Written in front:
Just before $DOGS was launched on Binance, the founder of Telegram was arrested, and TON plummeted. It seemed that many people were pessimistic about the TON ecosystem.
In fact, Telegram was forced to withdraw from TON due to regulatory pressure, and it was not until March last year that it announced its cooperation with TON, so strictly speaking, the founder of Telegram is not a central figure in TON. I hope that the TON ecosystem can survive this black swan event.
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The TON ecosystem is gaining unprecedented attention, and the biggest promoter is Binance:
On May 9, Binance announced that the new Lanchpool project is TG Mini Game Notcoin
On July 23, Binance announced its investment in Pluto Studio, the publishing platform for TG mini-game Catizen
On August 8, Binance announced the listing of Toncoin (TON)
On August 13, Binance officially announced that Binance Launchpool and Super Earn will list Toncoin (TON)
On August 20, Binance announced that the new Lanchpool project is the Ton ecosystem Memecoin DOGS
In just 4 months, with the support of Binance, the Ton ecosystem has been advancing rapidly, beating a number of top L1 and L2. During this period, everyone's cognition has been constantly refreshed, with strong support and doubts, and no one can convince anyone.
In fact, there is no right or wrong in this debate, and there will be no answer in the short term. If the timeline is extended to 3-6 months later, many things may be self-evident. Before that, we should think more about why Ton became the chosen one? What facts should we recognize?
1. Ton’s past and present life
Many newcomers may not know that the now prosperous Ton once encountered its darkest moments: regulators blocked it, investors chased after its debts, and Telegram withdrew...
This story begins in 2017, when Telegram took the lead in launching its own L1: Telegram Open Network (later renamed "The Open Network", or Ton), raising more than US$1.7 billion through ICO.
This move quickly attracted the attention of regulators. The US SEC accused them of issuing securities without registration. Telegram was forced to refund + pay fines + withdraw from the TON project and return the development work to the community.
At that time, industry media all came together to criticize TON. No one would have thought that TON would one day become the darling of Binance, let alone believe that TON could attract tens of millions of users in such a short time.
Between 2020 and 2021, the NewTON team (now TON's core team) restarted the development of TON and renamed it The Open Network, aiming to become a global distributed supercomputer with cross-chain interoperability, high performance, and Turing completeness.
Last September, Telegram announced its cooperation with TON and started to integrate TON into the Telegram App. So far, TON has become a Layer1 deeply integrated with Telegram, providing a fast, secure and scalable blockchain environment, processing millions of transactions per second, and becoming the largest channel for Web2 users to enter Web3.
Since the beginning of this year, mini-games based on TON have become very popular, with millions of users participating. As the number of incremental users has been slow, Binance quickly sensed the opportunity of TON ecosystem and has been investing in it.
It is worth noting that after Binance launched $TON on August 8, it quickly listed TON as a Lanchpool project and listed Toncoin (TON) in the Super Earn section:
①Lanchpool: The total mining amount is 7.65 million. Users can stake BNB or FUUSD for mining, which will last until September 3
Portal: https://launchpad.binance.com/zh-CN/launchpool/TON_BNB
②Super Earn: Users subscribe to newly launched tokens through the principal-guaranteed earning product and enjoy a limited-time special annualized rate of return; As expected, TON quotas were snapped up in an instant after they were opened
Click here to view: https://www.binance.com/zh-CN/support/announcement/7858ad40a8ab43db8d1cc5f966e65d88
It has to be said that this operation of Binance is indeed a bit "abnormal". Listing the coin first and then opening Lanchpool seems to be the first time in history.
2. Several facts behind the TON outbreak
The explosion of TON is not accidental. As the only public chain officially supported by Telegram, TON is backed by TG's huge user base and is highly integrated with TG, achieving smooth mini-program operation. It can be called a phenomenal entrance connecting Web2 and Web3. Exchanges will naturally not miss this overwhelming traffic.
Putting aside the external factor of the exchange, the Ton ecosystem has indeed sent out some positive signals this year:
① The number of developers has soared
According to Howard Peng, TON's head of Asia development relations, the number of developers on the TON blockchain increased rapidly in the first and second quarters of 2024.
At the same time, the number of downloads of TonConnect is growing rapidly, and more and more applications are being deployed on Ton. This not only reflects the expanding developer community, but also highlights the ease of use and powerful functions of the TonConnect SDK, making it the first choice for developers.
②TON ecosystem is becoming more prosperous
According to Ton.app statistics, the TON ecosystem has more than 1,100 applications, covering multiple categories such as trading markets, wallets, games, NFTs, social networking, Launchpad, etc., of which games account for 26%.
Click here to view: https://ton.app/
③The number of users has soared, with Asia being the main market
According to TonStat, the number of active wallets on the TON chain has increased from 1.08 million at the beginning of the year to 13.1 million now: https://www.tonstat.com/
TON's Director of Development Relations in Asia further pointed out that Asia is TON's most important market. It not only has a large number of experienced developers, but also a large and tech-savvy population that adopts new technologies relatively quickly, ultimately contributing to TON's overall success.
④USDT issuance ranks fourth
Since Tether announced the issuance of USDT on TON in April this year, its current net circulation is approximately US$600 million, ranking fourth, only behind ETH, Avax and Sol.
Query link:
https://tether.to/en/transparency/?tab=usdt
Stablecoins are a barometer of demand in the crypto market. The circulation of a large number of stablecoins means that there is strong demand for crypto business on TON and high transaction activity.
⑤TVL increased 55 times in half a year
According to Deflama data, the current TVL of the TON chain is US$522 million, ranking 17th among all chains.
Compared with other popular blockchains, TON's TVL is not high, but this does not hinder TON's explosive growth: since January this year, TVL has increased by as much as 55 times.
⑥Some issues that should not be ignored
It is undeniable that TON has been the best in development this year, but it has also exposed many problems, such as serious homogeneity of ecological applications, false prosperity created by studios’ fake sales, short life cycle of most projects, poor user stickiness, and death as soon as the tokens are issued...
At the same time, the integration of the TON network with the privacy-focused Telegram makes it more likely to attract scammers. It is said that the TON scam script has spawned a business, and scammers can easily carry out scams through various forms of phishing scripts.
In short, the outbreak of TON ecology shows good momentum, but there are indeed some problems behind the prosperity, which are worthy of consideration and optimization by all participants.
