Backed by Telegram's massive user base of 1 billion, the TON ecosystem is expanding in an unstoppable manner, making us extremely excited about the prospects of large-scale TON applications.

While most cryptocurrency projects are struggling to survive in the midst of a crypto winter, the TON ecosystem is rapidly growing and attracting investors' attention. TON has shown remarkable returns in this year's investment portfolio, even in the face of a market downturn and the collapse of altcoins. This breakthrough performance stems from the vigorous development within the TON ecosystem. This year, the price of $TON has surpassed $8, with an annual return rate of 480%. The price surge has brought significant attention to its ecosystem, with the Total Value Locked (TVL) growing 20 times to over $6 billion within three months, and the daily active addresses surpassing Ethereum at one point. Backed by Telegram's massive user base of 1 billion, the TON ecosystem is continuously expanding in an unstoppable manner, making us extremely excited about the prospects of large-scale TON applications.

I. The Past and Present of TON

1. How the Project Was Established:

TON was initially created by the founders of the Telegram team, Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Telegram is undoubtedly one of the giants in the field of social communication today, with over 1 billion active users. It is with the powerful resources and extensive influence of Telegram that TON was endowed with extraordinary expectations from the beginning.

• In 2017, Telegram launched a massive $1.8 billion ICO with the aim of introducing its own cryptocurrency project, TON.

• In 2018, it raised $1.7 billion in private funding and launched the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain. Unfortunately, the SEC raised questions and investigated it in 2019, accusing Telegram of illegal fundraising, ultimately forcing Telegram to abandon the TON project.

• In 2020, Telegram announced the open-sourcing of the TON project, allowing the community to take over and continue its development. With Telegram's authorization, the community team re-launched and optimized TON, renaming it "The Open Network."

• In 2022, TON Nominator Pools, TON DeFi, TON DNS, TON payment, TON Proxy, TON Sites, and TON Storage were successively launched.

• In September 2023, as regulatory attitudes towards the crypto industry shifted, Telegram officially announced that it would consider TON as its own Web3 infrastructure, establishing a formal partnership.

• In June of this year, Tether also announced its collaboration with TON, integrating USDT into the TON ecosystem. Within three days, the total supply of USDT on the TON chain exceeded 60 million, and the user base of the ecosystem is growing rapidly.

Telegram's endorsement undoubtedly provided strong support for TON. As a technology giant with a massive user base, Telegram, coupled with Tether's support, will undoubtedly pave the way for the large-scale adoption of TON that everyone is anticipating.

2. TON's Latest Official Roadmap Reveals a Promising Future, with a series of important updates planned for the second half of 2024:

The latest roadmap from the TON official website

• The launch of the "Gasless Transactions" feature, which will significantly reduce users' transaction costs and improve the user experience.

• The launch of the "Official Cross-Chain Bridge" will not only enhance the security of TON but also enable seamless integration with other ecosystems, improving overall cross-chain interoperability.

• The release of a "Next-Generation Wallet" will provide users with more convenient and secure asset management tools.

• The introduction of a "Stablecoin Toolkit" will bring more financial application scenarios to the TON ecosystem, such as micro-payments, and more.

• The optimization of the "Staking Incentives" function can further incentivize user participation in network governance and maintenance.

These new plans will further enhance the functionality and competitiveness of TON. With the elimination of transaction fees, small-scale financial transactions become easier, giving rise to new application scenarios such as micro-payments and content payments within social platforms. Although TON has previously introduced third-party cross-chain bridges, the official cross-chain bridge will bring qualitative improvements in terms of security, user experience, and cross-ecosystem connectivity. In addition, once Telegram's massive user base is integrated with TON, traffic monetization will bring considerable commercial value to the entire ecosystem.

II. Current State of the Ecosystem

The TON team is continuously optimizing its technical architecture, striving to find a balance between performance and scalability. They have also been actively promoting ecosystem development, attracting more developers to join. Currently, 858 projects have joined the TON ecosystem, and we believe that the TON chain will soon usher in a more prosperous situation. Below are some important sections to introduce some TON ecosystem projects:

Data source: ton.app website

1. Wallets:

Wallets are the first step to participate in the TON ecosystem. According to ton.app's data, there are currently a total of 47 wallets supporting the TON chain, and here are a few commonly used ones:

Telegram embedded wallet connection page

• Ton Space:

The official wallet of the TON Foundation, embedded in Telegram. Users can directly connect from TON-based dApps using Ton Space through the Wallet section. Ton Space offers a non-custodial EVM wallet experience similar to Tonkeeper and other non-custodial wallets, allowing users to import existing accounts. In addition to mnemonic private keys, it also allows recovery via email and Telegram accounts. Note that it can currently only receive Toncoin and tokens on the TON chain.

• Tonkeeper:

A non-custodial Web3 wallet tailored for the TON ecosystem, where users have full control over their private keys and asset security. It supports receiving, sending, and purchasing cryptocurrencies directly within the app, with built-in exchange support for token and cryptocurrency trading, as well as support for TON staking. It also includes a built-in browser for private and secure dApp interaction, making it a super app in the TON environment.

• MyTonWallet:

A commonly used wallet in the TON ecosystem, requiring no KYC verification, and has issued the $MY token, which is not yet listed on centralized exchanges.

• Tonhub

• DeWallet

2. DeFi:

Although the TON chain has experienced explosive growth in TVL over the past two months, its underlying architecture design is not as developer-friendly as Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions. Therefore, we have not yet seen large-scale leading projects migrate to the TON chain, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in the diversity of DeFi. Here are a few leading DeFi protocols:

• Tonstakers: Liquidity staking, stake $TON to earn $stTON

• Ston.fi: An important project in the TON ecosystem, core functions include liquidity mining, DEX, lending services, staking, and rewards. Users can earn rewards by providing liquidity, token trading, borrowing and lending cryptocurrencies, and staking cryptocurrencies to earn rewards, with the most comprehensive trading pairs on TON.

• Bemo: Liquidity staking

• Stakee: Liquidity staking

• Evaa Protocol: Lending protocol

• Blum: CeDeFi exchange, one of the 13 projects in the Binance Labs MVB VII accelerator program

• Orbit Bridge: A cross-chain communication protocol developed by Orbit Chain, currently able to transfer assets from Klaytn, Polygon, Ethereum, Wemix Mainnet, and Orbit Chain to the TON network

3. Trading Markets:

There are many DEXs that support TON, such as common ones like Pancake, Uniswap, 1Inch, and Dodo, among others. CEXs have also mostly listed TON, and the NFT ecosystem is relatively mature. Comparing the trading volume of the largest DEXs on TON, Stonfi and DeDust, with the DEX data on ETH and SOL, there is still a significant difference.

• Ston.fi: DEX, with the issued token $STON

• DeDust: A DEX with similar functionality to Ston.fi

• Getgems.io: The most popular NFT trading market on TON, with features including buying and selling NFTs, minting NFTs, and transferring NFTs, and trading Notcoin NFTs, Telegram virtual numbers, Ton diamond NFTs, and more

• Anome: NFT asset issuance, trading market, and lending protocol

• Playmuse Marketplace: NFT trading market

• Fragment: A Telegram virtual number trading platform officially launched by TON in 2021, allowing for the trading of Telegram IDs and anonymous transactions

4. Games:

Data source: ton.app website

• Tap to earn: Notcoin, Hamster kombat, Yescoin, Tapswap, and more

• Pet raising games: Catizen, Gatto, and more

• Card games: Fanton, and more

• MMORPG: Tap fantasy, Pixelverse, and more

• Game platforms: Gamee, and more

5. Launchpads:

• TonUP: A launchpad platform, with the issued token $UP, listed on the XT exchange

• Tonstarter: A launchpad platform, with investments in DWF Labs, Kingswap, and more

• XTON: A launchpad platform, with the issued token $XTON, with low liquidity and not yet listed on centralized exchanges

• PlatformICO: A simple ICO platform on TON

6. Social:

• ton.place: Publish exclusive content and message followers to earn rewards

• TONEX: Social protocol

• MuggleLink: Freelancer recruitment platform

7. Tools:

• Tonviewer: Browser

• TonRadar: Information display tool

• TON Trending: Real-time display of trading pools with high 24-hour trading volume

• TONAPI: Developer tools

8. Ecosystem Support: The Open League (TOL)

In order to further promote the development of the TON ecosystem, TON launched The Open League (TOL) in early April this year. This series of incentive programs aims to increase user engagement in the entire ecosystem, expand the user base for projects, and develop more attractive and functional products for Telegram's massive audience. At the same time, participating developers and users will also receive corresponding rewards. The goal of this activity is to convert Telegram users into Web3 users, beginner-friendly, and provides various ways to earn income, including low-risk mining activities and related tasks, as well as high-risk LP and trading competitions.

It is reported that TOL will last for 3 seasons, each season lasting for 1 month. In the first season in April of this year, TON provided 30 million $TON as rewards to the community, valued at approximately $115 million at the time. The first season of the Open League includes The League, Token Mining, Quests & Airdrops, and Liquidity Pool Boosts. In each season, projects will compete fiercely on five KPI leaderboards based on their project categories, including token rankings, meme and community token rankings, DeFi rankings, app rankings, and liquidity staking rankings.

The launch of TOL has further stimulated the vitality of the TON ecosystem, attracting more developers and users to participate. This not only brings huge traffic to the development of various projects but also brings a new Web3 experience to Telegram users. With the continuous progress of subsequent seasons of TOL, we have reason to believe that the TON ecosystem will present a more vibrant development situation.

III. Popular Meme Projects in the Ecosystem

Tokens on the TON blockchain, also known as jettons (similar to ERC20 tokens), experienced rapid growth in the last quarter of 2023. Jettons largely drove an increase in trading activity and covered applications in DeFi, games, payments, and more.

1. Notcoin (NOT):

The first click-to-mine Memecoin on TON, Notcoin has attracted widespread attention with its unique mechanism. Notcoin has quickly gained tens of millions of active users, and is most popular in countries such as Russia, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, the United States, Germany, and Iran. Since its TGE in May, NOT has been listed on almost all major exchanges, with a market cap of nearly $1.5 billion, ranking 56th. The founder stated that in the future, more subsystems will be built for Notcoin, possibly including game platforms, competitions, ways to reward contributors, and even a decentralized university open to everyone, possibly based on AI.

2. TON FISH MEMECOIN (FISH):

The first social meme token on TON, not from the foundation, but launched by the community. It has attracted widespread attention upon its launch and is the leading meme token in the TON ecosystem. It has experienced multiple significant price surges and is currently tradable on the XT exchange. FISH has also introduced NFTs and gameplay, allowing users to earn FISH airdrops by free minting TON FISH BOX and upgrading. The team released a new game, TON PET, and a new meme token $TPET in May.

3. Renaissance Dog (REDO):

A dog-themed Meme token on TON, well-known in the TOL competition, with 100,000 followers on Twitter. The account is currently frozen for unknown reasons. The project token is fully circulated, with a total market value of $97 million, and high on-chain trading activity. It is also discussed by well-known KOLs on Twitter, and has high social media popularity. It is not yet listed on centralized exchanges.

4. Renaissance Cat (RECA):

A shield cat-themed Meme token on TON, launched in June, also well-known in the TOL competition, and has been ranked first in the TON TOL league for three consecutive days. It has a relatively small total market value of $6.5 million, with unlimited potential. There is currently a new user referral activity where new users can receive 0.2 $RECA daily by sharing on the Tg bot. It is not yet listed on centralized exchanges.

5. GRAM:

The first mining-type Meme on TON, allowing anyone to mine with a simple GPU, browser, or even a mobile phone. It ranked 5th in the first TOL competition. It has high social media popularity, with 200,000 followers on Twitter. It currently has a total market value of $57 million and is listed on Bitget.

IV. Popular Game Projects in the Ecosystem

According to the ton.app website, there are currently a total of 128 game projects in the TON ecosystem. Starting with Notcoin, it has sparked a trend of Tap-to-earn Telegram Mini Apps, with simple and fun game mechanics that allow users to earn airdrops with simple taps on their mobile screens. The popularity of Notcoin, followed by Catizen and Hamster Kombat, has greatly increased the DAU of the TON ecosystem. Here are a few popular Telegram Mini App games:

1. Hamster Kombat

Click the invitation link to enter the Tg bot directly:

https://t.me/hamsTerkombatbot/start?startapp=kentId6759384023

Hamster's YouTube education channel, Hamster Academy

Hamster Kombat is a Tap2Earn management simulation game where players earn coins by completing daily tasks with simple operations. It has become very popular in the Russian region due to videos made by KOLs on TikTok, attracting a large number of Web2 users. It is reported to have already reached over 100 million users. Additionally, Hamster Kombat's YouTube channel achieved over 10 million followers in just 7 days. It currently has nearly 10 million followers on Twitter and over 40 million followers on the official Telegram channel. It is reported that Hamster will launch its token $HMSTR in July, and XT will soon list HMSTR futures.

2. CatizenAI

Click the invitation link to enter the Tg bot directly:

https://t.me/catizenbot/gameapp?startapp=rp_19758779

Catizen's official token economy

CatizenAI is a Telegram Bot-based cat breeding synthesis game developed by the game studio Pluto Studio. The team launched its first Telegram Bot-based game, Tap Fantasy, in 2023. Catizen, supported by the TON official, launched its Beta version in March 2024, reaching 260,000 users in April and surpassing 12 million users in June. It currently has 1.7 million Twitter followers and has announced the token economy, with 42% of the total supply allocated for airdrops.

Catizen players mainly raise cats to earn game coins and earn token rewards through various in-game activities such as cat synthesis, spinning the wheel, and fishing. The game also features a mining mechanism, allowing players to earn $wCATI tokens by completing tasks and activities.

Additionally, Catizen has launched a Launchpool for new token offerings, distributing 840 million $wCATI in the first round of Launchpool in June, with over 24,000 users participating and over $39 million in staked funds. Catizen will also transition into a Telegram gaming platform and has signed contracts with 18 popular WeChat mini-games. The team has received funding support from the TON official and will gradually introduce more games on the Catizen gaming platform using its rich experience in blockchain and deployment in the TON ecosystem.

3. Tapswap

Click the invitation link to enter the Tg bot directly:

http://t.me/tapswap_bot

Tapswap is a simulation of Notcoin and also a Tap2Earn mining game, allowing players to earn game coins by tapping the screen, with expected airdrops. On June 19th, it held an AMA Space event with the TON official. It currently has 6.02 million Twitter followers, and the Telegram channel has over 22 million followers. Hamster Kombat and Tapswap have become the top three TG channels globally.

4. Yescoin:

Click the invitation link to enter the Tg bot directly:

https://t.me/theYescoin_bot

Yescoin is also an in-built bot game on Telegram. It ranked second in the App competition in the third season of The Open League, following Catizen. It currently has 3.1 million Twitter followers and over 20 million users. It is one of the fastest-growing games on TON in recent months. The game is simple to play, with a sliding screen to earn points, and also includes various task modes for collecting tokens.

5. Fanton Fantasy Football:

Click the invitation link to enter the Tg bot directly:

https://t.me/FanTonGameBot

Fanton is a chain game with a football play-to-earn model. As a game targeting football fans, Fanton cleverly combines NFT technology with football elements to provide users with a new digital collection and trading experience. Users can also earn rewards by participating in game activities, allowing them to play and earn. It currently has over 400,000 registered users and has received investments from TONcoin.Fund, First Stage Labs, and Tonstarter. The ongoing European Championship has also helped Fanton become a popular game on TON.

V. Outlook for the TON Ecosystem

At this year's Token 2049 Dubai conference, the TON Foundation stated that it positions the value of Telegram as "the freedom to communicate privately, express yourself, and build your applications," which has to some extent been gradually realized.

TON already has a rich array of Mini App applications, providing users with diverse services. Additionally, the TON ecosystem has integrated a convenient embedded wallet and connected various payment channels, providing users with a smoother user experience. The development of this diverse ecosystem has not only attracted a large influx of funds but has also driven a high level of fund activity. This "wealth effect" breaking through barriers will undoubtedly further propel TON to bring about broader and new application scenarios.

It is worth mentioning that TON is developing at a very fast pace. Tether continues to issue USDT on TON, and TON itself subsidizes users with high deposit rates to attract users, meeting the conditions for abundant ecological funds in a short time. The support of Telegram Mini Apps also gives TON enormous potential for mass adoption. If TON can continue to address the shortcomings in DeFi and other aspects in the future, or enhance the activity of funds within the ecosystem in other unexpected ways, it is believed that it will present even more surprising performance.

VI. Reference Links:

[1]. https://docs.ton.org/ton.pdf

[2]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_Open_Network

[3]. https://ton.org/zh/open-league?filterBy=forProjects

[4]. https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_16889.html

[5]. https://www.wublock123.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=47&id=19913

[6]. https://coinmarketcap.com/community/zh/articles/66616d8c54b0982fadf3c476/

[7]. https://www.blocktempo.com/history-technology-and-ecological-construction-of-ton-ecology-from-an-investment-perspective/

[8]. https://www.odaily.news/post/5194796

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