Title: "TON, Our Largest Investment Ever"
Authors: Dan Morehead (Founder of Pantera Capital), Ryan Barney (Partner at Pantera Capital)
Translation: Azuma, Odaily Star Daily
Editor's Note: This article is from the 100th issue of the market commentary column "Blockchain Letter" by Pantera Capital, mainly excerpting the analysis part about TON. The term "largest investment ever" comes from Dan Morehead, the founder of Pantera Capital, who mentioned having recently had lunch with Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, and Pantera recently made the largest investment in the history of the fund in Telegram's TON blockchain project. The rest of the article was written by Ryan Barney, a partner at Pantera Capital.
Why Did Pantera Choose TON? (Dan Morehead)
Throughout my career, I have been searching for excellent investment projects.
The reason I am passionate about Bitcoin and blockchain is that I believe it has the potential to change the world and have a huge positive impact on billions of people. In this community, I have met many remarkable people who share a common mission and goal. It is so inspiring.
I recently had lunch with Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, and his pure belief is amazing.
Telegram, founded by Pavel in 2013, is based on the primary principle of "freedom." Telegram is a neutral social platform, fair and impartial, not biased towards any party.
At the age of 21, Pavel and his brother Nikolai founded VK, known as the "Russian version of Facebook," which was also excellent and not controlled by the Russian media. The Russian opposition extensively used this application to organize large-scale protests in Russia, and the government attempted to force Pavel to censor and ban some opposition communities, but Pavel refused.
Pavel stated at the time: "Neither I nor my team will engage in political censorship. We will not ban Navalny's anti-corruption community or hundreds of other communities ordered to be banned. Freedom of information is an inalienable right in the post-industrial society, and without this right, VK's existence is meaningless."
In 2013, Pavel permanently left Russia. He once again founded Telegram with Nikolai, and the platform's principles are "freedom," "openness," and "expression."
Pavel stated: "Everything I do in my life is for freedom. My life's mission is to enable others to be free to the greatest extent possible. This is the mission of Telegram."
Pavel and his team ultimately chose to flee their homeland rather than abandon their principles, and we are honored to work with people who are so steadfast in their beliefs—Pantera recently made the largest investment in the history of the fund in TON. In the following text, my colleague Ryan Barney will provide a detailed analysis of this investment.
In short, when building a portfolio, it is best to find some unique qualities.
99.999% of blockchain projects are trying to build a community from scratch based on technical concepts. According to CoinMarketCap's data, there are currently over 23,000 cryptocurrencies in the market, and for most projects, starting from scratch is a difficult path, while TON is integrating blockchain technology into its existing community, which undoubtedly makes it easier to achieve.
Today, Telegram has started offering wallet services to its 9.3 billion users.
Overview of TON (Authors: Ryan Barney)
TON is a Layer 1 network originally designed by Telegram and continued to be developed by the open-source community. Due to TON's widespread adoption within the Telegram system, we believe it will further promote and popularize cryptocurrencies. Telegram is a forward-looking, fast, and secure messaging platform with over 9 billion active users, allowing users to engage in personal and group communication, large-scale community building, content sharing, and more.
Based on Telegram's massive user base and seamless user experience, coupled with the vitality of the TON ecosystem itself, we believe TON has the potential to become one of the largest cryptocurrency networks.
We believe in TON not only because of its strong promotional potential but also because of Telegram's own values. During this year's Token 2049, Pavel specifically discussed these values in his keynote speech.
Telegram does not sell user data, and its viral spread is entirely based on a commitment to privacy. It is a neutral platform free from government intervention and has always been the center of community organization for protest activities around the world.
Telegram is also one of the fastest-growing and largest social platforms in the world. They spend zero on marketing, yet they grow by almost 2.5 million users every day. They currently have a total of 9.3 billion active users, and Pavel is still the company's only product manager, with only 30 people in the company.
Telegram's monthly download volume is almost 10 times that of its closest competitor, Signal, and it received 36.7 million downloads in January alone.
The Spiritual Core of Web3
Telegram stands out not only because of its significant distribution capabilities but also because it fundamentally embodies the spirit of cryptocurrency.
At the Token 2049 conference, Pavel explained why TON and Telegram are a perfect match. Pavel said, "I like blockchain because it is a technology that is inherently free—it gives power back to ordinary people." No other social app has the same positioning.
Telegram is currently the only platform that is not hindered by regulations, has a vision to integrate Web3, and has already integrated blockchain. While Messenger attempted to integrate encrypted payments through Libra, it ultimately faced regulatory obstacles in the United States, leading to the complete closure of the plan. WeChat attempted to integrate central bank digital currency (CBDC) payments, but the application scope of this system is still limited.
We believe that, by combining the spirit of Web3, Telegram has the enormous potential to promote cryptocurrencies globally.
A Scalable Network for Hundreds of Millions of Users
The Open Network (TON) is a blockchain initiative developed by Telegram, aimed at creating a decentralized network capable of supporting various applications using its extensive user base. TON has built a rich multi-component ecosystem, including TON Blockchain, TON Storage, TON DNS, and TON Services—all of which can be seamlessly integrated and run together.
The TON blockchain is the cornerstone of this ecosystem. TON is positioned as a high-performance, scalable Layer 1 network that can rapidly process transactions using a dynamic sharding mechanism. This architecture ensures that the network can process millions of transactions per second and can effectively scale with an increasing number of users, making it an ideal choice for developers to launch various applications for hundreds of millions of users without compromising speed or security.
The Simple Entry Process
Typically, getting users started with crypto applications is quite challenging. New users need to remember a long string of keys and keep them secure, but what if you forget the private key? How can you send or receive money to and from other users? Copying and pasting public keys is not a good user experience in itself.
Telegram has simplified many of these complex processes through the Telegram Wallet on Top.co, allowing users to seamlessly connect to various small applications, directly accessible through Telegram settings and personal chats, and easily buy, sell, or manage tokens and NFTs within one interface.
The Telegram Wallet supports both custodial and non-custodial options, providing a simple onboarding experience for beginners and the ability for experienced users to have full control over their keys. With the non-custodial wallet using TON, users don't need to remember a mnemonic phrase but can simply use Telegram and email as a backup.
The Magic of Mini-Programs
The growing ecosystem of TON benefits from Telegram's innovative design and massive user base. Over 360 million users interact with so-called "mini-programs" on Telegram each month, such as chatbots, mini-games, and more. For TON, we envision its encryption capabilities being integrated into these "mini-programs," significantly enhancing the user experience for hundreds of millions of users. Currently, there are over 300 projects on TON, with most of them building mini-programs on Telegram and directly accessible through the Telegram App Center.
Earlier this year, we witnessed meme token trading tools like BonkBot generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue through the Telegram user interface. TON-based applications like StormTrade now support users in trading perpetual contracts, cryptocurrencies, stocks, and equities using the same interface. StormTrade processes over $10 million in daily trading volume, and we believe similar TON-native Telegram bots will become the preferred choice for many traders.
Telegram also provides a foundation for viral social and gaming spread. Early experimental Telegram games like Pixels and Fanzee Battles attracted millions of users within days, demonstrating the platform's enormous potential for user engagement. Catizen is a TON-based gaming platform with over 4 million users and a daily active user base of over 700,000. Notcoin is a TON-based social app where users can mine, and it has attracted over 30 million users, making it one of the fastest-growing apps in the cryptocurrency space.
The TON Foundation recently announced their incentive program, aimed at rewarding successful TON applications. We believe this will lead to the creation of more exciting mini-programs, attracting more users to join.
New Revenue Models
TON has also opened up many new paths for profit-sharing, expanding businesses within the Telegram community. As a decentralized marketplace based on TON, Fragment provides users with a platform to trade collectibles such as virtual phone numbers and custom Telegram usernames. Fragment has already facilitated over $350 million in total trading volume, and this is just the beginning.
The Fragment platform also supports revenue sharing between content creators and channel owners, marking a significant innovation and signaling a shift in traditional social media monetization models, allowing creators to directly earn revenue from channel ad revenue. This approach not only incentivizes content creation but also strengthens the connection between the platform and users, promoting a more equitable distribution of economic benefits within the digital ecosystem.
Payment Revolution
On April 19, 2024, Tether announced the deployment of its stablecoin USDT on the TON blockchain and Telegram Wallet. This move signifies a significant advancement in the crypto industry in the payment space, as it will allow hundreds of millions of users to seamlessly send and receive stablecoins through the Telegram platform, making payments as simple as using Venmo or Apple Cash.
With the strong scalability support of the TON network, transaction fees for users are reduced to approximately $0.1, which is 66% cheaper than other mainstream cryptocurrency payment platforms. Additionally, Telegram provides built-in fiat on-ramps and off-ramps (to banks or exchanges) to further facilitate user usage.
We believe that stablecoin payments on the Telegram Wallet are particularly important for individuals in developing countries who often lack access to comprehensive banking services. With the deployment of stablecoins on the TON network, cryptocurrency is moving closer to realizing the vision of a "programmable peer-to-peer currency" and a "globally accessible decentralized financial system."
Conclusion: Still in Early Stages, Unlimited Potential
In conclusion, we believe that the TON network is still in its early stages, and we are very excited to see the Telegram user base adopt its ecosystem and experience more new features that are about to be launched.
Fundamentally, Telegram itself embodies the spirit of cryptocurrency—open, free, and permissionless. The TON network has achieved a clever symbiotic relationship with Telegram, where scalable smart contract functionality and a robust payment network make possible some breakthrough features that were not achievable in the Web2 environment. With Telegram's massive user base, scalable infrastructure, thriving mini-program ecosystem, and native stablecoin payment functionality, TON has the potential to unearth more value from this "treasure trove" of 9 billion active users.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
