Author: Blockchain in Plain Language, Day
Original Title: “Backed by an 800 million monthly active social media giant, will the TON ecosystem be a flash in the pan or will it surge forward?”
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The popularity of the Telegram Bot track this year has also brought attention to the concepts related to the Telegram platform. TON suddenly emerged from obscurity and quickly rose to No. 9 in market value (currently fallen to No. 11).
In addition, at the recent TOKEN2049 summit, the Telegram team announced that Telegram will become a Web3 gateway through TON, attracting widespread attention to the concepts related to Telegram and further boosting the popularity of TON. Of course, opinions on the future development of Telegram vary. Some are optimistic and believe that the ecosystem will generate enormous wealth, while others believe it will be all talk and no action.
Today, let’s briefly understand the development history of Telegram and TON in the blockchain industry.
Telegram’s Attempt in the Blockchain Industry
Telegram has a large 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, on July 18th, Telegram has over 2.5 million new user registrations every day and over 800 million monthly active users.
According to data compiled by statista in January 2023, this number is 1.4 times that of Twitter (556 million), 0.61 times that of WeChat (1.309 billion), and 0.86 times that of Facebook (931 million), surpassing TikTok (715 million). Telegram currently has a large user base in the crypto industry and is considered one of the essential apps for crypto.
Telegram has been optimistic about the blockchain industry for a long time. As early as 2017, Telegram released a white paper called the Telegram Open Network (TON). TON is designed as a decentralized blockchain platform that aims to provide a secure and high-performance blockchain solution to support Telegram’s communication and services.
In order to support the development and launch of TON, Telegram conducted two rounds of fundraising in 2018, raising $1.7 billion from 175 investors. This made TON one of the largest financing projects at that time, with an estimated total market value of $29.5 billion in TokenGram, roughly double the market value of Ethereum at the time and second only to Bitcoin, indicating its high popularity at the time.
Originally planned to issue Gram Tokens in March 2019, Telegram’s blockchain project 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 position, banned Telegram from issuing its cryptocurrency Gram within the United States, and required the return of investors’ funds. In response to the court’s ruling, on May 13, 2020, Telegram’s founder, LianGuaivel Durov, announced the termination of TON’s research and development and began to refund a portion of the investors’ funds, which dealt a significant blow to Telegram’s blockchain ambitions.
Despite the termination of TON, Telegram is still looking for opportunities in the blockchain field. They have launched Telegram LianGuaissport and Telegram LianGuaiyments. Telegram LianGuaissport allows users to share identity information between different blockchain identity verification services, while Telegram LianGuaiyments provides a way to make payments on the Telegram platform. This shows their focus on the potential of blockchain technology in user identity verification and finance.
According to some reports, Telegram is considering adding cryptocurrency adapters to its messaging application. This means that users can directly engage in cryptocurrency transactions on the Telegram platform without leaving the application. There are also reports that Telegram is considering integrating cryptocurrency wallets into its messaging application. This would enable users to store and send cryptocurrencies within Telegram, further promoting the adoption and use of cryptocurrencies. These actions lay the foundation for future collaboration between Telegram and The Open Network.
TON to carry on Telegram?
In May 2020, TON Labs, the TON project’s development team, announced the open-source release of the TON project’s code and the termination of its development. Subsequently, the decentralized community Free TON, composed of software developers, 13 validators, and users, released a forked version of the “Free TON Blockchain” with the token name “Ton Crystals.”
According to TON Labs’ announcement, the community will also offer 85% of the TON Tokens to users for free. The Free TON community states that anyone can join the network. Currently, Ton Crystals has officially stopped updating for a long time, and its price cannot be found, remaining in a stagnant state.
In May 2021, the Newton developer community, spontaneously formed by the Telegram community, continued the research on TON and advanced the development of the TON project.
In 2021, Newton was renamed TON Foundation, and TON changed from the original Telegram Open Network to The Open Network. The on-chain encrypted token also changed to TON, with the goal of becoming the most user-friendly payment method. Starting from June 2020, 98.55% of the total supply of TON was available for mining, and after two years, all TON tokens were produced.
On April 12, 2022, TON Foundation launched its ecosystem fund and received a $250 million investment from some institutions. The fund is mainly used to support the development of TON ecosystem projects. With the promotion of TON Foundation, TON has been gradually launched on various platforms.
TON was initially created to serve Telegram, and despite encountering some obstacles along the way, Telegram users will eventually come into contact with the TON ecosystem. Other blockchain projects face major difficulties in acquiring new users due to high complexity and entry barriers. However, TON is seamlessly connected to the Telegram application, greatly reducing the difficulty. In April 2022, TON Foundation announced the provision of a wallet bot for Telegram, which means that Telegram users can directly send and receive TON and exchange other cryptocurrencies within Telegram.
With the development of these years, the community continues to add more use cases for TON, such as DeFi, periodic subsidy programs, etc., expanding the user base. TON is gradually becoming the underlying currency of the ecosystem, continuously expanding its application scenarios in DeFi, NFT, and other fields.
In general, Telegram’s attempt to build TON was blocked by the SEC, but the TON technology has gained community support and 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. Due to the founder’s statement, the project was ignored by everyone and lacked official support. The general opinion is that it is highly unlikely to succeed without a well-known backer.
Current Situation
The attitude of Telegram’s founder has gradually changed over the years, from early rejection and disapproval, with no official support, to publicly appreciating the domain name auction for TON starting 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, Telegram officially announced a partnership with the TON Foundation. Telegram integrated “TON SLianGuaice,” a self-hosted cryptocurrency wallet launched by TON, allowing direct access to the wallet in the Telegram menu, completing the crypto self-circulation.
TON SLianGuaice users can seamlessly connect with TON’s ecosystem applications through their Telegram accounts. Users can directly access TON SLianGuaice from decentralized applications (dApps) based on TON and enjoy its features and services. TON SLianGuaice acts as a blockchain account, supporting assets such as TON in the ecosystem. Some people compare the importance of this partnership between TON SLianGuaice and Telegram to WeChat Pay and Tencent.
Although there is currently a lot of media discussion about Telegram’s ecosystem, the partnership has not brought much growth to the ecosystem after it was announced. According to defillima’s data, the current TVL (Total Value Locked) of TON is only 16.86 million, and there is no significant influx of funds.
TON TVL changes Source: hellobtc.pro
Some people believe that the short-term impressive performance of TON is entirely due to Telegram Bot, and the official partnership has not had much impact. Moreover, the current performance of the TON ecosystem is average, with most projects being replicas of the Ethereum ecosystem and lacking any outstanding features. However, there are also people who hold the opposite view and believe that there will be popular projects in the future. After all, with 800 million monthly active users, Telegram is a terrifying number and is in the same league as Twitter and WeChat. It is also a gathering place for crypto users, making the TON ecosystem worth paying attention to.
Summary
Above is the current development of Telegram and the TON ecosystem. Currently, TON ranks 12th in terms of market value. Some people believe that this is the result of the project team’s strong control, with most of the chips concentrated in the hands of the project team. Whether it is worth paying attention to or not depends on personal opinions.
Disclaimer: This article represents the author’s independent opinion and does not represent the position of Blockchain Talk. This content is for the purpose of popularizing knowledge and facilitating communication among crypto enthusiasts. It does not constitute investment advice or suggestions. Please approach it rationally, establish correct concepts, and enhance risk awareness. The copyright and final interpretation rights of this article belong to Blockchain Talk.
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