Author: Biteye Core Contributor Willson Lee

Editor: Biteye Core Contributor Crush

With Binance listing multiple Toncoin (TON) tokens in the past few months, the market's enthusiasm for this ecosystem has been growing.

From mini-program games to payment bots, more and more users are flocking in. Can the TON ecosystem break through its current bottlenecks and achieve sustainable development? In this article, Biteye will delve into the future potential of the TON ecosystem, both in the short and medium-to-long term. Please read on!

01 Background: Continuous Listing of TON Ecosystem Tokens

In this cycle, the sentiment against high FDV and low circulating supply "VC coins" was once widely popular among investors. As a top exchange, Binance announced in June this year that it would open its listing plan to more mid-to-low market cap projects, in line with the market rhythm.

Among the series of mid-to-small market cap projects that have been listed, the listing of TON-related tokens such as $NOT, $TON, $DOGS, $CATI, and $HMSTR has attracted widespread attention and some controversy, and has also completely ignited the Telegram mini-program track.

$NOT is the token of the Tap to Earn mini-game Notcoin. Telegram users only need to enter the Notcoin channel and click the screen to earn $NOT.

The "foolproof" operation has led to a viral spread of Notcoin on Telegram. Since its launch on January 1, 2024, Notcoin has become one of the hottest and most user-active channels on Telegram. The community enthusiasm is extremely high, with over 30 million participants and a daily active peak of over 5 million.

Due to its simple and direct gameplay, when Binance announced the listing of $NOT in May, many users exclaimed: This can also be listed? A large number of surprised users had to pay attention to the TON ecosystem and "join the fray".

Source: https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/05/16/notcoin-launches-on-ton-blockchain-with-80b-token-airdrop/

With the explosion of Notcoin in the market and the influx of a large number of users, TON ecosystem projects and users have shown a surge. In August, Binance also successively listed $TON spot and $DOGS spot. In September, $CATI and $HMSTR spot were also listed.

Unlike the other projects, $DOGS is a pure meme, with its black and white dog image inspired by Telegram's founder Pavel Durov. He drew this iconic dog Spotty at a charity auction to support an orphanage.

$DOGS opened Airdrop to all Telegram users, with different amounts of points awarded based on account registration time and activity. After the Airdrop eligibility query was opened, users could also check in and complete tasks to continuously receive points, with the points corresponding to the Airdrop amount.

42.2 million Telegram users were eligible for the $DOGS Airdrop, and ultimately 17 million users successfully claimed the Airdropped tokens. Before being listed on Binance, $DOGS already had 4.5 million unique holder addresses.

Source: https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/08/21/dogs-coin-tge-postponed-check-out-new-date/

$CATI is the token of the mini-game Catizen. As a cat-themed Telegram mini-program game, players only need to activate the bot on the Telegram messaging platform to easily start the game.

New players will receive an initial level cat. As the game progresses, more cats will "airdrop" into the player's cafe. If you have two cats of the same level, you can drag them together to upgrade to a higher level cat and increase its coin-earning ability.

Since its launch in March 2024, Catizen has accumulated 40 million players, of which 15.2 million users are eligible for the Airdrop.

Source: https://gam3s.gg/catizen/

$HMSTR is the token of another click-to-earn mini-game Hamster Kombat, with the core gameplay still being click-to-earn coins.

After its launch, Hamster Kombat has gained an astonishing number of users, registering 2.39 billion users within three months, of which about 1 billion are monthly active users.

Source: https://hamsterkombatdaily.in/blog/hamster-kombat-app/

02 Thoughts from the Exchange Perspective: Business Growth and Market Demand

From the above listed projects, except for $TON, the other four tokens are projects with simple and brutal participation methods and have huge user data. Although slightly homogenized, they have still been able to be listed consecutively on Binance, and the logic behind it, though varied, the most important one is that the large holder community of these tokens can bring significant business growth to Binance.

Exchange listings, user deposits, and trading can directly bring a large number of users and trading volume to Binance. The continuous listing actions of Binance suggest that the growth effect is quite good.

Compared to other Web3 dApps, the user numbers of TON ecosystem tokens can be described as terrifying. The data of Hamster Kombat would also be very competitive in the Web2 world.

03 Why the TON Ecosystem?

The TON ecosystem has such a strong listing effect, which is inseparable from the strong user and traffic base backed by Telegram.

The origin of Telegram is based on the demand for encrypted communication, and its founders Pavel Durov and Nikita Durov have jointly promoted the development of this platform.

As the third largest instant messaging application in the world by downloads, Telegram has over 950 million users, covering multiple regions, especially with a strong presence in India, Russia, and Southeast Asian countries.

Telegram itself has a strong crypto gene. Telegram is dedicated to protecting user privacy through confidential communication, and Telegram also launched TON in 2018 and conducted an ICO to fund the development of TON.

However, due to the SEC's legal lawsuit against Telegram, Telegram was forced to stop the development of the project and return the investors' funds in 2020. The developers continued to drive the development of TON after separating it from Telegram, forming an independent community.

Although Telegram and TON have an independent operating relationship, TON maintains close ties with Telegram in terms of technical architecture and user base.

TON's technical architecture perfectly fits Telegram, and Telegram has also taken an embracing attitude towards the integration of TON. Therefore, TON's applications can seamlessly integrate into the Telegram platform, forming an advantage that other blockchains cannot match.

Telegram's inherent crypto gene also makes Telegram users more receptive to Crypto. This integration allows users to enjoy extremely high convenience when using TON, especially for new users, as the familiar environment can effectively reduce their learning costs and greatly improve user conversion rates.

For the crypto conversion potential of Telegram users, a study estimates that about 10%-15% of Telegram users may show interest in or have some understanding of cryptocurrencies.

If calculated based on 950 million, the potential crypto users may be between 95 million and 140 million. For these potential users, the seamless integration of TON + Telegram is undoubtedly an efficient conversion method. Telegram's crypto gene is TON's greatest asset.

04 The Future Potential of the TON Ecosystem

The popularity of mini-programs is not limited to mini-games. The success of game-type mini-programs like $NOT, $CATI and $HMSTR has indeed given the TON ecosystem huge user attention and activity in the short term.

These games, from simple click mechanisms to complex strategy and cultivation systems, have attracted a large number of users with their easy gameplay and potential wealth.

However, as Binance has already listed multiple mini-game tokens, and more and more studios are joining in, the user education level and the mass production of homogenized mini-games may lead to a diminishing trend in user acquisition and conversion, and the logic of direct CEX listing may also face greater challenges.

Therefore, in the short term, the TON Binance listing-style mini-programs may face significant difficulties.

Source: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/toncoin

But in the long run, the TON ecosystem, as the best link between Web2 and Web3, still has great potential in the large-scale application layer of the Crypto industry.

Diverse Potential of Mini-Programs

Although mini-games are currently in the spotlight, the potential of mini-programs goes far beyond that. The TON ecosystem should further explore the diversity of mini-programs and develop more types of applications.

For example, in addition to the existing game-type mini-programs, TON can explore mini-programs in other fields such as education, finance, and social networking. These application-type mini-programs can attract a wider user base, especially within the large user base of Telegram, and bring new growth points for TON.

With a deeper understanding of user needs, we can expect to see a variety of mini-programs emerge in the future. This is not limited to games, but also includes mini-programs with functions such as payment, social interaction, and other practical features.

Through these new applications, TON will be able to more effectively capture the traffic of Telegram, providing users with more value and choices.

Synergy of Payments and Bots

In addition to mini-programs, payment and Bot forms will also play an important role in the TON ecosystem.

For example, Tether has already natively integrated USDT on TON, allowing users to easily conduct cryptocurrency transactions and payments within Telegram.

This seamless payment experience provides greater convenience for users, further lowering the threshold for using cryptocurrencies.

Source: https://decrypt.co/148441/telegram-now-lets-users-pay-merchants-bitcoin-heres-how-works

At the same time, various trading Bots, as the mainstream on-chain interaction, have already begun to occupy an important position in the TON ecosystem.

These Bots help users participate in the cryptocurrency market more efficiently through automated trading, information acquisition, and market analysis. The combination of Bots with mini-programs and payment functions provides users with richer interaction methods, allowing them to more easily conduct transactions and asset management within the TON ecosystem.

05 Summary and Outlook

Binance's continuous listing has allowed the TON ecosystem to unlock the traffic treasure trove of Telegram.

Although the simple and rough mini-program craze may be coming to an end in the short term, with Telegram's strong user base and active community, the TON ecosystem still has unparalleled advantages and potential, and will play a role in the large-scale application of Crypto. We need to patiently wait for market exploration and verification.