Author: Blockchain in Plain Language, Day
Original title "Backed by a social media giant with 800 million monthly active users, will the TON ecosystem be a "flash in the pan" or "forge ahead"?"
The recent popularity of the Telegram Bot competition has also brought attention to the platform Telegram and related concepts, propelling TON to the No. 9 market cap position in a short period of time (currently fallen to No. 11), suddenly entering everyone's field of vision.
In addition, at the recent TOKEN2049 summit, the Telegram official stated that through TON, Telegram will be transformed into the entry point for Web3, drawing widespread attention to Telegram-related concepts and adding fuel to the heat of TON. Of course, opinions on the future development of Telegram are mixed, with some optimistic about the ecosystem, believing that it will bring about a huge wealth effect, while others believe that the thunder is loud but the rain is small.
Today, let's briefly understand the development history of Telegram and TON in the blockchain industry.
Telegram's Struggle in the Blockchain Industry
Telegram has a huge user base worldwide, with 1.3 billion registered users, many of whom come from Russia, Iran, India, and other Asian and European countries. According to the founder of Telegram, as of July 18, more than 2.5 million new users register on Telegram every day, and the monthly active users have exceeded 800 million.
Data compiled by statista in January 2023 shows that this figure is 1.4 times that of X (formerly Twitter) (5.56 billion), 0.61 times that of WeChat (13.09 billion), and 0.86 times that of Facebook (9.31 billion), surpassing TikTok (7.15 billion). Currently, as one of the essential apps for Crypto, it has a large user base in the Crypto industry.
Telegram had long been optimistic about the blockchain track. As early as 2017, Telegram released a white paper for Telegram Open Network (TON). TON was designed as a decentralized blockchain platform aimed at providing a secure, high-performance blockchain solution to support Telegram's communication and services.
To support the development and launch of TON, Telegram conducted two rounds of fundraising in 2018. They raised $1.7 billion from 175 investors, making TON one of the largest fundraisings at the time, with TokenGram estimated to have a total market value of $29.5 billion, roughly twice the market value of Ethereum at the time, second only to Bitcoin, indicating its high popularity at the time.
Telegram originally planned to issue Gram Tokens in March 2019, but the blockchain plan was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which claimed that Telegram's token sale violated U.S. securities regulations.
Ultimately, the court supported the SEC's view, prohibiting Telegram from issuing its cryptocurrency Gram within the United States and requiring the return of investors' funds. Faced with the court's ruling, on May 13, 2020, Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced the termination of TON's research and development and began to refund part of the investors' funds, dealing a major blow to Telegram's blockchain ambitions.
Despite the termination of TON, Telegram continues to seek opportunities in the blockchain field. They have launched Telegram Passport and Telegram Payments features. Telegram Passport allows users to share identity information between different blockchain authentication services, while Telegram Payments provides a way to make payments on the Telegram platform. This demonstrates their focus on the potential of blockchain technology in user authentication and financial fields.
According to some reports, Telegram is considering adding a cryptocurrency adapter to its chat application. This means that users can directly conduct cryptocurrency transactions on the Telegram platform without leaving the application. There are also reports that Telegram is considering integrating a cryptocurrency wallet into its chat application. This would allow users to store and send cryptocurrencies within Telegram, further promoting the adoption and use of cryptocurrencies. This series of operations lays the groundwork for future cooperation between Telegram and The Open Network.
Will TON Carry on Telegram's Legacy?
In May 2020, the TON Labs development team announced the open source of the TON project's code and the termination of the project's development. Subsequently, a decentralized community called Free TON, composed of software developers, 13 validators, and users, released a forked version of the blockchain called "Free TON Blockchain," with the token named "Ton Crystals."
According to TON Labs' announcement, the community will also provide users with 85% of TON Tokens for free. The Free TON community stated that anyone can join the network. Currently, Ton Crystals has been officially inactive for a long time, and its price cannot be found, almost in a stagnant state.
In May 2021, the Newton developer community, spontaneously formed by the Telegram community, began to continue researching TON and promote the development of the TON project.
In 2021, Newton was renamed TON Foundation, and TON was changed from the original Telegram Open Network to The Open Network, with the on-chain encrypted token also changed to TON, aiming to become the easiest payment method. Starting from June 2020, 98.55% of the total supply of TON was open for mining, and all TON will be produced two years later.
On April 12, 2022, the TON Foundation launched its ecosystem fund and received a $250 million investment from some institutions, mainly used to fund the development of TON ecosystem projects. With the support of the TON Foundation, TON has successively launched on some platforms.
TON was originally created to serve Telegram. Despite encountering some obstacles along the way, Telegram users will sooner or later come into contact with the TON ecosystem. The main difficulties that other blockchain projects face in acquiring new users are high usage difficulty and high entry barriers. However, TON is seamlessly connected to the Telegram application, greatly reducing the difficulty. In April 2022, the TON Foundation announced the provision of a wallet bot for Telegram, meaning that Telegram users can directly send and receive TON and exchange other cryptocurrencies within Telegram.
With the development over the past few years, the community continues to add more usage scenarios for TON, such as DeFi, periodic subsidy plans, etc., expanding the user base. TON is gradually becoming the foundational currency in the ecosystem, continuously expanding its application scenarios in DeFi, NFT, and other fields.
Overall, Telegram's failure to build TON was blocked by the SEC, but TON's open-source technology has received community support and has successfully developed independently. However, when the founder of Telegram announced that he would no longer be involved in the development of TON, he explicitly stated that he would have no connection or support for the technology network built on TON. Because of the founder's statement, the project has been overlooked by everyone, without official support, and the general consensus is that without a reputable backer, the likelihood of success is very low.
Current Situation
The attitude of Telegram's founder has gradually changed over the years, from early rejection and non-recognition, with no official support, to openly appreciating the TON domain name auction in August 2022. He proposed that Telegram could also consider establishing an auction market for usernames, groups, and channels, and try to adopt TON as the underlying blockchain support for these future markets.
During the Token 2049 event, the official announcement of the cooperation between Telegram and the TON Foundation was made. Telegram integrated the self-hosted cryptocurrency wallet "TON Space" launched by TON, allowing direct access to the Wallet in the Telegram menu to complete Crypto self-circulation.
TON Space users can seamlessly connect to TON ecosystem applications through their Telegram accounts. Users can directly connect to TON Space from decentralized applications (dApps) based on TON and enjoy its features and services. TON Space acts as a blockchain account, supporting assets such as TON in the ecosystem. Some have compared TON Space to Telegram to the comparison of WeChat Pay to Tencent, to illustrate the importance of this cooperation.
Although the media's discussion of Telegram's ecosystem is currently very hot, after the announcement of the cooperation, the ecosystem development has not actually brought much growth. According to data from defillima, the current TVL of Ton is only 16.86 million, and there is no significant inflow of funds.
Source of TVL changes for Ton: hellobtc.pro
Some people believe that TON's short-term impressive performance is entirely due to the Telegram Bot, and the official cooperation has not had much impact. Furthermore, the current performance of the TON ecosystem is average, with most projects belonging to the replicated Ethereum ecosystem and not showing any outstanding features. However, others hold the opposite view, believing that there will be explosive growth in the ecosystem in the future. After all, with 800 million monthly active users, it is a terrifying number, on the same level as Twitter and WeChat, and it is a gathering place for Crypto users. The TON ecosystem is worth paying attention to.
Conclusion
The above is the current development of the Telegram and TON ecosystem. Currently, TON ranks 12th in market value, and some people believe that this is the result of strong control by the project party, with most of the chips concentrated in the hands of the project party. Whether it is worth paying attention to is a matter of personal opinion.
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