims to increase user engagement in the entire ecosystem, help projects expand their user base, and develop more attractive and functional products for the large audience on Telegram. Users also receive rewards for participating. Therefore, the TOL leaderboard is a good guide for participating in TON ecosystem interactions.
In the one-month-long first season, over $3 million worth of $TON was distributed, and STON.fi and DeDust, ranking first and second in the DeFi category, have become the top two DEXs in terms of TVL on TON. Tonstakers, ranking first in the LSD category, has even surpassed STON.fi in TVL. The second season saw Catizen ranking first and NFT trading platform Getgems ranking second. Getgems provided the pre-market for Notcoin’s main trading market.
The current third season is in progress, with an expected distribution of $1 million worth of $TON. Projects ranking high on the leaderboard are the focus of interaction.
Yescoin, ranked second, is the fastest-growing game on TON. Similar to Notcoin, it follows a pattern of collecting coins and completing tasks, allowing players to earn tokens by simply sliding their screens. Such simple and addictive games often have a large following.
Tonano:
Tonano is the TON chain’s inscription project. During the minting process of the first TON20 inscription, the participation of users and triggered network transactions brought significant traffic and transaction load to the TON network, resulting in short delays and congestion. Tonano’s Marketplace has a trading volume of over a million dollars, providing necessary liquidity for TON20. Cross-protocol asset bridges enable asset swaps between TON20 and other inscription protocols and Jetton tokens, making a broader inscription ecosystem possible.
Fanton:
Fanton is a TON-based game similar to a football manager game, where star cards are issued as NFTs on the TON chain. It already has over 400,000 registered users and has received investments from TONcoin.Fund, First Stage Labs, and Tonstarter. With the upcoming European Championship, Fanton is likely to become the next hot topic.
Squid:
Squid is an inscription game built on TON where users can purchase squid eggs containing $TON on the market, hatch squids, produce more squid eggs, and sell them for profit.
Summary
The TON ecosystem is still in its early stages, especially in terms of DeFi projects, which are relatively scarce. However, the value of TON cannot be simply measured by TVL. With the natural advantage of relying on Telegram’s user base, which other public chains cannot match, TON has great potential.
Mini-app casual games that focus on mobile devices are particularly easy to spread and create FOMO. Taking WeChat games as a reference, they have captured a large audience. At the same time, TON significantly reduces the learning curve for non-cryptocurrency users who are already using Telegram, making it easier to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3.
With the stimulation and promotion from the TON Foundation, the TON ecosystem has shown promising development. It is worth paying long-term attention to and participating in.
