Editor | Wu Says Blockchain
In the context of soaring chaos values, it is crucial to perceive periodicity more clearly and explore future narrative trends. As innovation narrative catchers, investment institutions have always had a relatively advanced sense. In light of this, OKX has specially planned a column (Crypto Evolution Theory) inviting mainstream crypto investment institutions worldwide to systematically output topics around current market periodicity, new narrative directions, and segmented popular tracks, serving as a starting point for discussion.
The following is the content of the fifth issue, jointly explored by OKX Ventures, LongHash Ventures, and ANAGRAM on the future development of the Web3 social and consumer tracks, hoping that their insights and thoughts will inspire you.
About OKX Ventures
OKX Ventures is the investment arm of OKX, a leading crypto asset trading platform and Web3 technology company, with an initial capital commitment of $100 million. It focuses on exploring the best blockchain projects globally, supporting cutting-edge blockchain technology innovation, promoting the healthy development of the global blockchain industry, and investing in long-term structural value. By committing to entrepreneurs who support the development of the blockchain industry, OKX Ventures helps build innovative companies and brings global resources and historical experience to blockchain projects.
About LongHash Ventures
LongHash Ventures is a crypto-native venture capital firm founded in 2017, based in Singapore and Silicon Valley. We work closely with founders to build their Web3 models and tap into the immense potential of Asia. We invest alongside visionary founders who are paving the way for the next stage of development in the open economy.
About ANAGRAM
We are an institution focused on technological innovation. We are committed to helping innovators who bring ownership economies to the masses through human and financial capital.
1. How does this round of SocialFi differ from previous ones?
OKX Ventures researcher: This round of SocialFi focuses on memecoin trading and the development of casual games based on high-distribution protocols (like TON), paying more attention to consumer and creator tools than the previous NFT cycle. Many big brands (like LVMH, Nike, etc.) have attempted to test related narratives in the crypto space but ultimately failed to adapt to the hyper-financial culture of the crypto community. However, in the successful memecoin trading and similar prediction markets, we see that these dApps catering to hyper-financialized applications can indeed achieve positive results. Other trends include:
1. From content monetization to social monetization
Early Social-type projects, such as Steemit and Mirror, relied on content production for incentives, but quality control was difficult, leading to a proliferation of low-quality content. In this round, friend.tech has undeniably brought new experimentsâmonetizing social relationships, with each user becoming a 'Key' asset, constructing a new form of asset through social identity that makes everyone a potential investment target. Pump.fun has inherited the liquidity innovation idea from Friend.tech, further promoting the narrative of low liquidity AMM models and effectively bridging the liquidity conversion path of on-chain assets between DEX and CEX. Compared to Friend.tech, Pump.fun focuses more on combining liquidity models with social interaction, deeply binding asset liquidity and social activities. UXLINK's innovative model addresses the shortcomings of relying solely on content production by its Link to Earn modelâusers contribute their social network data to earn rewards, thus emphasizing the value conversion of social relationships and avoiding the pitfalls of short-term financial incentives.
2. The trade-off between decentralization and financialization
Projects are more flexible in terms of decentralization. Social platforms like Farcaster, while emphasizing users' digital ownership of social relationships and content control, do not immediately aim for complete decentralization. Their highlight lies in allowing users to control their social data and reserving experimental space for future on-chain operations, with their innovations emphasizing community-driven and community culture. TON + Telegram focuses on a more pragmatic Web2.5, providing convenient entry points for users through embedded programs like mini-games, integrating financial operations into daily social interactions, enhancing the financial attributes of social identities; gradually introducing on-chain activities while reducing the cost of transitioning to Web3, leveraging the existing platform to enhance user trust and experience.
In addition, there is a trend of intellectual property (IP) moving to the blockchain. The increasing UGC and AI-generated content are the main forces behind this.
LongHash Ventures (Emma Cui): In this cycle, the infrastructure is ready to support mass adoption.
First, scalability: Rollups, Alt L1s, and data availability layers reduce on-chain activity costs to a few cents or less. More innovative rollups (like zkSync) optimize data costs further using state differentials by aggregating data.
Second, interoperability: Chain abstraction and intent-based protocols allow on-chain assets and credentials to be easily recognized or used across any chain. For example, to send tips on SocialFi, Particle Network can seamlessly aggregate assets across multiple chains and send them in one step.
Third, account user experience: Account abstraction, MPC, passwords, and social logins allow users to interact with web3 without managing private keys and gas fees. Today, the Safe protocol protects billions of assets, with its peak valuation exceeding $120 billion, comparable to real-world banks. With account abstraction, users can log into SocialFi applications using session keys and authorize multiple on-chain interactions without logging into their wallets each time.
ANAGRAM (David Shuttleworth): The SocialFi landscape has undergone significant changes compared to the last cycle, particularly in the number of original experiments and new mechanism designs. In the last cycle, builders often focused on replacing existing legacy systems, such as Lens being a decentralized version of X, and Farcaster following a similar path. However, in this cycle, many projects (like Lens and Farcaster) have not just stayed at replacing existing structures but have started to implement more appealing features, such as Farcaster's Frames.
This is largely due to advancements in underlying blockchain technology. Lens has launched the Lens network utilizing ZKsync, enhancing its ability to change the way social networks operate. Rollups on Ethereum allow networks and their built protocols to scale more efficiently, handling millions of transactions. This technology was almost unavailable in the last cycle and is now being fully explored. Additionally, features like Farcaster Frames allow users to seamlessly interact with multiple applications running on Farcaster's source and enable developers to distribute applications in a 'one-click' manner. Such innovations and user experiences were absent in the last cycle.
To broaden the application scope, Solana recently launched Actions and Blinks, connecting Solana to the entire internet, allowing users to perform various operations, such as swaps and payments, on any website or application (like X, Reddit). These new primitives convert on-chain operations into shareable links, opening up the design space more than in the previous cycle.
Another interesting area of innovation is the integration of social and speculation. Friend.tech and Fantasy.top are two major examples that combine social elements with user interaction, allowing users to speculate on various parameters, such as the popularity of posts on X. Friend.tech allows users to profit through community engagement and trade 'keys' that unlock different features (like exclusive in-app chat rooms), while Fantasy.top allows users to collect and trade NFTs related to certain crypto figures on X. Despite many well-known projects struggling to maintain user engagement, these new experiments, which did not appear in previous cycles, provide useful guidance for future development.
How is the current development status of the Consumer Apps track? Where is the intersection with social?
OKX Ventures researcher: The market is transitioning from a traditional model centered on 'trust' to a smart contract model focused on 'contract execution,' and application tracks are no longer just playgrounds for whales; they are leaning towards broader user groups. Users not only want platforms that enable 'quick money' but also expect consumer applications that meet their daily needs. The previously complex blockchain operations and difficult user interfaces are being simplified, and developers are realizing that users do not need to understand blockchain; they only need a smooth user experience.
Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) are becoming a new distribution method for crypto applications, offering a smooth experience similar to Web2 and avoiding the 30% fees of traditional app stores. In terms of payments, the crypto payment experience is gradually becoming mainstream, with collaborations like Venmo, PayPal, and ENS, and EtherFi launching its own credit card compatible with Apple Pay. Solana's Saga and the launch of Seeker mark the development of Web3 native devices, turning into mobile wallets with convenient features like double-tap crypto payments and built-in seed libraries, enhancing user experience through built-in distribution. The combination of hardware, payments, and distribution addresses operational complexities, accelerating user participation in the network and the transition of crypto applications to the mainstream market.
Whether entertainment or finance-oriented applications, they will ultimately enter a financialization track. Once ownership (like NFTs or tokens) is introduced, the financial attributes of applications become immediately apparent. Entertainment financialization applications, such as mini-games and memecoins, attract massive participation through speculation, while serious DeFi applications focused on investment and finance pay attention to asset appreciation and preservation.
The integration of Consumer and Social is not just 'buying and selling crypto assets on social platforms'; many crypto applications are centered around social, as illustrated by examples like prediction markets and Pump.fun, showing that the power of community and social interaction is undeniable. Social elements can firmly bind users to platforms because people inherently enjoy interaction and sharing, expressing their thoughts on specific events.
Imagine memecoins being more than just speculative hype; they can be the news itself, a reflection of social elements and dynamics. People place bets or interact with memes around specific events or topics, which is also crucial in DeFi. In the past, many DeFi applications relied on the trading volume of whale users to attract users, but now, applications with social features are beginning to depend on the interaction between users and the strength of communities to drive liquidity and participation.
Successful applications must incorporate social elements, not just as social media platforms, but by capturing user interactions in the front end to build network effects. The reason is simple: you need users to enter your front end to generate revenue. Without a front end, competitors to Uniswap can directly utilize their protocols to siphon off users. User familiarity, interaction habits, and dependency form the moat of applications. The user network in the front end is the core driver of everythingâjust as financial liquidity is critical for launching protocols, user liquidity is equally essential for launching applications.
The composability of crypto means that smart contracts can be called from anywhere, making protocols scalable and interoperable. This flexibility allows embedded applications to interact directly with on-chain functions, envisioning prediction markets appearing right where people discuss news; SocialFi mini-programs enabling users to stake tokens, follow trades, or purchase fan tokens; and governance mini-programs allowing members to conceive, collaborate, and voteâall of which rely on the underlying 'proxy front end.' On-chain financial transactions can integrate into familiar social structures, becoming engaging and interactiveâsending messages to other traders on DEX, competing with friends' portfolios, and so on.
The adoption paths for consumer applications primarily fall into two categories: one is to optimize existing products; the other is to create new demands. The first involves continuously refining user experiences to make products better than other options in the market, which includes leveraging underlying technologies to find entry points for marginal improvements while using tokens to alter community behaviors and experiences; the latter focuses on uncovering unmet user needs and opening up new market spaces, which is indeed the direction many Web2 products have taken, like how Twitter redefined the social media space from the start. Although the latter has higher Alpha potential, the former is also essential. If today users have to endure long waits and cumbersome processes to use a certain app, such a soil cannot foster applications that create entirely new demands like Twitter.
In contrast, products like collateralized lending can develop based on existing demand; even if operational complexities exist, those with needs will actively overcome them. For applications with innovative demand, users will not fill these gaps on their own. Therefore, prematurely focusing all efforts on UI/UX may not be the best choice; as long as the target users are found, suitable suppliers or partners (like underwriters) can be found to optimize product services.
LongHash Ventures (Emma Cui): Consumer applications, defined as any application developed by end users in a B2C use case, can also be seen as social applications. From this perspective, the innovation of social applications enhances the user experience, lowering the threshold for creating seamless consumer applications. Beyond the Web3 ecosystem, Telegram has also become an important distribution channel. With 950 million users, Telegram is the most popular instant messaging application in the crypto ecosystem, bypassing the approval processes and fees of Android and Apple app stores.
Both consumer and social have strong motivations to attract new users, create seamless user experiences within products, and accumulate value through genuine consumer behaviors. For example, Catizen has 34 million users and over $25 million in revenue. Leading gaming ecosystems like Ronin and YGG also have millions of users actively spending time and money on Web3.
TON has also demonstrated how blockchain can provide new opportunities for monetization, participation, and innovation by supporting small and medium-sized Web2 game developers. By introducing tokenized economies, it creates reward systems for content creation and consumption, facilitating participation through digital ownership. The integration of Web3 consumer products with Web2 platforms such as social media and mini-games poses the main challenge of simplifying the Web3 experience for Web2 users. While Web2 excels at user-friendly interfaces, it is essential to minimize Web3's complexities (like wallets and tokens) to encourage adoption. Another potential lies in decentralized governance models, where platforms and games grow through community involvement, fostering user loyalty and democratized ownership.
ANAGRAM (David Shuttleworth): Consumer and social applications are becoming increasingly powerful, starting to provide real utility to users. These applications take various forms, including prediction markets (like prediction markets), token launchers (like Pump.fun), and more socially-focused applications (like Farcaster and Lens). If executed properly, these applications could become strong drivers for mass adoption and revenue.
In the past year, consumer applications have generated increasingly larger fees for the protocols themselves and their underlying networks, becoming 'lighthouses' to attract new users, increase liquidity, and drive demand for block space. They have had a significant impact on the DeFi sector of the network. For example, since March, Pump.fun has generated nearly $100 million in fees, making it one of the most profitable protocols in the entire sector. More notably, it has positively impacted the activity of other DeFi applications on Solana, such as Raydium, which reached a historical peak of activity in July, its most popular month, with a monthly trading volume of up to $28.7 billion. Pump.fun has made token issuance and meme creation around it simple and fun, thus transforming into real demand for tokens. Although this has raised questions about the ecosystem 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs,' it provides effective short-term experimentation for studying how consumer and social adoption impacts user behavior and network outcomes. In fact, the transience of applications itself has become a new trend in this cycle.
Ultimately, the main reasons for success lie in improvements in network scalability, enhancements in user experience, and the widespread adoption of stablecoins. In terms of infrastructure, blockchain costs have significantly decreased, and performance continues to improve; this is accompanied by ongoing improvements with the emergence of Solana's Firedancer, and ultra-high-performance chains like MegaETH and Monad. Regarding user experience, years of infrastructure development have made interactions with different chains unprecedentedly smooth. With just a few clicks, users can easily access applications on any chain, often without leaving their wallets. The wallet experience has also been significantly improvedâfrom custody and trading to super applications, unlocking a range of innovations: from simple messaging and content distribution (e.g., for holding concert tickets) to DeFi applications built upon them. Although the overall user experience is still not perfect, it has improved significantly compared to a few years ago.
Meanwhile, fiat-backed stablecoins are ubiquitous, enabling users to access more options without bridging or leaving the main chain. Additionally, applications from the PayFi sector allow users to easily deposit fiat, conduct instant cross-border payments, and perform various daily on-chain activities. All of this achieves the effect of 'wherever the user is, the service is there,' seamlessly integrating all core elements needed to build comprehensive applications in the background. Users can click on Solana Blink on X or Frame on Warpcast to instantly connect to applications. This is just the starting point for further integration of consumption and social interactions.
As transaction costs gradually decrease and speeds increase, payment functions will come closer to the Web2 experience (i.e., instant and convenient), providing greater capacity and design freedom for building use cases in consumer and social applications. The power of these Web3 applications lies in their ability to not only enable new forms of interaction and collaboration but also lead to the establishment of new economic and social norms.
Where are the hotspots for the future explosion of Web3 social and consumer?
OKX Ventures researcher: Social applications are essentially a subclass of consumer applications. If the consumer direction deals with high transaction volumes through applications like Pump.fun, these ecosystems will continue to expand. Currently, they may lack large DeFi components (like leveraged trading, shorting, etc.), but they will gradually be developed. The key for casual gaming communities is to find the most sustainable business model and consider whether issuing tokens is the right choice.
To maintain competitiveness, many on-chain applications have lowered or even eliminated protocol fees, attracting short-term users and speculators, forcing developers to rely on increasing user activity and liquidity to boost revenue instead of creating genuine long-term value, thus failing to develop into large-scale consumer applications. It is much easier to develop for whales than to directly address the needs of the masses, just requiring a fully on-chain approach and utilizing various opportunities like MEV to maximize profits easily. Most applications fail 'off-chain,' as experiences related to deposit and withdrawal channels, identity verification, and other daily behaviors are subpar.
Therefore, relying solely on existing on-chain mechanisms cannot genuinely address user retention issues. To break through this bottleneck, Web3 social networks need to transition from finance-driven models to multifunctional user experience platforms centered on social consensusâseamlessly navigating multiple domains such as NFT markets, DEX, gaming, and governance forums through a unified portal, closely integrating financial behaviors with wallets.
The explosion point of applications comes from the combination of social consensus, speculation, and tribal behavior. Because blockchain inherently possesses decentralized consensus mechanisms, it helps users reach coordination and consensus around events, assets, and dynamics they care about, thus trusting the system's credibility.
Currently, many applications rely on short-term speculative behaviors like NFT investments and liquidity mining, leading users to focus on 'quick in and out' operations. As the market matures, applications need to attract and retain users through content filtering, intelligent transaction processing, and community management.
Optimizing user data management and quality filtering is key to ensuring that the user experience is not disturbed by financialization, enhancing the naturalness and friendliness of on-chain interactions while reducing reliance on speculative capital. Sustainable communities, brand loyalty, and a sense of belonging, along with strong and sticky user communities, will determine the success of applications and protocols. For example, Monad encourages users to become guardians of their communities, promoting tribal behavior and rewarding expectations; this community-driven model is poised to become a long-term growth point.
Future social networks will also need to separate the social data layer from the financial layer. Users do not want complex financial transactions accompanying every interaction; platforms should intelligently manage these interactions, hiding financial transactions in the background and providing users with more valuable interaction experiences through AI-driven smart filtering and quality standards.
Key growth areas will also focus on enhancing user trust and experience through decentralized identity verification, proof of activity, and privacy protection. Platforms can effectively manage and reward users who contribute genuinely to the community, not just speculators. With the development of ZK technology and scaling solutions, users will enjoy a more efficient and secure decentralized interaction network, especially in terms of private messaging and social privacy protection.
LongHash Ventures (Emma Cui): Blockchain-driven SocialFi and consumer applications may become the core driving force of the crypto economy because they provide new monetization opportunities and greater user ownership by integrating blockchain into familiar user scenarios, paving the way for widespread adoption of crypto technology. The shift in ownership and financial incentives will encourage more everyday participation in consumer applications to expand the crypto economy. By combining DeFi with social and consumer applications, new financial opportunities are created for users. Functions like staking or decentralized lending can be integrated into daily digital activities, blurring the lines between financial and social products, further expanding the crypto space. In addition to simplifying complexities such as wallet management and security, regulatory transparency and user trust are also crucial for the long-term success of applications.
We are seeing an increasing number of applications aimed at driving new users, new assets, and new on-chain activities. Breakthrough applications are often hard to categorize, and those that stand out are likely to leverage the advantages of all the new infrastructure, the heat of emerging verticals, and the speculative potential of cryptocurrencies.
AI-driven conversations based on Telegram driving consumer behavior and gaming experiences are highlights. Telegram offers a seamless user experience, with AI companion agents creating personalized, on-demand experiences, while purchasing consumer goods, such as collectibles and in-game assets, becomes a natural spending channel that is easy to achieve on-chain and with AI agents. For example, Wayfinder, Virtuals Protocol, and Theoriq are all AI agent protocols that allow autonomous agents to execute transactions on-chain. Especially, Virtuals has introduced AI idols capable of personalized interaction with users on Telegram, allowing users to interact after watching their Twitch streams.
ANAGRAM (David Shuttleworth): The next wave of adoption will primarily be driven by stablecoins, RWAs, and payment innovations, accompanied by advances in the security of the crypto economy, at least in the near term. With the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates and global rates declining, users will seek new opportunities beyond traditional finance. Stablecoins not only provide users with access to risk-free interest rates but also achieve value accumulation through protocol fees, unlocking new monetary layers for developers. Stablecoins utilizing previously idle capital (such as Bitcoin reserves) also create unique value spaces. Similarly, RWAs allow users to access diverse financial tools without permission, and developers can leverage underlying RWA infrastructure, such as stablecoins supported by BlackRock's BUIDL.
Payments are evolving beyond just cross-border transfers. More powerful developers are creating applications with on-chain autonomous banking features, including traditional savings accounts, ZK payments, and DeFi primitives (like on-chain lending, staking, and market-making). Users can also easily perform P2P payments in their non-custodial wallets. Furthermore, the emergence of Eigenlayer AVS will bring real demand to the re-staking market, allowing applications to build new core functionalities without redeployment. As protocols begin to explore different possibilities, the demand for re-staking may significantly increase. With more substantial functional AVS being launched, the need for shared security will drive re-staking yields.
User choices are becoming increasingly abundant, allowing for on-chain financial activities like borrowing, staking, re-staking, and leveraging. This marks a significant improvement compared to two years ago. Currently, major DEXs like Uniswap, Pancakeswap, and Orca have a combined monthly trading volume exceeding $135 billion. Perpetual contract platforms like Hyperliquid and dYdX have achieved daily trading volumes of $12 billion. Liquidity staking protocols like Lido have generated over $511 million in cumulative fees, and re-staking protocols like EigenLayer manage assets exceeding $12 billion, while lending protocols like Aave manage $19 billion. Additionally, stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle have monthly revenues exceeding $500 million.
However, outside of DeFi, activities available for average users are relatively limited, and most behaviors not directly involved in the above DeFi activities are often related to financial speculation. Social and consumer applications bring hope for introducing the next wave of users into the crypto space.
While DeFi applications will continue to evolve, future iterations may face diminishing returns, and the extent of improvements will gradually shrink. However, there remains vast innovation space in the social and consumer sectors, where even minor improvements can yield significant results, thus presenting opportunities that differentiate marginal improvements from those that drive real change.
Currently, many products are still in the experimental phase and require enterprise-grade infrastructure to operate smoothly. Users also need simple and familiar ways to access these applications. With technological advancements and the abstraction of entry barriers, social and consumer applications have the opportunity to introduce new types of users who are not solely focused on speculation or monetary returns.
PayFi and the payments sector may become one of the initial breakthrough points for cross-chain applications, with fiat on-chain becoming seamless, cross-border payments almost instantaneous and free, allowing users to achieve meaningful integrations, such as linking MetaMask with Mastercard debit cards to spend cryptocurrencies directly from self-custodial wallets. The payment field will be one of the most practical applications. Creating applications that offer traditional banking experiences on-chain is equally important. These autonomous banks allow users to have traditional savings accounts, borrow funds in DeFi, and participate in other on-chain activities like stakingâwithout intermediary involvement.
The widespread adoption of stablecoins and advancements in their underlying utility are also noteworthy. The ongoing evolution of digital dollars makes them not only a means of value storage or exchange but also an infrastructure layer from which developers can build more applications. New protocols are standardizing and enhancing the interoperability of stablecoins, providing new ways to accumulate value, such as sharing protocol fees with users, making the additional utility of holding stablecoins more attractive than ever.
Verifiable computation is another area that could have a profound impact. It allows developers to transfer various tasks from on-chain to off-chain and publicly verify them on-chain without re-executing the entire process. This optimizes performance, reduces the cost of on-chain logic in products, and minimizes attack surfaces and centralized dependencies. Potential uses include verifiable oraclesâupdating prices and inputs off-chain and publishing updated proofs on-chain, thereby expanding the capacity of traditional oracle architectures; cross-chain proof systemsâproviding verifiable proofs of activity on one chain (like Ethereum) that trigger corresponding actions on another chain (like Solana) (e.g., liquidity pool rebalancing after cross-chain swaps). Verifiable computation has many interesting applications in game theory and mechanism design, such as allowing users to hide orders in dark pools to avoid slippage or utilizing hidden-reveal functionality while verifying the value of a basket of goods.
The gaming sector is also a potential breakthrough point. It doesn't have to be AAA or cutting-edge first-person shooters; it can be low-resolution 8-bit or 16-bit games that focus on deep narratives, engaging character development, and interesting gameplay mechanics. Given the permissionless nature of blockchain and the increasing competition in the traditional gaming market, more powerful developers may turn to new distribution methods, breaking away from the current gaming industry track.
Lastly, there's AVS. EigenLayer is expected to attract most ETH (both native and staked), with users seeking additional yields from it. The protocol has achieved deposits exceeding 4.5 million ETH (around $12 billion), with its strength lying in expanding design space through the economic security of re-staking. EigenDA, as the first realized AVS, has already provided cost-effective and high-throughput data availability for rollups.
An increasing number of vertical AVS are emerging, including network scaling (like ZK light clients and prover networks), coordination layers (like DePIN infrastructure) for coordinating computing power exchanges, and more cutting-edge fields such as MEV management. As these services continue to create strong use cases and drive the growth of their usage protocols, the corresponding demand for AVS will also increase. Any protocol can create a re-staking and shared economic security system, but ultimately, the services built upon it define the protocol and drive the re-staking economy.
How do we view the popularity of the TON ecosystem and the challenges it faces?
OKX Ventures researcher: The short-cycle nature of hyper-casual games makes TON and Telegram an effective entry point for users into crypto. In the attention economy era, a healthy ecosystem, a solid user base, and a smooth onboarding experience are what developers expect. Users don't need to switch apps or master complex blockchain knowledge; making crypto technology 'invisible' lowers the application threshold.
The launch of the TON Space self-custodial wallet has broken the barriers of capital liquidity and usability, with the native integration of stablecoins allowing its DEX liquidity to reach 600 million USDT in a short time. Furthermore, TON's off-chain expansion and lightning network design support native high-frequency low-cost microtransactions and off-chain payment channels, addressing scalability issues at the foundational level. Even before the TON ecosystem became popular, many trading bots relying on Telegram channels, such as UniBot and Banana Gun, had already emerged to meet users' needs for fast on-chain transactions, operating directly with custodial wallets. They cater to the needs of Web3 users, and if project parties can find products that meet the needs of Web2 users, the role of wallets becomes one of traffic and payment channels, requiring no complex smart contracts, making business simpler.
While TON brings new opportunities and profit models for developers and entrepreneursâleveraging Telegram's mature user base and token use case environment to quickly commercialize social productsâmost applications, especially games and social mini-programs, still focus on meme culture and entertainment speculation, primarily simple adaptations of mini-games from platforms like WeChat. The core appeal has not fully leveraged the unique advantages of cryptocurrencies or the secure and transparent financial data management capabilities of blockchain like other applications such as financial services or payments. However, it also indicates that TON is accelerating iteration from a validated path. Moreover, opportunities for monetization through advertising and in-app purchases have yet to be fully explored. By opening its own infrastructure and providing opportunities like 'small shops' for entrepreneurs, it can still support new products with traffic and in-app purchase revenue. For example, in payment scenarios, TON could further develop payment services for online shopping, social e-commerce, and offline events; on the supply side, integrating electronic consumer goods, exhibition tickets, e-commerce products, etc., to build a full-stack consumer experience.
While guiding users and developers to build richer gamified experience ecosystems, the team needs to continuously explore how to connect everyday user needs with the on-chain world to build a stable ecosystem. For instance, Web3 payments need a key incubation scenario for mass application, akin to e-commerce for internet payments. When the payment demands in real scenarios mature, TON's crypto payments and financial services can experience a boom. Additionally, the integration of TON and TG faces challenges in user education and shifts in perceptions in non-Asian markets, especially in transforming communication tools into multifunctional platforms.
LongHash Ventures (Emma Cui): The TON team is committed to creating a super app similar to WeChat, integrating functionalities like instant messaging, social networking, DeFi, and e-commerce, all based on TON blockchain technology. Their vision is to build it into a portal for Web3, attracting hundreds of millions of users, and achieving billions of transactions in a user-friendly and seamless environment on Telegram. The goal is to gradually introduce and familiarize Telegram's loyal audience with on-chain workflows, leveraging the distribution channels already established by TON.
Although the goal of following WeChat to become a super app is challenging, considering WeChat's unique growth environment, such as government support, integration with almost all domestic banking systems, and its early development lacking competition, we believe the TON ecosystem is gaining momentum and may become the largest Web3 user entry channel in the short to medium term. We have previously written research articles on the growth of the TON ecosystem and its potential risks.
ANAGRAM (David Shuttleworth): Over the past year, TON has achieved significant growthâthe market cap of the $TON token has risen from $2 billion in 2023 to $4 billion, climbing to $8 billion in 2024, with network users and activities reaching all-time highs. With Telegram's over 900 million user base and continuously expanding features, the potential of the TON ecosystem far exceeds that of other blockchains.
However, despite the rising adoption rate, the TON ecosystem lacks meaningful applications, and users can only speculate on the underlying tokens. Developer incentives are insufficient; unlike other chains that provide millions of dollars in financial incentives to attract builders and robust applications, TON lacks such mechanisms. Furthermore, TON lacks a local stablecoin pegged to the dollar, limiting user choices for stablecoins, which rely on wrapped ERC-20 tokens bridged from Ethereum (such as jUSDT). Poor user experience severely limits the network liquidity for end users and exacerbates the difficulty of deploying applications.
The situation began to reverse in early 2024, with two key factors being appropriate ecological incentive plans and the native launch of Tether. The TON Foundation launched an open alliance, distributing $30 million in TON incentives to encourage developers and users to participate in network building, providing developers with strong motivation to begin deploying more powerful applications and compete for user attention. The quality of Builders in the industry is very limited, turning it into a competitive game where developers compete with each other, and ecosystems must also compete to attract the best talent. Without a strong incentive framework and sufficient liquidity and user demand, the network will not gain meaningful attention.
In April of this year, the integration of Tether USDT brought the first dollar-pegged stablecoin to the TON network. The deployment of such stablecoins (like USDT or USDC) is crucial for the network's success. Since Tether's launch, user activity has significantly increased, with daily transaction volumes hitting new highs of over 3.7 million transactions, an increase of over 530%. Meanwhile, daily user numbers have also risen sharply, surpassing 1 million for the first time in September and recently reaching 1.1 million, growing 752% since April.
With improvements in liquidity and incentive systems, the next step is deploying new applications. Although most of TON's growth has only recently appeared and there is more room for improvement, such as better developer tools, it is ready for further expansion. If strong applications can be onboarded, TON has the opportunity to meaningfully leverage its distribution channels. Otherwise, it may face considerable resistance, with ecological incentives weakening leading to more robust applications being deployed elsewhere, and users moving to the next opportunity, intensifying competition between ecosystems.
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