Author: Emma Cui, Thura Aung Source: LongHash Ventures Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance
Over the past few months, the TON ecosystem has undoubtedly piqued everyone's interest. As the entire crypto industry is eager for breakthrough applications and mass adoption, Telegram's 900 million users provide a compelling potential opportunity for the TON ecosystem to achieve this grand vision.
Is this just another popular saying that crypto native users/speculators are following for price action, or does TON provide a real opportunity for crypto to cross the chasm? We quickly scanned the ecosystem to understand the opportunities and risks.
The TON team has often explored the idea of a super app, similar to China's WeChat, which aims to combine services such as instant messaging, social networking, DeFi and e-commerce, all based on TON's blockchain technology. Their vision is for the app to become the gateway to Web3, aiming to attract hundreds of millions of users and enable billions of transactions in Telegram’s user-friendly and seamless environment, leveraging its existing user base. The ultimate goal is to leverage TON’s existing distribution channels to gradually introduce and familiarize Telegram’s loyal audience with on-chain workflows.
While we believe it is a tall order for TON to follow in WeChat’s footsteps as a super app, given the unique environment in which WeChat grew, such as the support of the Chinese government, seamless integration with all of China’s banking infrastructure, and the lack of competition in WeChat’s early days, we are confident that the TON ecosystem is gathering momentum and is poised to become the largest Web 3.0 user onboarding channel in the short to medium term.
Explosive Growth of On-Chain Metrics
The growth metrics of the TON ecosystem are impressive. In just six months, daily active users on the chain grew from 200,000 to 400,000, while the number of wallets surged from less than 10 million to more than 46 million.
Growth of Stablecoins
For any blockchain ecosystem to thrive, stablecoins have become an essential element to enable mature use cases such as fund transfers, DEX swaps, and Perp trading, so we view the integration and growth of stablecoins as a key indicator of ecosystem growth. It is worth noting that in April 2024, Tether announced direct integration with TON, enabling native minting and redemption. This allows for deeper DEX liquidity and the introduction of more capital. In just 3 months, stablecoin liquidity grew to over 600 million USDT.
Funds from Leading Funds and Exchanges
Over the past two years, TON has attracted a lot of investment from both Eastern and Western tier-one funds. Notable investments include: $6 million from Runa Capital (European venture capital firm) $10 million from DWF $8 million from Mirana Ventures Pantera recently announced its largest ever investment in TON Additionally, TON has received undisclosed amounts from major players such as KuCoin, Animoca, MEXC, Mask Network, CoinFund, Kenetic Capital, and Hypersphere. According to unconfirmed sources, the terms typically involve a 50% discount to the market price and a vesting period of one to four years.
Growth of the Developer Ecosystem and Popularity of Leading Ecosystem Projects
Over the past twelve months, the number of developers in the TON ecosystem has grown from 100 to 300, with significant contributions from the Chinese and Russian communities. A unique integration with the Telegram app allows for the creation of small applications called Telegram applets, which are cross-platform and sync across all devices running the Telegram app. This integration facilitates easy interaction with the TON blockchain directly within the app.
Some of the leading ecosystem projects include:
Telegram-based “click to earn” game NOTcoin is listed on Binance, with FDV reaching an all-time high of $2.4 billion.
The leading Telegram bot Banana Gun was also listed on Binance shortly afterwards.
The Telegram mini-game CATIZEN has received investment from Binance Labs.
Another popular Telegram mini-game, “Hamster Kombat”, was recently listed on OKEX.
Toncoin (TON) has also been listed on Binance since August 9. This listing will likely increase TON trading volume and provide better accessibility for those who want to hold TON.
The following is a non-exhaustive scan of the leading ecosystem projects being developed in the TON ecosystem, covering mini-games, trading bots, on-ramp/off-ramp infrastructure, and wallet and EVM layer 2.
The most popular games like NOTcoin, CATIZEN, and Hamster Kombat are simple clicker games with strong financialization mechanisms for easy adoption
Trading bots are a popular use case that discovered PMF during the meme trading craze
TON incentivizes the ecosystem through the TON Open League rewards program. Open League funds are distributed through performance-based competitions, simple token mining mechanisms, airdrops and tasks, and liquidity pool enhancements.
Notcoin is the first ecosystem coin to be widely integrated into the TON ecosystem, providing a launching platform for other projects to acquire customers.
Screenshot of CATIZEN
"Hamster Kombat" screenshot
$TON supply is quite concentrated as the top 100 wallets hold more than 93% of the supply.
Give us some comfort that among the notable large wallets, the top 1 wallet address EQDtFpEwcFAEcRe5mLVh2N6C0x-_hJEM7W61_JLnSF74p4q2, holding 25% of the total supply, is the TON Believers Fund, a community-driven initiative to pool rewards and deposits and distribute them after a 2-year lockup period over 3 years starting on October 12, 2025; the TON Believer Fund allows any TON holder to lock up their tokens for five years until October 2023. As of this writing, 1.3 billion Toncoin (over 20% of the total supply) are locked in this contract. The top 2 wallet addresses Ef8zMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzMzM0vF hold 13% of the supply and are responsible for validator selection and reward distribution. The smart contract is called the electoral contract; the TON Foundation has also deactivated about 1.1 billion TONs held by large early miner wallets. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said in a post on his TG group that Telegram will limit its supply to 10% and will sell excess reserves to investors with a 1-4 year lock-up and vesting plan.
Relying on the Telegram platform carries significant risks. Any changes in Telegram's policies or user base could directly affect the TON ecosystem.
Regulatory uncertainty around cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology could impact the development and adoption of TON. These include potential crackdowns or strict regulation by governments around the world.
While innovative, the technical architecture of the TON network carries certain risks: the use of a custom programming language, FunC, and the TON Virtual Machine (TVM) could be a barrier to developer adoption compared to more widely used languages like Solidity (EVM) or Rust.
We are confident that there is ample room for TON ecosystem applications to improve the overall UX/UI experience. Our research analysts tried out various apps and reported several issues:
Experienced long transaction confirmation times (~10-30 seconds).
Connecting to dApps was sometimes difficult.
A fair number of games and dApps seemed to have latency and low quality issues.
There were a large number of scam apps and links on social media and the Telegram app.
Some ads in the wallet could drain the wallet through spam transactions.
The TON blockchain, while still in its early stages, holds great promise. Its integration with Telegram’s 900 million users presents a unique opportunity for mass adoption. Rapid growth in on-chain metrics, strong support from major funds, and the success of various ecosystem projects highlight its potential.
However, challenges remain. TON must address concentration risks, platform dependency, regulatory uncertainty, and technical hurdles. Improvements in user experience and interface are also necessary for wider adoption.
Despite these challenges, TON has been able to leverage Telegram’s extensive user base as a strong onboarding and user acquisition channel.
With the launch of Dogs new coin mining on Binance, the attention to the TON ecosystem has reached a new high. DOGS is a MEME token that embodies the spirit and culture of the Telegram community. The official announcement said that a large number of users are waiting for airdrop claims.
JinseFinanceAlthough DOGS and Notcoin are both meme projects in the TON ecosystem, they have shown different development paths in terms of positioning and market strategies.
JinseFinanceTON, Binance, How to find potential projects in the TON ecosystem after TON lands on Binance? Golden Finance, the entire open league is like a hero meeting of the TON ecosystem.
JinseFinanceThere are obvious problems with the user quality of the Ton ecosystem, which are mainly reflected in several aspects.
JinseFinanceThe TON ecosystem is still in its early stages. Although it has great potential, projects in the TON ecosystem may not have enough opportunities for larger funds.
JinseFinanceIn the past year, the price of $TON has increased by more than 5 times, and its market value ranks among the top 10. The prosperous ecosystem of TON has opened its doors to users.
JinseFinanceFollowing the viral success of the clicker game Notcoin on the TON blockchain, many investors are eagerly seeking the next Notcoin. This article introduces nine promising projects within the TON ecosystem that have the potential to replicate Notcoin’s success.
Cheng YuanTON offers $5 million in Toncoin for palm scan identity verification, aiming to onboard one billion users to the Web3 ecosystem.
AlexTelegram users can now buy and sell cryptocurrencies without leaving the app. The Open Network (TON) is a fully decentralized Layer 1 blockchain designed by Telegram to onboard billions of users
M6 LabsBreakdown by Lars, Research Director at The Block.
Twitter