By David Zimmerman, K33 Research
If you sit in on any crypto podcast or conference, you’ll hear crypto natives talking about the upcoming “killer” app, the one crypto adoption tool that will kill it all and become a huge success.
But what if it already has? We think Telegram and a handful of independent developers have made more progress in getting the masses into crypto than the $100 billion in venture capital that has poured into the space since 2014.
If you sit in on any crypto podcast or conference, you’ll hear crypto natives talking about the upcoming “killer” app, the one crypto adoption tool that will kill it all and become a huge success.
But what if it already has? We think Telegram and a handful of independent developers have made more progress in getting the masses into crypto than the $100 billion in venture capital that has poured into the space since 2014.
Cryptocurrency adoption has been hampered by (i) poor user experience, (ii) limited real-world utility, and (iii) poor distribution. By supporting and integrating The Open Network (TON), Telegram is addressing all of these issues and more.
From a Cryptocurrency Enthusiast's Perspective
In its early development and until recently, cryptocurrencies have focused on niche technology development, mainly serving crypto speculators and lacking real-world utility. With the emergence of spot ETFs and companies such as BlackRock opening funds focused on asset tokenization, now is the time to evolve.
Telegram combines its messaging app, which has 800 million monthly active users, a blockchain that provides rails for TON cryptocurrency adoption, and a native wallet bot called Wallet. Many crypto pitches vaguely romanticize the concept of "merging Web2 and Web3," and Telegram is actually doing just that.
With this combination, Telegram solves three core problems that have held back cryptocurrency growth.
In my opinion, stablecoins are the greatest product of crypto to date. Since April, with the advent of native USDT on TON, seamless P2P transfer of value has become a reality. Users can send crypto to friends as easily as sending a message on WhatsApp. This is a smoother user experience than neo-banks like Venmo or Revolut, and is light years ahead of traditional banks.
However, the opportunity to attract hundreds of millions of people to cryptocurrencies may well come from Telegram’s Mini Apps — an open platform for businesses to build and deploy crypto-friendly applications. This will enable crypto teams to distribute their products to non-crypto native users without the end user necessarily knowing that they are using a crypto product — whether it’s a fun mobile game or a DeFi protocol.
From a crypto native perspective
Telegram has long since solidified its place in the cryptocurrency space. It is a popular platform used by crypto natives to stay in touch or share ideas, and is often the first social media channel that new crypto projects set up along with their X-accounts.
Lately, things have been getting more than that for on-chain traders. A new generation of Telegram trading bots has forever changed the user experience of cryptocurrency, and perhaps even on-chain trading.
Buy/sell, set limit orders, scan new projects, preempt new releases, and copy “smart money” trades, all made easy with just one command.
With the Telegram bot, I was completely free from the most frustrating UX issues of on-chain trading, which was refreshing. It was one of the very few times a crypto product made me say "wow, this is awesome". However, it did make altcoin trading more competitive and spurred what I consider to be the "altcoin surge".
Does this mean altcoin trading/investing is dead? Far from it. The ease with which newbies can interact with smart contracts now is simply a far cry from when they started. Combined with distribution and increasingly useful applications, this means there will be a wave of new capital flowing into cryptocurrencies over the next few years.
Exciting, but there is still work to be done
The improvements we’ve made in user experience cannot be overstated. I say this because I’ve personally made non-crypto friends through TON’s wallet. Before Telegram’s current infrastructure, I would have sighed at the thought of teaching a friend how to use crypto. Now, thanks to Telegram, I don’t see how it could be easier.
Did Telegram and TON win? Not exactly.
The improvements in user experience and distribution are a huge leap forward, but we have yet to see full adoption for consumers.
Mini Apps are in the works, and game developers have a big incentive to build a fun Telegram game that will capture the attention of its massive user base. Sadly, what exists now is more meme-based than utility-based. Regulation also remains an issue, but this is an ongoing industry issue that is not limited to Telegram or TON.
Telegram and TON still have a lot to do, but I believe they will succeed. The market seems to be pricing this in now, as TON has entered the list of top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Much of TON's rally has been driven by the kind of frenzy of speculation we are all too familiar with, but there are real fundamentals behind its growth.
Most of us would like to see a future where cryptocurrencies are widely used by the masses. This view is also held by Pavel Durov, co-founder and CEO of Telegram, who is also a major advocate of Bitcoin. TON’s mission statement is to “put cryptocurrencies into everyone’s pocket”, and in short, Telegram has more potential than any other project in this growing industry to be the first to achieve this goal.
