TADA points a new direction for the large-scale implementation of Web3

At this year's TOKEN2049, everyone remembered the Web3 ride-hailing app called TADA mini. Written by Zhou Zhou, Foresight News "You're paying for my ride with Crypto?" When the Singaporean driver Kay learned that the reporter was using cryptocurrency to pay for this ride, he was very surprised, as Kay as the driver still received Singapore fiat currency. During the Singapore Token 2049 event, a "Web3 ride-hailing app" called TADA mini suddenly became popular. Through word of mouth, it quickly gained traction, and almost overnight, Web3 practitioners from around the world who had come to Singapore for the conference switched from Grab to TADA mini. Foresight News found that at the ride-hailing pickup spots at the various venues, many practitioners who had just finished their meetings opened Telegram and clicked on TADA mini, embarking on their first cryptocurrency-paid ride. According to TADA's official announcement, considering that multiple people were riding in one car, the number of people who used Crypto to pay for rides during TOKEN 2049 was around 10,000. Meanwhile, as these Web3 practitioners were enthusiastically discussing the reasons behind the sudden popularity of this product, the Singaporean drivers and the general public had almost no sense of any change. Of course, they also did not perceive the dramatic changes happening behind TADA's attempt, in Telegram and the Web3 ecosystem it supports - the TON chain. A Unique Web3 Experiment "Do you see that building over there, over 20 floors, that's Grab's headquarters, but I heard TADA only has over 20 people," the Singaporean driver Kay told the Foresight News reporter. In the Singapore ride-hailing industry, the number one ride-hailing app Grab occupies over 20 floors, while the second-place TADA is just a small team of over 20 people in the local Singaporean drivers' perception. In fact, according to Foresight News, TADA currently has over 300 employees in seven countries and over 300,000 drivers. Within 2024, TADA mini will be rolled out in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and four other countries. Additionally, Hong Kong will also be a key development area for TADA mini in the future. In the eyes of the head of HashKey Chain, Kay, the TADA founder Kay is an entrepreneur who really understands Crypto. "At the KBW conference in Korea, we had an in-depth exchange, and he said there would be big moves coming, which apparently referred to this," Kay said. HashKey's Kay had noticed TADA's founder Kay early on, as she had come across this special company when participating in Bybit's token listing review work. At that time, TADA was not well-known in the Crypto industry, and no one would have imagined that a "different kind of company" could play Crypto so well. "Small teams have the advantages of small teams, they have the motivation, drive, and courage to embrace the new ecosystem," the Singaporean driver Kay said. For TADA, Singapore has many tourists and conference attendees from around the world, and although there are still few passengers using Crypto payments now, as Crypto becomes more widespread, this user group could become an important one for TADA. As for Grab, as the leader in Singapore's ride-hailing industry, although it has been paying attention to Crypto for a long time and has built Crypto functionality into its products, this functionality has remained the same for a year, unable to be opened or used, like a mere decoration. Driver Kay is a local Singaporean of Teochew descent, and his grandparents' generation had already settled in Singapore. Kay told me that now in Singapore, ride-hailing is basically done through Grab and TADA. And Grab occupies the majority of the local ride-hailing market in Singapore. When asked which of the two products he feels more comfortable using, Kay said, "I feel more free with TADA, because we have the freedom to reject orders, but Grab strictly controls the drivers' behavior, you have to accept orders, or else they'll deduct money." Grab's monopoly has trapped the Singaporean drivers in the algorithm. Kay bluntly stated, "(Just like the early development of Didi and Kuaidi in China) Grab and Uber also engaged in fierce competition, and in the end, Grab, with the Singapore government as an investor, acquired Uber and dominated the Singapore market." "In the battle with Grab, drivers have gradually lost their voice, and Grab's commission fees have also risen all the way from 20% to 25%." But TADA is different, no matter how far the user goes, whether it's placing an order or canceling an order, they only charge $1. When Kay heard that the reporter was using Crypto to pay for the ride, he was very surprised, because as the driver, Kay still received Singapore dollars. Behind TADA, Telegram's Two "Killer Apps" The success of TADA's foray into Crypto payments is behind the earth-shattering changes happening in the Telegram ecosystem. "Telegram is comprehensively copying WeChat, I heard Telegram's CEO Durov visited Zhang Xiaolong a long time ago and has been closely following WeChat's development, and the launch of mini programs on Telegram is also a reference to WeChat," Akio said. Akio used to be the head of Tencent Blockchain, and now he is starting a business in the TON ecosystem, founding Televerse. Most of their team are former Tencent employees. Akio told me that there are no shortage of former Tencent employees starting businesses in the TON chain ecosystem. And some have even been directly recruited to work in the Telegram ecosystem, responsible for copying WeChat's mini program experience to Telegram. What is Telegram going to do? Two things: the first is mini programs, and the other is TON (a Crypto payment system to compete with WeChat Pay). In simple terms, the previous Telegram was just a pure social software. Now it wants to embed "mini programs" and "Crypto payments" into Telegram, to build Telegram into a global version of WeChat. TADA has successfully created a "Web3 ride-hailing app" against this backdrop. According to Foresight News, TADA's attempt may have had a very low cost. The Crypto contract platform KiloEx told Foresight News: "It only takes a few days to implement a website as a Telegram Mini App version, and you don't even need to hire an additional employee, but if you want to do a mobile app, you need to hire two more employees, which would be more costly for a startup, and you'd also have to add a lot of additional marketing costs." KiloEx is a perpetual contract DEX on the opBNB Chain and Manta Pacific, supported by institutions such as Binance Labs, Foresight Ventures, and the Manta Foundation. KiloEx's Mini APP just went live on the UXUY wallet's mini program on Telegram the day before, and users can also conveniently experience the contract products on their mobile phones. According to Foresight News' observation, the Crypto industry has had few on-chain contract platforms enter the mobile end before, but with the emergence of Telegram, this situation may change quickly. Benjamin told Foresight News that the company will not directly enter the TON chain at this stage, but is willing to "mobilize" its own platform, giving users more convenient choices and richer experiences. This is also an observation made by the Foresight News reporter during TOKEN2049 - Web3 is developing towards "mobilization", and many blockchain startup projects are considering or have already created a version for Telegram mini programs in addition to their existing platforms. This not only does not affect their rights and interests on the existing blockchains, but also allows Crypto users to experience the convenience of mobile operations, and can also explore more potential user groups, which is a triple win. Telegram has pointed out a new direction for the large-scale implementation of Web3.