From Web2 to Web3: How TON Is Reshaping the Future of Social and Payments?
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From Web2 to Web3: How TON Is Reshaping the Future of Social and Payments?
Without increasing user migration costs, TON can leverage Telegram's existing social network to reconstruct Web2 business models in a Web3 manner.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: LouisWang, Core Contributor of Biteye
Editor: Crush, Core Contributor of Biteye
*Approximately 5000 words, estimated reading time: 10 minutes
01 Public Chain Positioning
As the cornerstone of the crypto ecosystem, public blockchains have always been central to core narratives. Whether Layer 1 or Layer 2, beyond pursuing high performance, what matters most is having genuine active users and rich application scenarios.
TON (The Open Network), officially supported by Telegram, leverages Telegram's massive user base of 900 million monthly active users to build a unique narrative across payments, social interactions, and mini apps.
Without requiring additional user migration costs, TON can reconstruct Web2 business models in a Web3 way by utilizing Telegram’s existing social network.
Despite Telegram already being an important hub for crypto users, TON’s adoption among these users remains limited.
Many alpha Telegram groups require NFTs as entry tickets, but these NFTs are not Jettons on TON; trading bots like Unibot and Banana Gun deepen Telegram’s utility for crypto users, yet much of the trading still occurs on Base or Solana rather than TON.
(Note: Jetton is a token standard on TON Blockchain, analogous to ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. For details, see official documentation: https://docs.ton.org/develop/dapps/asset-processing/jettons)
The TON team and TON Foundation are actively working to break through current barriers and fully unlock TON’s potential.
By enabling large numbers of real users to directly own crypto wallets—allowing them to send crypto transfers as easily as sending WeChat red packets—and combining this with mini apps similar to WeChat’s, TON has the potential to deliver the long-sought holy grail of mass adoption for the crypto industry.
02 Current Ecosystem Overview
According to Defillama data, TON’s TVL currently stands at $310 million, ranking 25th among all public chains.
Due to coordinated efforts from the TON Foundation, Telegram, and its partners, activity within the on-chain ecosystem has grown explosively over the past two months.
In late March, the TON Foundation announced it would distribute 30 million $TON tokens over one month for liquidity incentives. In April, Tether announced direct integration of USDT on TON, enabling minting and redemption.
These consecutive catalysts rapidly increased TON’s TVL—from $22 million in early March to $300 million today—achieving nearly a 15-fold growth in less than three months, with momentum continuing.
(Source: https://defillama.com/chain/TON?price=true)
Consequently, blockchain activity has seen significant growth across multiple metrics:
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Daily transaction volume increased over 50x: rising from 100,000 daily transactions in March 2024 to between 4 million and 9 million per day
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Daily active wallets grew 8x: from 60,000 in March 2024 to nearly 500,000 today
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Activated wallet addresses on-chain increased 4x: from 1.5 million to 6.2 million
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Average daily fees on TON reach $100,000: half of which are burned
(Source: https://app.artemis.xyz/project/ton)
According to ton.app, there are currently 787 apps in the TON ecosystem, spanning categories such as developer tools, games, NFTs, social platforms, launchpads, and group chats.
(Source: https://ton.app/)
03 Interaction Opportunities
When engaging with the TON ecosystem, opportunities can be approached from two main angles:
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Established DeFi projects that may receive additional rewards through foundation liquidity incentives;
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Highly viral gaming and meme projects—such as Notcoin-like mini games—that easily attract large numbers of real users via Telegram, where listing on major exchanges could bring immense value.
Below are some key interaction opportunities.
Wallets
The first step to participating in the TON ecosystem is using a wallet. Currently, 43 wallets support the TON chain.
(Source: https://ton.app/)
Wallet
Wallet is Telegram’s native custodial wallet, similar to how WeChat Wallet is embedded within WeChat settings. Users can directly use Wallet for token swaps. It supports fiat onboarding via P2P or bank cards.
(Wallet and TON Space)
TON Space
TON Space is a self-custodial wallet launched by the TON Foundation and integrated into Telegram. Accessible through Wallet, users can connect directly to TON-based dApps using TON Space.
Using TON Space feels similar to other non-custodial EVM wallets. You can import existing accounts from wallets like Tonkeeper. Notably, recovery can be done not only via seed phrase or private key, but also through email or your Telegram account.
DeFi
Although TON’s TVL has surged over the past two months, its asynchronous design—while enhancing performance and scalability—has also increased development and maintenance complexity for developers.
Therefore, unlike Ethereum Layer 2s where major projects often migrate en masse, TON’s DeFi ecosystem still has considerable room for diversification.
(Source: https://defillama.com/chain/TON)
TonUP
TonUP is a launchpad built on the TON chain, helping promising projects issue assets and raise funds, thereby driving ecosystem growth.
Early backed projects like Tap Fantasy have already attracted over 730,000 users. TonUP has received official support from the TON Foundation and TONCoin.Fund, and secured funding from renowned investment firms including Foresight X.
(Source: https://tonup.io/)
STON.fi
STON.fi is the largest DEX on TON, offering near-zero fee and low-slippage trading, directly integrated with TON Wallet.
According to Defillama, excluding LSD-type projects not counted toward chain TVL, STON.fi leads the TON ecosystem with $222 million in TVL—accounting for 71.4% of total—and has become the biggest beneficiary of TON’s liquidity incentive program, growing its TVL 20x in two months.
(Source: https://app.ston.fi)
STON.fi offers the most comprehensive set of trading pairs. Until the June liquidity incentive campaign ends, users providing liquidity or trading in designated pools can earn extra rewards with APY exceeding 200%.
Additionally, STON.fi is offering 10,000 $STON tokens, with stakers receiving up to 10% of their deposited amount in airdrops.
Tonstakers
As a PoS blockchain, TON enables staking. Tonstakers is the first liquid staking derivative (LSD) platform in the TON ecosystem, developed by TOP Labs and integrated into Tonkeeper. Similar to Lido, users can stake $TON to receive $stTON, which can later be redeemed back for $TON after the staking period.
Over 50,000 users have already staked $TON worth more than $220 million. While APY is currently only 2.76%, it remains an attractive option for long-term $TON holders seeking yield.
(Source: https://tonstakers.com/)
Games
Compared to its relatively sparse DeFi landscape, TON is very strong in gaming. Mini apps on Telegram naturally align with social-oriented casual games. Simple gameplay combined with one-click sharing on Telegram allows games to spread efficiently.
$Notcoin, recently listed on Binance Launchpool, is a mini game on TON where players tap a coin within Telegram to mine $Notcoin.
Its simple mechanics, team competition system, and tangible rewards led to viral growth, attracting over 35 million users and reaching 5 million daily active users.
Notcoin effectively leveraged Telegram’s vast crypto-native user base and introduced many people to cryptocurrency in an accessible way, showcasing TON’s application potential.
Catizen
Catizen is the second Telegram bot product from Pluto Studio. As an early developer and co-builder of the ecosystem, the Pluto team has received substantial economic and resource support from the TON Foundation.
In August 2023, the team launched their first Telegram-based mini game, Tap Fantasy, which now has 730,000 global users.
Catizen is a cat-themed game integrating GameFi, AI, and metaverse elements to deliver a highly immersive interactive experience.
Within just two months of launch, Catizen surpassed 10 million players and brought 695,000 new users to the TON chain.
(Source: https://x.com/CatizenAI/status/1795059958146605532)
Players can raise cat characters and earn token rewards through in-game activities.
The game features a mining mechanism allowing players to earn $wCATI tokens—represented as paw prints—by completing tasks and events.
Beyond gameplay, Catizen also operates a launchpool. Its first round, concluded earlier this month, distributed 840 million $wCATI tokens, with over 24,000 users participating and more than $39 million staked.
Next, Catizen will evolve into a Telegram gaming platform. It has already signed contracts with 18 popular WeChat mini games and plans to gradually launch them on the Catizen platform using its valuable experience in blockchain integration and TON deployment, along with future launchpools.
Given Catizen’s unique positioning, experienced team, and strong on-chain performance, it warrants long-term tracking and participation.
Hyper
Hyper is the first metaverse project on TON simulating real human behavior, similar in category to Notcoin but with upgraded gameplay—simple clicking bots cannot replace real human interaction.
Users start the game via a bot, drag their character to collect coins according to prompts, buy boxes for higher scores, and recharge battery power to keep earning coins.
The game employs referral mechanics (invite friends to earn coins), and with Notcoin setting a precedent, Hyper’s enhanced visuals and improved gameplay give it strong potential as an upgraded version.
The Open League (TOL)
TOL is a competition among TON ecosystem projects and users aimed at boosting overall engagement, helping projects expand their user bases, developing more engaging and functional products for Telegram’s massive audience, and rewarding participants.
Thus, the TOL leaderboard serves as an excellent guide when interacting with the TON ecosystem.
(Source: https://blog.ton.org/these-are-the-best-projects-of-tol-season-1)
During the first season lasting one month, over $3 million worth of $TON was distributed. The top two DeFi projects, Ston.fi and DeDust, are now the top two DEXs by TVL on TON, while Tonstakers, the leading LSD, now surpasses even Ston.fi in TVL.
(Source: https://blog.ton.org/tol-season-2-results-just-landed)
In Season 2, Catizen ranked first and Getgems (an NFT marketplace) ranked second. Getgems’ pre-airdrop market was the primary trading venue for Notcoin points.
(Source: https://ton.org/en/open-league?filterBy=forProjects)
Season 3 is currently ongoing, expected to distribute $1 million worth of $TON. Projects ranking high on the leaderboard are prime targets for engagement.
Yescoin
Besides Catizen in first place, Yescoin—the second-place game—is currently the fastest-growing game on TON. Very similar to Notcoin, it involves collecting coins and completing tasks via swiping on mobile screens.
These simple, mindless games can be highly addictive, and well-executed clones tend to gain significant traction.
Tonano
Tonano is an inscription project on TON. During the minting of the first TON20 inscription $nano, the sheer number of participating users and network transactions caused massive traffic and load on the TON network, resulting in temporary delays and congestion.
(Source: https://tonano.io/)
Tonano’s marketplace has processed over a million dollars in trading volume, providing essential liquidity for TON20.
A cross-protocol asset bridge enables swapping between TON20, other inscription protocols, and Jetton tokens, making a broader inscription ecosystem possible.
Fanton
Fanton is a football manager-style game on TON, where player cards are issued as NFTs on the TON chain.
It already has over 400,000 registered users and has secured investments from TONcoin.Fund, First Stage Labs, and Tonstarter. With the upcoming UEFA Euro, it could become the next hot trend.
(Source: Fanton Twitter)
Squid
Squid is an inscription-based game built on TON where users purchase squid eggs containing $TON from the marketplace, hatch squids, produce more eggs, and sell them for profit.
04 Conclusion
The TON ecosystem is still in its early stages, especially in terms of DeFi projects, which remain thin. However, TON’s value cannot be measured solely by TVL. Its access to Telegram’s real user base represents a natural advantage unmatched by other public chains.
Mobile-first mini app games are particularly effective at spreading virally and inducing FOMO, similar to WeChat’s “Yangle Yangle Sheep.”
Moreover, for non-crypto Telegram users, TON significantly lowers the learning curve, making it easier to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3.
With active stimulation and support from the TON Foundation, the ecosystem is gaining solid momentum and deserves long-term attention and participation.
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