Will the TON ecosystem enter a large growth cycle?

With Binance launching multiple TON tokens in succession in the past few months, the market's enthusiasm for this ecosystem has become increasingly high.

From small program games to payment bots, more and more users are pouring in. Can the TON ecosystem break through the existing bottleneck and achieve sustainable development? In this article, Biteye will explore the subsequent potential of the TON ecosystem in depth, in the short term? In the medium and long term? Welcome to read!

01 Background: Continuous Coin Listing of TON Ecosystem

In this round of cycle, the sentiment against "VC coins" with high FDV and low circulation was once widely popular among investors. As a top exchange, Binance announced in June this year that it would open its listing plan to more medium and low market value projects to adapt to the market rhythm.

Among a series of small and medium-sized market value projects that have been launched one after another, the launch of TON-related tokens such as $NOT, $TON, $DOGS, $CATI, and $HMSTR has attracted widespread attention and some controversy, and has also completely ignited the Telegram mini-program track.

$NOT is the token of the Tap to Earn mini-game Notcoin. Telegram users only need to enter the Notcoin channel and click on the screen to earn $NOT.

The "fool-style" operation has made Notcoin viral on Telegram. Since its launch on January 1, 2024, Notcoin has become one of the most popular and user-friendly channels on Telegram. The community is extremely popular, with more than 30 million participants and an average daily active peak of more than 5 million.

Due to its simple and direct gameplay, when Binance announced the launch of $NOT in May, many users exclaimed: Is this possible? While being surprised, they also had to pay attention to the TON ecosystem and "get involved".

Source: https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/05/16/notcoin-launches-on-ton-blockchain-with-80b-token-airdrop/

With the explosion of Notcoin and the influx of users, TON ecological projects and users have shown a surge. In August, Binance launched $TON spot and $DOGS spot one after another. In September, it was connected to $CATI and $HMSTR spot.

Unlike several other projects, $DOGS is a pure meme, and its black and white dog image is inspired by Telegram founder Pavel Durov. He drew the iconic dog Spotty at a charity auction to support an orphanage.

$DGOS opened airdrops to all Telegram users, and different numbers of points were obtained based on the length of account registration and activity. After the airdrop qualification query is open, users can also sign in and continue to receive points by completing tasks, and the points correspond to the number of airdrops.

$DOGS has 42.2 million users eligible to participate in the airdrop, and 17 million users successfully received the airdropped tokens. Before listing on Binance, $DOGS already had 4.5 million independent currency holding addresses.

Source: https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/08/21/dogs-coin-tge-postponed-check-out-new-date/

$CATI is the token of the mini-game Catizen. As a cat-themed Telegram mini-program game, players can easily start the game by simply launching the robot on the Telegram messaging platform.

Novice players will receive a kitten of the initial level. As the game progresses, more cats will "airdrop" into the player's cafe. If you have two cats of the same level, drag them together to upgrade to a higher-level cat and increase its ability to earn coins.

Since its launch in March 2024, Catizen has accumulated 40 million players, of which 15.2 million users are eligible for airdrops.

Source: https://gam3s.gg/catizen/

$HMSTR is another token for the Notcoin-like clicker game Hamster Kombat, where the core gameplay is still to click to earn coins.

After its launch, Hamster gained an astonishing number of users, registering 239 million users within three months, of which about 100 million were monthly active users.

Source: https://hamsterkombatdaily.in/blog/hamster-kombat-app/

02 Thinking from the perspective of the exchange: business growth and market demand

From the above listed projects, it can be seen that except for $TON, the other four tokens are projects with simple and crude participation methods and huge user data. Although slightly homogeneous, they can still be listed on Binance continuously. Although the logic behind it is diverse, the most important one is that the huge holding group of these tokens can bring significant business growth to Binance.

Exchanges listing coins, users charging coins, and trading can directly bring a large number of users and trading volume to Binance. It is not difficult to infer that the growth effect is good through Binance's continuous online actions.

Compared with other Web3 dApps, the number of users of TON ecological tokens can be described as terrifying. The data of Hamster Kombat is also very impressive in Web2.

03 Why is it TON ecology?

TON ecology has such a strong listing effect, which is inseparable from the strong user and traffic base of Telegram.

The founding background of Telegram originated from the demand for encrypted communication. The founder Pavel Durov and his brother Nikita Durov jointly promoted the development of this platform.

As the third most downloaded instant messaging app in the world, Telegram has more than 950 million users, covering multiple regions, especially in India, Russia, and Southeast Asian countries.

Telegram itself has a strong encryption gene. Telegram itself is committed to protecting user privacy through confidential communications. At the same time, TG also launched TON in 2018 and conducted an ICO to fund the development of TON that year.

However, due to the SEC's legal action against Telegram, Telegram was forced to stop the development of the project in 2020 and returned investors' funds. After Telegram withdrew from the operation of TON, the developers continued to promote the development of TON and formed an independent community.

Although Telegram and TON operate independently, TON maintains a close connection with Telegram in terms of technical architecture and user base.

TON's technical architecture is a perfect match for Telegram, and Telegram is also embracing the embedding of TON. Therefore, TON's applications can be seamlessly integrated into the Telegram platform, forming an advantage that other blockchains cannot match.

Telegram's own encryption gene also makes Telegram's users more receptive to Crypto. This integration allows users to enjoy extremely high convenience when using TON, especially for new users. The familiar environment can effectively reduce their learning costs and greatly improve the user conversion rate.

As for the crypto conversion potential of Telegram users, some studies estimate that among Telegram users, about 10%-15% may be interested in or have some knowledge of cryptocurrency.

If calculated based on 950 million, the potential crypto users may be between 95 million and 140 million. For these potential users, the seamless integration of TON + Telegram is undoubtedly an efficient way of conversion. Telegram's crypto gene is TON's greatest gift.

04 Subsequent potential of TON ecosystem

The popularity of mini programs is not limited to mini games. The success of game mini programs such as $NOT, $CATI and $HMSTR has indeed made the TON ecosystem gain huge user attention and activity in a short period of time.

These games, ranging from simple click mechanisms to complex strategies and development systems, have attracted a large number of users with their easy gameplay and potential wealth.

However, as Binance has launched multiple mini-game tokens, and more and more studios have joined, the user education level has been improved and homogeneous mini-games have been produced in batches, the user acquisition and conversion effects may show a decreasing trend, and the logic of listing directly through CEX also faces greater challenges.

Therefore, in the short term, TON Binance coin-listing mini-programs may face greater difficulties.

Source: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/toncoin

But in the long run, as the best link between Web2 and Web3, the TON ecosystem still has great potential for large-scale application in the Crypto industry.

Diversified potential of mini programs

Although mini games are currently attracting much attention, the potential of mini programs is far more than that. The TON ecosystem should further explore the diversity of mini programs and develop more types of applications.

For example, in addition to the existing game mini programs, TON can explore mini programs in other fields such as education, finance, and social networking. These application-based mini programs can attract a wider range of user groups, especially in Telegram's huge user base, and can bring new growth points to TON.

With a deeper understanding of user needs, we can expect to see various types of mini programs springing up in the future. This is not limited to games, but also includes mini programs such as payment, social interaction and other practical functions.

Through these new applications, TON will be able to capture Telegram's traffic password more effectively and provide users with more value and choices.

Synergy between Payment and Bot

In addition to mini-programs, forms such as payment and Bot will also play an important role in the TON ecosystem.

For example, Tether has natively integrated USDT on TON, and users will be able to easily conduct crypto transactions and payments within Telegram.

This seamless payment experience provides users with greater convenience and further lowers the threshold for using cryptocurrencies.

Source: https://decrypt.co/148441/telegram-now-lets-users-pay-merchants-bitcoin-heres-how-works

At the same time, various types of trading Bots, as the mainstream of on-chain interaction, have begun to occupy an important position in the TON ecosystem.

These Bots help users participate in the crypto market more efficiently through automated transactions, information acquisition and market analysis. The combination of Bots with mini-programs and payment functions provides users with a richer way of interaction, allowing users to trade and manage assets more easily in the TON ecosystem.

05 Summary and Outlook

Binance's continuous listing of coins has allowed the TON ecosystem to tap into Telegram's traffic treasure trove.

Although the simple and crude mini-program craze may be coming to an end in the short term, with Telegram's strong user base and active community, the TON ecosystem still has unparalleled advantages and potential, and we need to patiently wait for market exploration and verification to make a difference in the large-scale application of Crypto.