Host: Mr. Z (@69420MrZ)
Guest: Jack Booth (@jbfxdotme)
The TON ecosystem is rapidly becoming one of the hottest frontiers of Web3, backed by Telegram’s traffic engine of 1 billion users and a rapidly emerging collectibles market.
In the first episode of TON of Alpha, host Mr. Z talked with Jack Booth, Vice President of IP Strategy of TON Foundation , who was the driving force behind bringing top Web3 IPs such as Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, BAYC and Snoop Dogg into the TON ecosystem.
In this exclusive interview, Jack revealed TON's latest US expansion strategy, explained why Telegram gifts and stickers are "only V0", and shared how TON works with top IPs to build a long-term Web3 brand strategy and take full advantage of Telegram's social advantages. At the same time, he also previewed Snoop Dogg's upcoming TON event - this revelation took place 24 hours before the official release of Snoop's gift series.
TON of Alpha ( @TONofAlpha ) is an open interview program for institutions and developers, focusing on connecting an ecosystem of 1 billion users. It is jointly produced by TONX and KTON - both of which are early TON miners and ecosystem builders since 2021.
Key points:
Stickers and gifts are just the starting point - several large IPs have plans to expand further into games and long-term token economies.
The real success of NFTs and gifts lies in creating new social identities and expressions, especially within the Telegram ecosystem.
TON’s IP strategy is shifting from short-term hype to long-term, value-driven growth, emphasizing sustainability and real community building.
An exclusive look at Snoop Dogg’s upcoming TON partnership — an initiative that could redefine mainstream user access to the Web3 ecosystem.
Looking ahead, how games, collectibles, and tokens can collaborate to create a self-circulating, revenue-supported sustainable ecosystem.
TON of Alpha EP1: Full Interview Transcript
Mr. Z:
Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is your host, Mr. Z. Welcome to the first episode of TON of Alpha, where we will take an in-depth look at the latest developments in the TON and Telegram ecosystem.
I am very excited today because we have invited Jack Booth, Vice President of IP Strategy at the TON Foundation.
Jack is the man behind the scenes who brought the strongest Web3 brands such as Pudgy Penguins, Azuki, BAYC and Snoop Dogg into the TON universe. Today, he will help us interpret the bull market triggered by stickers, the IP super cycle, and where the next 500 million users will come from.
Jack, welcome to the show, applause welcome!
Jack Booth:
Thank you, thank you so much! This is a great start, I love the energy. It's great to be here.
Why did NFTs and stickers explode on TON?
Mr. Z:
Today’s topic: What happened to TON NFT? Telegram gifts and stickers continue to hit record highs. Is this just hype? Or are we really seeing real user behavior? Why is this model successful?
Jack Booth:
Let me start with the origin of this matter. Many people know that the TON Foundation has always focused on the gaming field. Last year, our first big bull market was driven by multiple gaming projects.
But we later discovered that these rapid growth cycles — pulling in traffic, promising various visions, but not providing real token utility — were not sustainable.
So we started thinking: what is the alternative strategy? How to build a more sustainable game? And, how to enter the Western market? Telegram is somewhat controversial in the West, and to successfully enter, you have to become a trusted entity.
These two goals — building a sustainable token system and expanding into the West — ultimately converged into one core idea: relying on IP with an existing active community.
We started designing: How to activate IP? The initial idea was games - let IP launch branded games on Telegram. But this is a big threshold, especially on new platforms, IPs will first ask: "How much money can I make?"
Later, sticker stores were launched and stickers were sold on TON. Later, gifts appeared. Gifts created a whole new market on Telegram - people can use them as wearable and displayable collectible assets in chats, personal signatures, and channels.
We tried small games at first, but it was hard to get excited about the IP. Until stickers and gifts came along, they became the perfect entry point - low risk, monetizable, and safer than issuing branded tokens.
It is difficult for brands to issue meme tokens now because they will be sold off quickly and will be strongly criticized by the outside world. Therefore, for large IPs, launching stickers on Telegram seems more stable, users can use it immediately, and users like it very much, with immediate utility.
Ultimately, we hope that the IP will start with stickers, then build a community, then enter games or mini-programs, and finally issue tokens - and it must be a sustainable path.
If the mini-game can capture paying users, this part of the revenue can be fed back into the token. More collectibles and game users mean more revenue, which means it can be used to buy back tokens or use them in the community reward pool.
Although no one has fully implemented this model yet, this is our vision. Starting with stickers, then entering the game, and finally the token, this business model is supported by real business, not just hype.
Brands don’t want to take on the complexity of token management; they want to focus on creating great games and assets that people will actually use in chats and channels.
The social value of NFTs and gifts on Telegram
Mr. Z:
Now some interesting stats. Average on-chain + off-chain transaction volume is around $2–3 million per day, sometimes even exceeding Ethereum. It looks like NFTs here have truly found product-market fit and are achieving real utility.
Jack Booth:
Yes, Notcoin is a good example. It was successful because it improved the social experience.
I've found that the fastest growing and most effective products in the ecosystem are those that improve the social experience on Telegram. Gifts are a classic example. Gifts allow me to decorate and display my profile in different ways.
I can use gifts to show my status and show off. For example, if I own Plush Pepe, everyone will know at a glance: "This person has strength!" There are only 2,000 such gifts on the entire Internet, each worth about $15,000 - super cool.
It is similar to the culture of PFP (avatar), but has more practicality, more customization options, and more possibilities to show different sides of personality. You can only have one avatar, but you can hang six or even more gifts at the same time.
Collectors will also curate their own gift series based on their own aesthetics and themes, just like their personality displays on Instagram.
How to Go Beyond Tap-to-Earn?
Mr. Z:
Jack, you mentioned Notcoin. Airdrops can indeed attract attention, but how to avoid Tap-to-Earn fatigue? What kind of NFT or mini-game ecosystem is more "sticky"?
Jack Booth:
I think the key is to think holistically. All these activations should serve the brand community building on Telegram.
We must start from a value-additive mindset. We will tell each IP: "Don't just make stickers, make a complete ecosystem."
Pudgy Penguins does this the best. They started with sticker packs, built a community, and their founder Luca even has his own channel on Telegram.
Then they launched Pengu Clash, a game built on Olympics infrastructure. It was a "winner takes it" game rather than a "play to earn" game. You got rewards only if you showed your true strength, not just by being online.
This model is more sustainable because users contribute their own money through battles to form a prize pool , rather than the system issuing rewards unconditionally.
Last year, we didn’t work closely with these games. Even Notcoin was developed independently. This year, we are more focused on in-depth cooperation with projects that truly create value, rather than simply “harvesting”.
Review of TON’s strategy last year
Mr. Z:
This reminds me of a tweet you posted: "Open-mindedness trumps maximization, value orientation trumps harvesting, willingness to learn and adapt."
Jack Booth:
Yes, that's the value we need to stick to. I'm honest, we didn't do well enough last year. It's not anyone's fault - it's hard not to be excited when you see growth.
How can you not be excited when you see 300 million users playing games on TON? But if we had communicated more closely with these teams at the time and had a deeper understanding of their long-term plans, perhaps some of these stories would have ended differently.
IP and celebrity cooperation strategy
Mr. Z:
Next question, Snoop Dogg, Notcoin, Pudgy… Is this a celebrity short-term trend or a real cultural flywheel? How far can this go?
Jack Booth:
I definitely think it’s a new trend and we’re trying to make it more sustainable. Once brands start trying it, they usually want to go deeper.
They may start with stickers, but when they see the activity in the Telegram community, they will want to expand. After they are deeply invested and continue to support these activations, they will gradually become part of the brand reputation.
In addition, it would make more sense to bring users from other channels to Telegram - this is very critical for us because we did not have such a large user base in Western markets before.
This flywheel is very powerful. We focus on long-term, reliable IP and brand cooperation, thus reducing the risk of "cutting leeks".
Many NFT projects have been around for many years and are still under construction, remaining optimistic, and not being discouraged by price fluctuations.
Telegram is the only platform in the world that can help you build a community and activate it through native Web3 mechanisms.
Pudgy Penguins is already proving this model. As for what Snoop Dogg will do next, no one knows except me.
TON Content and Distribution
Mr. Z:
More private community activities are happening, and Telegram and TON may become the happiest places for Web3. This reminds me of what Manny from the TON Foundation often says: "Content is king, distribution is queen - and she wears pants."
Jack Booth:
Yes, Manny says this a lot, and he's absolutely right. Distribution has always been the missing link. But if distribution is given to faceless projects with no long-term plans, it won't really add value.
This only creates the illusion of value without actually benefiting the community.
Our IP strategy is to work with large, trusted brands that have multi-year plans and can build real, active communities. They are not here to "harvest" quickly, but to stay here for five years or more.
Telegram’s distribution is so easy and powerful that it has been abused in the past, damaging TON’s reputation.
But over the past six months, we’ve seen a clear shift - the teams interested in TON are now completely different, and we’re moving in a better direction.
Quick Questions and Answers
Next, Mr. Z initiated a quick question and answer session, colliding with Jack to create more exclusive alphas.
If you could onboard an IP immediately, who would it be?
Mr. Z:
If you could bring in any IP tomorrow, who would you choose?
Jack Booth:
Studio Ghibli. They are the coolest anime to work with, their style is very unique and loved worldwide. Everyone is using the "Ghibli style" to generate AI content lately, it would be great to have an official Ghibli collectible.
Labubu is also great. Imagine Labubu gift hanging on the profile, people will go crazy.
Mr. Z:
This will definitely attract a lot of Chinese and Asian investors. In Korea, Labubu is super popular. I was at the Blackpink concert in Seoul yesterday, and a fan threw Labubu on stage - although Lisa shook it off!
I think more Asian IPs would be great, like Blackpink, K-pop idols, Naruto… Have you considered this?
Jack Booth:
Yes, you look at what Azuki did -- they bought anime.com, launched anime series, and hired top creators. We will continue our relationship with them, especially in developing Asian audiences.
We mainly work through IP Studios rather than directly with IPs. The Studio will handle licensing, activation, marketing, and community building.
TON will not spend millions in advance to buy a license, but will choose to cooperate with Studios that already have channels and experience to activate together.
If you were in charge of TON for a day, what would you do?
Mr. Z:
If the TON Foundation gave you control for one day, what would you do?
Jack Booth:
Hmm… I’m not sure, but I’ve always had an idea to make a reality show about TON builders.
Imagine two teams of developers and “passers-by” who know nothing about crypto, building projects together on an island. In the end, only the passers-by can do a roadshow to VCs.
It will be interesting to see how passers-by stumble, learn, and finally pitch. It's a bit like "Love Island", but for builders.
Mr. Z:
Yes! If we want to attract the general public, we need this way to introduce builder culture to “passers-by”.
Jack Booth:
Absolutely. We need more creative thinking, just like Netflix's Drive to Survive changed the audience structure of F1 and attracted more young viewers.
Crypto currently lacks such a national narrative. Most outsiders will only say "scam". We need bold and playful storytelling to break this stereotype.
An Alpha for the TON community
Mr. Z:
The last question, give us an alpha that no one has talked about, exclusively for TON family members.
Jack Booth:
The biggest Alpha is: although what everyone sees now are mainly stickers, every IP we are negotiating cooperation with is paying attention to the game.
As long as you observe which IPs have released stickers, you can guess which games will be launched next. Be prepared, stickers are just the beginning, the ultimate gameplay is all games - this is the most important strategic layout.
Games will give stickers more practicality and allow users to establish deeper interactions with IP. This is our real long-term strategy.
Mr. Z:
This is so alpha, I love it.
Community Q&A Session
Afterwards, Mr. Z opened the X Space community to questions, sparking a series of constructive discussions.
The Secret Behind Snoop Dogg
Viktor ( @s0meone_u_know ):
Jack, Snoop has been very active lately, what’s going on behind the scenes?
Jack Booth:
I'd love to reveal more, but this is pretty explosive.
I can say that what he is preparing is extremely valuable to TON. It is exactly the same as the model we just discussed, you can guess it yourself.
There's also a big surprise specifically for Snoop that no one is ready for -- and it's coming very soon.
I had a meeting with Snoop Dogg's son the other day, and he was super excited about working with TON. They are very focused on the long-term perspective and really want to create value for the ecosystem.
According to his son, Snoop is the eighth most recognizable face in the world, and all of his social channels reach more than 300 million people, which will be activated to bring traffic to TON and Telegram.
This is a super big activation that will be released soon.
PS Just 24 hours after this interview went live, Snoop Dogg released the “ Gifts ” music video and launched a Telegram gift series — nearly 1 million unique NFTs sold out in 30 minutes, with sales exceeding $12 million.
How DeFi combines with NFT
Tradoor ( @tradoor_io ):
Hey everyone, I’m Lev, the head of partnerships at Tradoor.
Jack, how do you think DeFi projects like ours (such as DEX) can participate more deeply in the Telegram gift and NFT trends?
I know we can give out gifts or NFTs as rewards to stimulate user activity, but I’m more curious about more complex and deeper integrations.
For example, we are working with NFT and gift lending platforms to allow users to unlock liquidity by pledging gifts , and then invest these funds in our liquidity pool to earn returns - without having to sell these assets.
I think this type of strategy has potential, but I would also like to hear if you have seen other approaches or new ideas that can bring greater value to users and the ecosystem.
Jack Booth:
Yes, I think the lending application is very cool. This model has been proven in Ethereum by top NFT collections, but has not yet been adopted by a wider range of retail users.
Don’t underestimate the power of giveaways. People in the TON community love airdrops. Airdrops are a great tool for quickly gaining exposure and attracting new people. Even Snoop Dogg has done giveaways on his channel — we gave away three Plush Pepes before the price surged, and those early winners are very happy now.
To be honest, I am not the head of DeFi at TON, so it is difficult to come up with a new use case right away. But lending and airdrops - using gifts to grow projects - are proven directions worth exploring.
Tradoor:
OK, thank you! We will continue to explore. As gifts and NFTs become more and more popular, there is really huge potential here.
Viktor:
I'm also thinking about hosting a creative contest - this way can attract more real users to participate. Maybe we can also build a platform for everyone to initiate competitions, provide rewards, and randomly distribute prizes.
Holding competitions is a powerful tool to stimulate creativity, not only for gifts or NFTs, but also for DeFi and other fields. Of course, there needs to be a prize mechanism to support it.
There is also the tokenization of NFTs , which is also a way to integrate NFTs into DeFi products, and there are already some precedents.
Jack Booth:
Yes, another idea is to set up an order book trading model for gifts and NFTs. Not only using basic order matching, but if there is a complete order book, it will make the transaction more transparent and efficient.
Tradoor:
This is an interesting idea, thanks for sharing! It really feels like a gap in the market.
TON in the next 6 months
Ethan ( @0xEthanDG ):
Hey Jack, in the next six months, are there any alphas in the TON ecosystem that you are most excited about that you can share with us?
Jack Booth:
Well, I hope to see one or two big celebrities, one or two large Web3 IPs, and one or two Web2 IPs running through the entire process - from community building, launching collectibles and stickers, to unlocking gifts and games, and finally launching branded tokens.
If this model can be made to work, brand tokens will eventually become a real benefit to the community.
Assuming these tokens are branded IP tokens backed by revenue from IP gaming and collectibles businesses , it would be unprecedented.
My goal is to have one or two of these cases out this year, which is really exciting.
Ethan:
Awesome! I think this is much better than the traditional token economic model.
When you mentioned Brandcoin, I was about to ask about the revenue model, but you already answered it. This has not been tried on a large scale yet, so it will be interesting and worth looking forward to.
If TON is successful, the next cycle will definitely belong to TON.
Jack Booth:
That’s right. Imagine you have a celebrity token, plus celebrity games and collectibles.
Then use a programmatic method to repurchase the tokens so there will always be buyers.
In addition, a staking mechanism can be added to the game . For example, after users stake tokens, they will have the opportunity to participate in a lottery - a meet-and-greet, game tickets, iPads, or even luxury cars.
The prizes are funded by revenue from the business.
This creates a more sustainable circular economy. If the games and collectibles businesses perform well, it means more revenue can be used to buy back tokens and reward holders.
This is the core that has been missing from many token launches — most projects are only concerned with extracting value.
Throughout almost the entire cycle, only HyperLiquid and Jupiter have truly done a good job with tokens, and there are too few successful examples.
I think it's time for a change and we should implement this new model on TON.
Large Series and Rarity
Gio ( @Giooton ):
I would like to ask you what you think of the current sticker market.
Jack Booth:
I think the current sticker market is more like V1, or even not V1, it can only be considered V0.
The current stickers don’t really take advantage of the huge demand on Telegram. In the Sticker Store, we’ve seen 100,000 people — even 300,000 in BAYC’s case — scramble for stickers.
The actual demand is much greater than everyone imagines. If these people can get it, the market will be even hotter.
Right now we are not leveraging the true value of Telegram - its huge user base. We should not be doing a limited edition series of 3,000 copies, but a series of 100,000 or even 200,000 copies.
Introduce a rarity mechanism, just like the gift market. Gifts can be made in quantities of 500,000 and at a low mint price, attracting everyone to participate through random rarity.
This is the core that is missing from the sticker market right now – scale and rarity.
NFT has proven this model in the past, and it can be made bigger in the future, even 10 or 20 times bigger.
The gift market has proven this. Now we should push the sticker market to this level.
How stickers can be upgraded to NFTs
Ibrahim:
Currently stickers are not NFTs, can they be upgraded in the future?
Jack Booth:
Yes, development in this area is already underway. It’s too early to say when exactly, but I can reveal that the foundation is developing the NFT standard for stickers, which will be launched soon. There are many links involved, and multiple teams are working on it.
At that time, we will migrate all off-chain sticker activities to the chain, which will be a huge benefit to TON.
In the past, stickers such as BAYC, Azuki, and Pudgy Penguins were all issued off-chain and did not contribute directly to the blockchain itself. In the future, these activities will be fully on-chain.
All transaction volume and popularity can be directly fed back to the TON blockchain. This is a very exciting node, and it won’t be too far away.
Conclusion
Mr. Z:
Finally, is there anything you want to say to our TON fam? Otherwise, we are ready to wrap up.
Jack Booth:
I just want to say - if you are buying these IPs, or are excited about them, this is just the beginning. As I said, the stickers are only V0 now, and the game ecosystem around the IP is also V0. Everything is still in its infancy.
These are all new activations and new experiments. We are exploring the most cutting-edge Telegram and TON community gameplay. This is just the beginning.
These OG series and OG IPs will be built for a long time. This is our goal - to help them continue to build, so that everyone can build sustainable communities around these IPs, participate in them, and enjoy them.
So, let's go. This is just the beginning. TON of Alpha episode 1, I hope you guys have had a lot of alpha today.
Mr. Z:
Absolutely. Thanks to Jack for bringing so much valuable information and helping us to deeply analyze the wonderful things happening in the TON world.
If you like this episode, please share it and follow TON of Alpha. TON of Alpha has just begun. I am your host, Mr. Z, and I will see you next time!
Jack Booth:
Goodbye and I wish you all the best!
