Reinterpreting the cross-ecosystem connectivity of the "niche public chain" TON
Author: Mint Ventures
Introduction: Decoupling the Concept of Classical Public Chains
The numbers on DefiLlama and CoinMarketCap seem to conclusively show that TON is a "giant underdog public chain"—with a long-term market cap consistently in the top 20, but a 24-hour trading volume always outside the top 100; under the new high of TVL, it only has 53M, failing to make it into the top 50 public chains; the MC/TVL valuation has reached an astonishing 293, which is 33 times that of Ethereum.
Source: DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap
The past few months have witnessed the decoupling of the public chain concept defined by Ethereum through Rollup and modularization. The narrative of chain legitimacy has weakened, and the market has accepted the superficial chain names of Blast, while also realizing that AO is acting as a public chain under the guise of a network.
This change has accelerated the release of TON's potential under its "not orthodox" positioning. The market's understanding of TON has begun to move away from framing it within the classical public chain narrative based on TVL, and perhaps metrics closer to user engagement, such as daily and monthly active users, should also be taken into account.
Recently, Telegram founder Durov stated to the Financial Times that Telegram's monthly active users have surpassed 900 million, with a valuation exceeding $30 billion, and they are considering an IPO. In comparison, Meta has 3 billion monthly active users and a market cap of $1.3 trillion, making Telegram's valuation only 1/40 of that. Moreover, Telegram's user base is concentrated in Asia, Europe, South America, and the Middle East, with a clear retail investor characteristic and strong demand for peer-to-peer payments, making it an ideal Web3 conversion target. As Telegram continues to grow, if TON can successfully onboard 30% of Telegram users within 3-5 years, it may effectively support its valuation.
Source: DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap, Nansen, Token Terminal
New Paradigm of Web3 Creation: Content Packaging and Value Transfer Based on Telegram
Distribution Model Split, Telegram Opens Up Web2 Incremental Market
In a previous article, I outlined three stages of the Web3 creator economy, where stage 1.0 aligns with the simplest "blockchain+" logic, adopting a centralized content creation + Web3 distribution model (mainly in the form of NFTs). This model remains mainstream, although NFTs are increasingly seen as speculative tools rather than creative carriers.
Since the beginning of this year, my experience with the TON ecosystem has gradually made me realize that, based on attention-driven traffic paths, the content/rights/governance packaging functions of NFTs could potentially be more naturally replaced by a "channel-advertising-payment" system. The once-popular Friend.tech can be seen as an intermediate form of this idea—packaging group chats into assets, but the content is difficult to scale, and the economic model lacks sustainability.
Compared to many NFT and SocialFi projects still struggling to find application scenarios for their assets, the TON ecosystem based on Telegram has built a product experience and value network that is more user-friendly for Web2 developers/creators and users—further splitting the Web3 distribution model into Web2 business forms + middleware wallets + Web3 settlement. This not only lowers the understanding and operational thresholds for creators and users but also enriches creators' income sources (advertising revenue).
Source: Lydia @Mint Ventures
From Content to Services, Trading Bots Facilitate Web3 Stock Conversion
The Web2 Super App WeChat has achieved ecological expansion from content to services by launching service accounts and mini-programs, and Telegram has followed a similar approach by introducing business accounts and service bots to solidify its position as a mobile traffic entry point, with Trading Bots being particularly favored by crypto users.
The Trading Bot sector has developed rapidly since 2023, becoming one of the few products with real demand and cash flow during the bear market. After the market turned bullish, the money-raising effect of the Bot sector has been further amplified, with leading protocols like Banana Gun and Unibot generating daily revenues exceeding $200,000. Currently, apart from a few deployed on web pages and Discord, most Trading Bots interact through Telegram.
Source: https://dune.com/whale_hunter/dex-trading-bot-wars
At this stage, Trading Bot trading is not closely related to TON, mainly connecting to Ethereum and Solana through Telegram's Bot module. However, the popularity of Bots has significantly aided market education and user mindset cultivation for the TON ecosystem. As crypto users begin to get accustomed to new interaction methods like Bots, the psychological friction of experiencing other non-trading products within the TON ecosystem will significantly decrease. Coupled with a complete on-chain identity system and payment module, TON can theoretically build a self-consistent content packaging and value transfer system.
Exploring the Marketplace Model: TON's Bot Universe and Mini App Store
Currently, many products in the TON ecosystem appear to be simple Telegram Bot entries + H5 web pages, combined with the rapidly scrolling Telegram groups, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of a bustling yet chaotic marketplace.
In the meme project Notcoin, players simply click on coins on the screen to exchange for points, join teams of celebrities (like Telegram founder Durov), or "send red envelopes" to friends for traffic. With its mindless gameplay and viral spread, Notcoin attracted 5 million players within a week, currently boasting over 26 million players and 1 million followers on X (Twitter). In the pre-market trading shortly after its launch, the highest transaction amount was a trade for 100 million points at 1100 TON (approximately $4,521).
As a darling of the crypto celebrity scene, Farcaster's Frames feature, launched in January 2024, has been hailed as an "amazing innovation." However, this feature has not performed well on mobile devices with higher traffic density—while users can perform some basic Swap and Mint operations, completing even the simplest mini-games in a small box occupying less than one-third of the phone screen poses a significant challenge for vision.
In contrast, it is less mentioned that the combination of Telegram and TON has already completed a nearly seamless transition from chat box to semi-native application, with the speed of invoking applications through Bots even faster than WeChat mini-programs.
Telegram launched its Bot feature in June 2015, which does not allow for customizable interface styles and does not enable direct communication between the client and server. Trading Bots built on this feature are not standalone applications but proxy interfaces, thus limiting response speed and making parallel interactions difficult.
In April 2022, Telegram introduced Mini Apps, allowing developers to fully control the user interface and enabling "direct communication between the client and server." Mini Apps provide a more user-friendly interaction and stronger composability, seamlessly integrating with wallets and other infrastructure, suitable for diverse Web3 product deployments, and can even replace all mobile web pages.
After the launch of Mini Apps, Bots did not exit the historical stage but instead played the role of a "conveying room," linking multiple Mini Apps as the primary entry point for user interactions.
Source: TON x Fans | TON心粉
Source: Lydia
At this stage, deploying a Bot and Mini App is not very difficult. Users can quickly set up their own Bot through a Q&A format in the Telegram @BotFather channel, or experience the completed Mini App virtual ordering experience through @DurgerKingBot.
Differentiated On-Chain Experience: The Highlight of the TON Ecosystem
Lightweight Games
In an era of surplus public chain performance, playing a game on Ethereum L2, Solana, or BSC does not make much difference in experience. However, for a game with strong social attributes (such as card games or other party games), sharing a team or waiting for random matches with strangers on Telegram provides a vastly different experience.
Tap Fantasy, originally an MMORPG game on Facebook, attracted over 700,000 players after entering Web3 on BSC and Solana chains. In August 2023, as the first IDO project of TON ecosystem's first Launchpad, TonUP, Tap Fantasy's token $MC sold out in half an hour. In November 2023, Tap Fantasy officially launched a new version based on TON, issued by the Web3 game incubation company Pluto. The new version surpassed 600,000 players in three months, with over 16,000 on-chain players. Due to a well-functioning in-game economy, the exchange rate of token $MC relative to TON rose from 0.2 to 1.
The new game Catizen, incubated by Pluto, is a metaverse cat-raising game that combines AI. It launched a closed beta test on March 7, 2024, accumulating over 160,000 players and 13,000 on-chain users within five days. Catizen also collaborated with the leading meme $FISH in the TON ecosystem, planning to airdrop to $FISH holders after the test ends.
Source: Tap Fantasy TON version dashboard 
Source: Catizen dashboard
Social Inscription and Meme
As a new asset issuance method that has emerged in this cycle, the BTC inscription ecosystem's overflow to multiple chains is an experimental trend. The development of TON's inscription ecosystem has also integrated the Telegram frontend and built-in wallet, enhancing interaction convenience while achieving a twofold benefit of preventing scientific fraud.
- $NANO: The first TON20 inscription, bringing 20 million interactions and 36,000 unique minting addresses to the TON ecosystem
- $GRAM: Named after the SEC-stopped native token of the Telegram Open Network, it was the first to execute deployment, minting, and transfer using the Telegram mini-program frontend
- $TONOT: Breaking the record held by $NANO with 61,000 unique minting addresses and 57,000 holders, supporting the conversion between inscriptions-NFTs-Tokens, with product planning including in-game currency, DID, and staking mining
Meme assets had long been relatively barren on the "underdog public chain" TON, and crypto users lacked a window to understand TON until Notcoin broke through.
- $NOT: Notcoin is set to airdrop $NOT tokens at the end of March or early April, with pre-market trading taking place on the TON ecosystem's NFT trading market Getgems
- $REDO: The concept comes from a hand-drawn image by Telegram founder Durov during a protest, currently the highest market cap meme in the TON ecosystem
- $FISH: Ton Fish is the first social meme in the TON ecosystem, with over 18,000 current holders
- $TPET: Ton Fish ecosystem meme, fair launch continues until March 26, will serve as the main token for the game Ton Pet: Tik Ton, with $FISH and NFT holders having the chance to receive an airdrop
Multi-Chain Liquidity Launchpad
XTON is the first Launchpad in the TON ecosystem to introduce multi-chain liquidity, with team members from the TON Foundation. XTON will complete its mainnet launch and token sale in Q1, and initiate its first project in Q2. Following XTON's vision, the TON ecosystem will have the opportunity to achieve bilateral traffic connection between Web2 social giants and the Web3 EVM world.
Conclusion: A Future Towards Interconnectivity
Since March, with news of Telegram announcing the use of TON to handle advertising revenue, Binance launching U-based contracts, and Telegram seeking an IPO, the long-silent TON token price has quickly completed a two-tier jump, and on-chain activity has also seen a significant increase.
Source: https://www.tonstat.com/
Looking back at TON's roadmap since its inception in 2018, from Telegram's initiation to community takeover, from the launch of the first cross-chain bridge to the gradually improving infrastructure, the resilience and vitality of the TON ecosystem are impressive. In 2024, TON will focus on stablecoins, cross-chain bridges, and the Asian market, and we look forward to seeing TON become a truly open network for interconnectivity between different regions, ecosystems, and applications, allowing each of us within it to glimpse the ancient future that blockchain has long promised.
All data in this article is as of March 13, 2024.
References
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC5G2581M8s\&ab_channel=TOKEN2049
- https://decrypt.co/220711/telegram-game-notcoin-launches-pre-market-trading-ahead-airdrop
- https://medium.com/@tonx_fans/tg-mini-app-dev-3aff329bf05a
- https://ton.org/en/roadmap
- https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail_16072.html
