I. Introduction
I spent a lot of time researching Ton last week because I felt the huge opportunities that Ton + Telegram would bring to the industry.
Are you tired of the ever-increasing public chain narrative?
In recent years, we have witnessed the rise of a series of eye-catching public chains such as Ethereum, EOS, Polygon, Solana, and Avax. Among them, Ethereum has always been at the forefront relying on its huge community and consistent innovative spirit, while other public chains seem to just keep repeating existing paradigms without bringing real breakthrough innovations. These public chains continue to pursue improving performance (such as TPS), enhancing security, and creating new narratives. However, these efforts rarely solve practical problems and fail to attract a large number of new users. They seem to be just copying existing products on Ethereum, raising funds and seeking profits in the secondary market.
Retail investors are tired of the narrative of public chains. Apart from the opportunities brought by airdrops and volatile markets, from a product perspective, no one is interested in trying Dapps in the ecosystem such as Aptos and Sui. This is because these Dapps are just copies of the Ethereum ecosystem, with only slightly different interfaces and interactions. 99% of the products do not bring any innovation.
2. What does Ton + Telegram bring to Web3?
Let us now delve into what makes Ton unique compared to other public chains. In other words, where does the value of Ton lie? Why did it soar into the top ten in a bear market?
The best example that currently embodies the integration of Ton and Telegram is the recently released built-in wallet-Ton Space. Although it seems to only add a wallet function, the meaning behind it is far more important than it seems on the surface. Looking back, when WeChat publicly demonstrated the red envelope function for the first time in the 2014 Spring Festival Gala, did you realize that WeChat Wallet would bring huge changes to the payment field and lifestyle?
To understand better, let us make an analogy. Wallets such as TP, Trustwallet and OKX Wallet can be compared to Alipay. The various Dapps in the wallet (no matter which public chain they come from) are equivalent to the various Apps in Alipay (financial management, funds, lending, etc.). In Telegram, Ton Space can be regarded as a WeChat wallet, 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 basic necessities, food, housing and transportation applications. As we all know, Alipay focuses on financial attributes and personal wealth management, and has attracted many institutions and banks to settle in. WeChat, on the other hand, relies on social attributes and mainly meets the needs of users for frequent small-amount transfers, while also providing simple financial management functions.
When users use WeChat, they don't care about the technical implementation behind it, such as where the cloud server is located and whether the development language used is Java or Python. Similarly, when Telegram users use cryptocurrency to pay, they will not care whether the underlying public chain is Ethereum or Ton. From this perspective, the future product interaction on the Telegram wallet side should try to weaken the existence of Ton. Currently, Ton takes the initiative to cross-chain and connect with the EVM chain. In the future, there is a high probability that other public chains will take the initiative to cross-chain and connect with Ton, because the user entrance is at Ton + Telegram.
It is worth mentioning that TVL is often used as a criterion for judging the value of public chains in the industry. However, Ton’s valuation does not entirely depend on TVL; transaction volume and protocol revenue from Dapps will account for a large part. Of course, it is not an artificial transaction like other public chains, but the transaction volume generated by real users. Just like WeChat, you may not store a lot of money in it, but due to high frequency of use, you will eventually find that the turnover is higher than Alipay.
Through the above comparison, we can see that Ton+Telegram will most likely not rely on financial products to develop like other public chains, but will explode from other tool products. A sentence from ABCDEF partner Lao Bai (@Wuhuoqiu) expresses this point very aptly:
“Ton’s success is unlikely to rely on traditional DeX, lending and other Defi suites. It should start from payment, Bot, Social, Game and other tracks.”
In short, the value of Ton does not lie in Ton itself, but in the combination with Telegram. Without the blessing of Telelgram, Ton would be just like other public chains in the vicious cycle of involution.
Ton Space (Web3 version of WeChat wallet) demo
Dapp side wakes up Ton Space
Currently, users can only actively wake up and start Ton Space in Telegram from the Dapp side. However, in the future, Ton Space will directly access Dapps like TP, OKX Wallet and other wallets. In addition, Ton Space also supports Bot, which combined with the recent hot Bot track is another important highlight.
With this wallet entrance, user-to-user transfers and user-to-Dapp payments will be connected.
Let’s take a classic user scenario: In the future, just like WeChat, a few friends can set up a Telegram group to play in Texas, and use Ton Space to collect money and transfer funds to each other in the group, without having to worry about being blocked due to abnormal flow. (There is already a similar App: https://t.me/tonpokerroom , but Ton Space has not been opened yet)
The most important reason for Ton's surge some time ago is the release of Ton Space. To summarize, quote a sentence [^2] ( TON Space: Telegram’s future encrypted “WeChat wallet” ):
"TON Space, the encrypted wallet built into Telegram, is called by the TON team as "marking a huge milestone for the entire TON ecosystem." Telegram will only be integrated with TON, and all 800 million users on Telegram will become potential users of TON Space. "
3. Other information about Ton
This article mainly discusses the narrative and value of Ton. As for Ton’s development history, economic model, ecological overview, etc., there is a lot of existing information. The following is only a brief overview. If you want to know more, please refer to the cited materials.
1. The relationship between Ton and Telegram
For users who are new to Ton, the biggest doubt is what is the relationship between Ton and Telegram?
In 2018, Telegram raised US$1.7 billion in a private placement (the token at the time was called $GRAM). In 2019, it was accused by the SEC of illegal fundraising. In 2020, Telegram was forced to abandon the project but open source the code; then the community took over the project and established TON foundation, the token was also renamed $Ton. At first, Telegram founder Durov was dismissive of the project and even warned followers that TON had nothing to do with Telegram. But starting in 2022, Durov's attitude changed. On August 23, 2022, Durov publicly praised the domain name auction conducted by TON. In the recent Token 2049 issue, Durov even announced that there will be closer cooperation between Telegram and the TON blockchain.
For more details, please refer to [^3]: Detailed explanation of The Open Network. Is TON, which no one cares about, on the eve of a surge?
2. Ton’s economic model
The initial supply of TON token is 5 billion, with no upper limit, of which 1.45% is the team share. Set to grow at approximately 0.6% per year, these tokens are used to reward validators who keep the network secure. TON began to allow miners to mine using the PoW method in June 2020, accounting for 98.55% of the total supply. On June 28, 2022, the last TON token was mined.
In February this year, TON launched a community proposal and froze 171 inactive early wallets totaling 1.08B $TON.
Please refer to [^4][^5] for more details.
3. The developing TON ecosystem
According to ton.app statistics, there are currently 551 Apps in the Ton ecosystem, which is not a small number for a public chain that has not yet exploded; however, there are only 7 Apps included in DefiLlama, and Dex, which ranks first, accounts for nearly half of them. Tvl (4.87M). Most of them are non-financial products, which is also in line with Ton's positioning and expectations, and is a good testing ground for non-financial products.
Ton App Category
4. Ton’s current flaws (risk points)
1) TVL is too low
As a public chain with a market capitalization of US$8 billion, its total value locked (Tvl) is only a dismal US$10 million.
This is both a drawback and an opportunity, especially for developers. They have enough time to delve into potential opportunities in the ecosystem. At the same time, the Ton project team has also recognized this problem. Recently, the foundation has actively attracted developers to join by organizing hackathons and launching support funds and other initiatives.
2) Rely on Telegram support
Pavel Durov's influence on Ton is comparable to that of SBF on Solana. However, 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 ecology and application binding between Ton and Telegram become closer, this impact will gradually weaken.
4. Conclusion
Finally, let us re-examine the original intention: how to realize benefits in the Ton ecosystem?
The purpose of this article is not to blindly support the Ton token itself. Judging from the current market conditions, the market value of Ton is likely to be overvalued. However, projects and opportunities in the ecosystem are often undervalued because only a handful of users participate in exploration. When an application suddenly emerges or a bull market arrives, the Ton ecosystem will inevitably bring huge wealth effects.
For developers, on the other hand, the Ton ecosystem offers a wide range of opportunities. Unlike starting a business on other public chains, the Ton ecosystem provides developers with a broader field of innovation. This means that developers can devote their efforts to a variety of areas, not just financial products. They can explore games, social products, and even simple bot applications, all of which have huge potential for development. The Ton ecosystem provides a broad stage for Web3 entrepreneurs to explore new business opportunities.
The emergence of the Ton public chain has indeed brought new vitality, and 3P Labs will continue to pay close attention to the development of the Ton ecosystem. For more exciting information, please follow our investment research channels on Twitter and Telegram.
Data citation:
[^1] https://twitter.com/Wuhuoqiu/status/1705083245950533707
[^2]: TON Space: Telegram’s future encrypted “WeChat wallet”
[^3]: Detailed explanation of The Open Network. Is TON, which no one cares about, on the eve of a surge?
[^4]: https://x.com/jzinvest_xyz/status/1705812958859972698?s=20
[^5]: A brief discussion on the development prospects of the public chain TON: Will it open high and go low or is it the "light of the bear market"?
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