This article is transferred from: 💎 TON Ecological Research Institute's X account
📱 Smart move by Telegram and the $TON Foundation
Where does the proceeds from TON's sale of usernames and anonymous numbers on Fragment go? The correct answer is of course Telegram. As early as February 2024, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram intends to limit TON holdings to 10% of the entire issuance, or 510 million TON. From the same day, Telegram began selling TON at a discount of 10% to 50% through over-the-counter transactions (OTC), while setting a lock-up period of 1 to 5 years.
🕵️♂️ Telegram OTC: Analyzing the wallet
Analyzing the wallets of Telegram and Fragment, we can see that they now hold a total of about 4% of the total TON supply, which means that most of the tokens have been sold. All the processes of selling and managing TON are done through release contracts, which release a certain number of tokens within a set time frame. There is also a dedicated section for this on vesting.ton.org (here is an example).
When researching the wallets used by Telegram to transfer TON, I found the following key points:
1. Staking: Telegram actively participates in TON staking through numerous single nomination pools. This enables them to earn a return of about 3% per year.
2. Validators: Telegram participates as a validator of the TON network through Fragment Despite this, validators are not active in voting. For example, in the recent vote to reduce the network commission, they did not vote at all.
3. Pool Investment: About 30 million TONs were allocated to the smart contract pool of TON Whales. This decision seems strange because they own the smart contract of TOP and yes, there is a fully liquid Tonstakers. Isn't it trustless?
There are no other interesting mechanisms in the use of TON Whales. Among the interesting buyers, only @whale can be identified, who bought 3.6 million TON, and the largest transaction came from a stranger who bought 22.7 million TON (perhaps Pantera Capital?).
🤔️ Vesting and forecasting
A closer look at Telegram’s smart contract release shows that all TONs are frozen for one year, with a total release period of five years. The first phase of unlocking will begin in February 2025, when a quarter of all TONs will be unlocked, and then a portion of the tokens will be released every month until 2028.
Interestingly, almost all buyers who locked up TON for the long term sold their current TON tokens (at $6-7) between April and June 2024. This may indicate that they believe the price of TON will drop, especially considering that they bought it at a discount of up to 50%.
From 2025 onwards, 1.3 billion TON will be unlocked not only through Telegram's OTC sales, but also through the long-forgotten TON Believers Fund, which includes companies such as TOP and DWF. This will put huge pressure on the market. I estimate that by the end of 2025, the price of TON may fall below $3.
In addition, the inactive wallets of 171 early miners with a balance of 1 billion TON will be unlocked by 2027. Although these are Telegram wallets, this does not bring confidence in the future.
☕️ Conclusion
The TON Foundation is actively increasing TVL (total value of blockchain assets) and promoting activities on the blockchain, through boosts and open leagues, with the goal of reaching $1 billion TVL by November 2024. This will help attract more investors to The Gateway. However, these boosts are not unlimited, and from February 2025 to 2028, the TON rate is expected to change significantly, which may cause serious volatility in the market.
It is worth noting that Telegram stated in all its presentations that 500 million users will join TON by 2028, but new users will be completely unaware of the OTC sales and TON lock-ups of early miners, by which time all unlocking will be completed.
