How sexy is the narrative of Ton+Telegram?

Original Title: "How Sexy is the Narrative of Ton + Telegram?"

Original Author: 3P-Labs

One, Introduction

Last week, I spent a lot of time researching Ton. On the first night, I was so excited that I couldn't sleep for over an hour because I felt the huge opportunity that Ton + Telegram brings to the industry.

Are you tired of the constant narrative of internal competition in the public chain industry?

In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of various dazzling public chains such as Ethereum, EOS, Polygon, Solana, Avax, and recently launched Aptos and Sui. Except for Ethereum, which relies on a huge community and users to maintain innovation, other public chains are just constantly repeating existing patterns without bringing breakthrough innovations. These public chains have been focusing on performance (TPS), security, and narrative, but these efforts have hardly solved any practical problems or attracted a large number of incremental new users. They are just duplicating products on Ethereum, financing, and cutting the secondary market.

Individual investors are already tired of the narrative around public chains. Apart from taking advantage of airdrops and market volatility, from a product perspective, people are simply not interested in trying out Dapps in ecosystems such as Aptos and Sui. This is because these Dapps are nothing more than replicas of the Ethereum ecosystem, with only slight differences in interface and interaction, and 99% of the products do not bring any innovation.

二、Ton + Telegram 为 Web3 带来了什么？

Translation:

2. What does Ton + Telegram bring to Web3?

Now, we can discuss what sets Ton apart from other public chains. In other words, where does Ton's value lie? Why did it quickly rise to the top ten during the bear market?

The best example of the fusion of Ton and Telegram is currently the recently released built-in wallet - Ton Space. Although it may seem like just an added wallet feature, the significance behind it is far more important than it appears on the surface. Looking back, when WeChat first publicly displayed the red envelope function during the 2014 Spring Festival Gala, did you realize that WeChat Pay would bring about huge changes to the payment industry and lifestyle?

For a better understanding, let's make an analogy. Wallets such as TP, Trustwallet, and OKX Wallet can be compared to Alipay, and the various Dapps in the wallet (regardless of which public chain they come from) are equivalent to various apps in Alipay (such as finance, funds, loans, etc.). In Telegram, Ton Space can be seen as WeChat Pay, and the applications used through Ton Space are equivalent to WeChat mini-programs. They are not limited to financial products, but can also be ordinary applications for daily life. As we all know, Alipay focuses on financial attributes, focusing on personal wealth management, and has attracted many institutions and banks to settle in. WeChat, on the other hand, relies on social attributes, mainly to meet the needs of users for frequent small transfers, while also providing simple financial functions.

When users use WeChat, they don't care about the technology behind it, such as where the cloud server is located or whether the development language used is Java or Python. Similarly, when Telegram users use cryptocurrency for payment, they don't care about the underlying public chain being Ethereum or Ton. From this perspective, the product interaction of the future Telegram wallet should minimize the presence of Ton. Currently, Ton actively connects with EVM chains through cross-chain, and in the future, it is highly likely that other public chains will actively connect with Ton through cross-chain, because the user entry point is Ton + Telegram.

It is worth mentioning that currently, TVL is often used as a judgment criterion for the value of public chains in the industry. However, Ton's valuation does not rely entirely on TVL; transaction volume and protocol revenue from Dapps will account for a large part. Of course, it is not like other public chains where the transaction volume is artificially inflated, but rather generated by real users. Just like WeChat, you may not store a large amount of funds in it, but due to frequent use, you may eventually find that the transaction volume is even higher than that of Alipay.

Through the above comparison, it can be seen that Ton+Telegram is unlikely to develop relying on financial products like other public chains, but rather through the explosion of other utility products. A partner at ABCDEF, Lao Bai (@Wuhuoqiu), expressed this point very aptly in one sentence:

Ton's momentum is unlikely to rely on traditional Dex, lending and other Defi suites, but more likely to cut into the payment, Bot, Social, Game and other tracks.

In short, the value of Ton lies not in Ton itself, but in its integration with Telegram. Without Telegram's support, Ton would be just another public chain caught in the cycle of internal competition.

Ton Space (Web3 version of WeChat wallet) demonstration

After writing so much, a direct demonstration is still necessary to allow everyone to deeply understand.

Dapp wakes up Ton Space on the client side

Currently, users can only activate Ton Space within Telegram from the Dapp side. However, in the future, Ton Space will be able to directly access Dapps like TP, OKX Wallet, and other wallets. Additionally, Ton Space also supports bots, which is another important highlight that combines with the recent trend of bot racing.

With this wallet entrance, transfers between users and payments between users and Dapps will be connected.

Here's a classic user scenario: in the future, you can create a Telegram group with a few friends, just like on WeChat, and use Ton Space to collect payments and transfer money to each other, without worrying about abnormal transactions leading to account suspension. (When my friend reviewed my draft, they informed me that there is a similar app available: see here, but it hasn't been integrated with Ton Space yet.)

The most important reason for the recent surge in Ton's price was the positive news of Ton Space's release. To summarize with a quote [^2] (TON Space: Telegram's future "WeChat wallet" for cryptocurrency):

The built-in encrypted wallet TON Space in Telegram is referred to by the TON team as "a huge milestone for the entire TON ecosystem". Telegram will only integrate with TON, and its 800 million users will become potential users of TON Space.

Three, Other Information about Ton

This article mainly discusses the narrative and value of Ton. As for Ton's development history, economic model, ecological overview, and other information, there are many existing materials available. The following is only a brief overview. For more information, please refer to the cited materials.

3.1 Ton and Telegram Relationship

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For users who are new to Ton, their biggest question is what is the relationship between Ton and Telegram?

In 2018, Telegram raised $1.7 billion in a private placement (the token was then called GRAM). In 2019, it was accused by the SEC of illegal fundraising. In 2020, Telegram was forced to abandon the project but open-sourced the code. The community then took over the project and established the TON foundation, and the token was renamed $Ton. Initially, Telegram founder Durov was dismissive of the project and even warned followers that TON had nothing to do with Telegram. However, Durov's attitude has changed since 2022. On August 23, 2022, Durov publicly praised the domain auction conducted by TON. In the latest Token 2049, Durov even announced that Telegram and TON blockchain will have closer cooperation.

For more details, please refer to [^3]: Detailed explanation of The Open Network, is TON on the eve of a surge?

3.2 Ton Economic Model

The initial supply of TON tokens is 5 billion, with no upper limit on supply, of which 1.45% is allocated to the team. The tokens will increase at a rate of approximately 0.6% per year and will be used to reward validators who maintain network security. TON began mining using the PoW method in June 2020, accounting for 98.55% of the total supply. The last TON token will be mined on June 28, 2022.

In February of this year, TON launched a community proposal to freeze 171 inactive early wallets, totaling 1.08 billion $TON.

For more details, please refer to [^4][^5].

3.3 Ton Ecology

According to ton.app statistics, there are currently 551 apps in the Ton ecosystem. This is not a small number for a public chain that has not yet exploded. However, only 7 apps are included in DefiLlama, and the top-ranked Dex accounts for nearly half of the Tvl (4.87M). Most of these apps are non-financial products, which is in line with Ton's positioning and expectations, and provides a good testing ground for non-financial products.

Ton App Categories

3.4 Ton Insufficient (Risk Point)

1) TVL too low:

As a public chain with a market value of up to 8 billion US dollars, its total value locked (Tvl) is only a dismal 10 million US dollars.

This is both a disadvantage and an opportunity, especially for developers. They have enough time to delve into the potential opportunities in the ecosystem. At the same time, the Ton project team has also recognized this issue. Recently, the foundation has actively attracted developers by holding hackathons and launching support funds.

2) Relies on support from Telegram

Pavel Durov's influence on Ton can be compared to SBF's influence on Solana, but there is an important difference between the two: SBF provides capital support, while Pavel Durov has the Telegram social platform with 800 million users behind him. If one day Pavel Durov announces that he will no longer support Ton, it will have a devastating impact on the Ton ecosystem. Of course, as the ecosystem and applications between Ton and Telegram become more closely tied, this impact will gradually weaken.

Four, Conclusion

How to profit in the Ton ecosystem?

After writing so much, we still need to return to the original intention of making money. The purpose of this article is not to hype the Ton coin, as the current market situation suggests that the Ton market value is likely overestimated. However, the ecological projects within it are severely underestimated because only a few users are involved in mining and participation. When a certain application suddenly explodes or a bull market arrives, the Ton ecology will inevitably bring about a huge wealth effect. (Of course, the premise is that the foundation/project party does not rug or have any unexpected issues.)

On the other hand, developers have the widest range of opportunities in the Ton ecosystem. Unlike starting a business on other public chains, the Ton ecosystem provides developers with greater innovation space. This means that developers can focus their energy on various fields, not just financial products. They can explore games, social products, and even simple bot applications, all of which have great potential for development. The Ton ecosystem provides a broad stage for innovation, allowing Web3 builders to explore new business opportunities.

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[^1]、[^2] 、[^3] 、[^4] 、[^5]

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