Ton Ecosystem Analysis, Web3's New Traffic Oasis | TrendX Research Institute

06/14/2024·7months ago

Notcoin has created a myth of 35 million registered users and has also gained favor from OKX JumpStar and Binance Launchpad; Catizen has nearly 20 million registered users in just 2 months. This has overturned the inherent image of a project in the Web3 field, with a scale of several thousand to tens of thousands of people. Along with the continuous popularity of the Ton ecosystem, more and more projects and funds are migrating to Ton. As a new traffic oasis in the Web3 field, TrendX will bring you an analysis of the Ton ecosystem.

What is the Ton Ecosystem?

Before understanding TON, one must first understand Telegram.

Telegram is an encrypted communication application that supports end-to-end encryption and does not censor content. In order to avoid the influence of a single government, its servers are distributed in multiple countries around the world. Telegram currently has over 900 million monthly active users globally, with advertising revenue of approximately $45.6 billion. Telegram is another social application giant besides WeChat, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

In 2019, Telegram attempted to launch the TON public chain. However, this project was intervened by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during the ICO stage, and after a series of legal disputes, the project was canceled in 2020. The TON project was originally planned to be promoted by Telegram, but after reaching a settlement with the SEC, Telegram announced that it would no longer participate in the TON project. However, the community and other developer teams decided to continue the project, and Ton was born from this. Although TON is not directly related to Telegram, the official Telegram and founder Pavel Durov have continued to support the project in recent years, emphasizing the business relationship between Telegram and TON.

TON currently includes four main components: TON blockchain, TON payments, TON proxies, and TON storage (decentralized storage).

TON blockchain is a general-purpose blockchain that includes a standard execution layer, allowing permissionless transactions;
TON payments is a low-cost micro-payment platform that allows instant and fast payments between users. It can currently be accessed through the Walletbot on Telegram, benefiting from in-app convenience;
TON storage allows for the storage and distribution of files on TON, similar to a decentralized Dropbox;
TON proxies ensure anti-censorship by allowing users to run .ton websites independent of fixed IP/centralized domains;

The most widely used component in the industry is the Ton blockchain, and there are already dozens of projects represented by Notcoin, with many development teams dedicated to deploying new projects on TON. Previously, TrendX had outlined representative projects on TON in "Understanding the Hot Traffic Game Jointly Created by Telegram x TON | TrendX Research Institute".

The Impact of the Ton Ecosystem on Web3

TON's vision is to create a Web3 mini-program ecosystem based on TON within Telegram.

Decentralized applications built on the TON public chain can be landed in the form of Bots (robots, similar to WeChat mini-programs) through the Telegram Bot technology, organically integrating with the Telegram ecosystem. Currently, most decentralized applications exist in the form of web-based versions, which have the biggest problem of poor user experience and lack of smooth usage.

Telegram Bots, on the other hand, are a form of application with very good user experience. They can be used directly within Telegram, providing a consistent experience similar to an app, allowing Telegram users to easily transition to the Web3 world. In other words, relying on its large user base, TON provides enough public domain traffic for Web3 developers, similar to TikTok. In the future, whoever can capture the attention and comments of TG users will be successful.

Overall, the TON public chain has the following advantages to ensure the prosperity of the ecosystem:

Convergence of massive traffic: Telegram has 800 million monthly active users, with a registered user base of over 1.3 billion, and over a million new users registering every day. These figures are 1.4 times that of Twitter, 61% of WeChat, and 86% of Facebook. TON public chain and Telegram have an inseparable strategic relationship.
Strong willingness of TON ecosystem users to pay: If Notcoin's success proves that users from traditional social media channels can become registered users of Web3, then Catizen's success verifies the logic of Web3 users' willingness to pay for in-app purchases;
Sound infrastructure: Based on Telegram's social product with 1.3 billion users, an embedded native wallet and DEX trading market, a closed-loop encrypted ecosystem can be completed directly within the TG community. In addition, the public chain's efficient sharding technology, flexible smart contract platform, strong cross-chain interoperability, and rich development tools and application ecosystem.
Rapid growth of TVL data: The total locked value (TVL) on the TON chain is over $370 million, with a monthly growth rate of 85%. The public chain's ranking will soon enter the top 20. A detailed inventory of the TON public chain ecosystem: 13 staking projects, 43 wallet projects, 8 cross-chain bridges, 114 tool and bot projects, 98 NFT projects, 21 social projects, 53 gambling projects, 16 DEX projects, 97 game projects, 10 developer tool projects, 12 e-commerce projects, and 10 Launchpad projects. By carefully examining these segmented areas, it can be seen that the TON public chain already has a relatively rich ecosystem foundation.
Strong support from the Ton Foundation: The Ton Foundation has set aside $150 million for incentive programs, providing strong support for high-quality startup projects.
Easier to gain favor from institutions and exchanges: Projects on TON can easily present user data and TVL, making products with data display capabilities easily obtain financing from institutions, and products that can complete new user registrations are also attractive to exchanges.

Taking Notcoin as an example, with 35 million registered users, assuming a conversion rate of only 1%, it means that Notcoin can bring 350,000 new users to the exchange. The many advantages of the TON ecosystem form a natural contrast with the classic Web3 ecosystem: most non-TON ecosystem projects or public chains currently have only a few thousand daily active users.

Taking STRK as an example, a former star second-layer public chain, with a luxurious capital and a powerful project team, after the token sale, the daily active users on the chain plummeted to only a few thousand. Based on the premise of low user numbers, combined with various low circulation, high FDV, and valueless behaviors like Restake, it is easy to conceal actual risks.

Future Development of the TON Ecosystem

Since most TON ecosystem projects are mainly presented in the form of TG Bots, similar to WeChat mini-programs, we can make a simple guess about the future development direction of the Ton ecosystem: what WeChat mini-programs are currently doing will also become the main form of TG Bots in the future.

Currently, the Ton ecosystem is mainly focused on games, mainly due to the low development cost of mini-games and the backing of Telegram's traffic pool, which leads to faster user fission. So we can see the current appearance of Notcoin, Catizen, and similar imitations. However, after this, TG Bots are likely to become one of the social media matrices for different projects, and even the entry channels and carriers for official websites and feature lists.

Overall, whether it's project parties, VC institutions, exchanges, or retail investors, capturing traffic is the key. The TON ecosystem narrative has just begun, and in the foreseeable future, while the TON ecosystem is not yet fully saturated, it will definitely have more wealth effects and opportunities.

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