According to PANews, Toncoin (TON) has continued its upward trend this month, soaring 50% from its April low, setting a new historical high, and becoming one of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market value. The Open Network (TON) was initially created by the popular messaging app Telegram in 2018, aiming to compete with Ethereum. However, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against the company, it abandoned TON in 2020. The company had raised $1.7 billion from private funding and argued that it was an unregistered security.
Subsequently, a group of independent developers established NewTON (now known as the TON Foundation) and gained control of the project domain and code repository in 2021. Later that year, they launched The Open Network and distributed TON. Despite TON's steady rise in the cryptocurrency market since September, its value fell by 70% relative to BTC due to the token's relatively stagnant performance. However, TON made a strong comeback in March, rising more than 170% in just the past five weeks!
In September last year, Telegram announced that they were developing a crypto wallet on The Open Network. TON experienced a brief surge, but it wasn't until last month that market participants seriously digested the impact of this partnership. On March 31, Telegram announced that it would allow users to use Toncoin to purchase ads, sharing 50% of the ad revenue from monetized channels with creators through TON distribution.
In addition to Telegram's attempts to inject Toncoin utility into its app, the decentralized TON Foundation is also working to promote the use of the chain itself. Their Open Alliance event began on April 1, distributing 30 million TON (worth $204 million at current prices) to apps and users, and using an additional 1 million TON to incentivize users to join HumanCode, the leading identity proof primitive on the chain.
The net effect of all these plans has been very positive not only for the price but also for various on-chain metrics; the number of wallets on The Open Network has doubled compared to early March, and TVL has increased sixfold! Despite TON's on-chain application scenario still being in its early stages compared to more mature EVM chains and alternative L1 leaders like Solana, the market is satisfied with the successful pricing of the TON chain, recognizing the close connection with Telegram and the real-world utility behind Toncoin, which gives it an advantage over assets from other cryptocurrency investments.