Author: Blockworks Research
Translation: Felix, PANews
Recently, there has been a high level of narrative heat around TON and Telegram, with many people believing that TON will be the next SOL or ETH. Blockworks Research has published an article interpreting this and believes that TON's subsequent growth is weak, fearing disappointment.
Telegram's Low User Stickiness
Telegram has global influence, and its considerable daily active user (DAU) numbers can drive users to TON. By this measure, Telegram is one of the most widely used applications globally.
According to data provided by Telegram, it is one of the most popular applications globally, with a total user base of 900 million, ranking 8th among global applications.
However, when measured by DAU, Telegram's user stickiness is overestimated.
The DAU/MAU ratio of various social applications shown in the following figure indicates that although Telegram's monthly active users (MAU) are high, the DAU is relatively low (ranging from 55 million to around 200 million, which is very low compared to competing applications), with a DAU/MAU ratio of only 15%.
In comparison, Facebook's ratio is 69%, WeChat is about 67%, Instagram is 60%, TikTok (only counting the U.S. market) is 49%, and Twitter (X) is 45%. This indicates that Telegram's market penetration is low, and its user base for profitability is lower than market expectations.
PANews Note: The DAU/MAU ratio can measure the stickiness of network or application users.
Incompatibility with EVM, Limited Use of Programming Languages
The TON ecosystem team will face the challenge of lacking EVM compatibility and FunC (the native programming language of blockchain).
The TON Virtual Machine (TVM) is not compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) because TON adopts a completely different architecture (TON is asynchronous, while Ethereum is synchronous). Therefore, the TON ecosystem does not support development in Ethereum's Solidity programming language.
According to a 2023 developer survey report (with over 90,000 developers participating), Rust is the most favored language, with over 80% of developers hoping to use it again next year. 46.4% of developers expect to use Solidity.
Meanwhile, the three programming languages available on TON are Fift, FunC, and Tact. Currently, FunC is the most widely used language. Although FunC looks similar to the C language, it is generally not well-known or favored.
Limited Terminal Market Coverage
A significant part of the TON narrative growth is the belief that Telegram will become the next WeChat. However, WeChat is blocked outside the U.S. market and only serves the Chinese market.
In contrast, the current application market is dominated by financially strong tech giants with well-established network effects, and Telegram's largest market distribution is in the dispersed markets of the Asia-Pacific region (excluding China and Eastern Europe), adding complexity for startups using Telegram for distribution.
The following are the annual download distributions of Telegram in 2022:
- India: 104 million downloads.
- Russia: 34 million downloads.
- Indonesia: 27 million downloads.
- United States: 26 million downloads.
- Brazil: 21.94 million downloads.
- Egypt: 14.85 million downloads.
- Vietnam: 11.84 million downloads.
- Mexico: 11.61 million downloads.
- Ukraine: 10.76 million downloads.
- Turkey: 9.79 million downloads.
Overvaluation of FDV
Despite these realities, TON still has huge growth potential, with little safety margin for new investors.
The following figure shows that among all public chains, TON's FDV is 8.6 times its network's annualized DEX trading volume, ranking first and at the highest level.
In addition, the FDV is 927 times its network's annualized fees, ranking high among all public chains.
Related reading: A List of 10 Interactive New Projects in the TON Ecosystem
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