The TON craze has subsided, but major actions continue: Is it the bubble dissipating, or is the super entrance settling?

Introduction

In the third quarter of 2024, the TON blockchain rapidly exploded with the influx of traffic from Telegram, as the Tap-to-Earn mini-games attracted hundreds of millions of users, creating a miracle of on-chain growth. At the same time, the TGE of several TON ecosystem projects also generated a strong wealth effect, making TON/Telegram a hot narrative center in Web3.

However, after the hype, TON is entering a cooling period that deserves caution. Similar to the usual Web3 narratives, after the bubble, is it sedimentation or zeroing out? Is it a temporary pause in traffic, or is the value transformation yet to come? At this juncture, we hope to reassess whether TON has the long-term potential to become a 'super entry point on the chain' by using detailed data, ecological evolution paths, and technical stack layout as entry points.

1. After the Tap-to-Earn Boom: The Cooling of TON's Popularity and Data Decline

According to the introduction on the TON official website, TON( The Open Network ) is a decentralized open internet aimed at bringing 500 million people on-chain, built using technology developed by the community behind Telegram. With the backing of Telegram, a Web2 social platform with nearly 1 billion users, TON indeed has the potential to achieve its goal of bringing 500 million people to the on-chain world, and it has achieved tremendous success in 2024.

1. Toncoin(TON Token) has a maximum market value of over $25B, ranking in the Top 10 of cryptocurrency market cap.
2. Tap to earn mini-game Hamster Kombat officially discloses attracting over 300 million users;
3. The TON Blockchain reached a maximum of 700k+ new addresses added in a day, with daily active addresses exceeding 1.657M.
4. The market value of multiple Telegram mini-game assets exceeds $500M, with the on-chain DeFi TVL in 2024 surging by over 5,500%......

The dual miracle of traffic and wealth has made TON one of the absolute focal points of the Web3 narrative in 2024. However, similar to previous Web3 booms, short-term surges are often accompanied by data declines. The TON ecosystem is currently experiencing a phase of "narrative cooling period": as shown in Chart 1, both the number of new wallets added daily and active addresses, as well as the TVL and trading volume of core DEX (Stone.fi and Dedust), have significantly decreased from their peak levels. Although there have been some short-term peaks during this period, they are mostly temporary rebounds driven by specific projects; looking at the annual trend, multiple indicators have retreated to levels seen before the narrative was initiated.

However, it is not all pessimistic signs. The number of Jetton Wallet( non-zero balance wallets) is still steadily increasing, indicating that the accumulation of basic users is still ongoing, although the growth rate has obviously slowed down. At the same time, the number of NFT minting is also maintaining growth, indicating that the on-chain application ecosystem is still being continuously promoted.

On the other hand, from the keyword trends of Google Trends, the overall search popularity of TON is also gradually declining, especially the attention to the ecosystem itself has dropped significantly. In contrast, the market's focus on Token prices remains stronger.

However, a decline in data does not necessarily mean the end of the narrative. Similar examples are common: Bitcoin once experienced on-chain overload due to the inscription craze, but eventually, activity returned to a relatively stable level; Solana and Base, after experiencing a data halving, welcomed a user influx again and set new highs alongside technical optimizations and ecosystem advancements.

Does TON also have the ability to achieve a deep transformation from traffic to value after the frenzy subsides? Is it a temporary dormancy, or will it ultimately become a "narrative relic"? The answer will ultimately be determined by actions. In the following content, we will analyze the changes that are quietly occurring in TON "after the tide recedes" from aspects such as organizational strategy, ecological construction, technological upgrades, and narrative transformation.

2. Major Actions Frequent: Team Reshuffle, Compliance and New Markets, Infrastructure Development

Since the launch of a certain trading platform in August 2024, the narrative of TON has entered a new phase. On the surface, the enthusiasm has cooled down, but in reality, it is a period of accelerated layout: including team restructuring, regulatory compliance exploration, deep integration with Telegram, expansion of the technology stack, as well as developer incentives and capital injection aimed at the global market.

2.1 Leadership Changes and Compliance Efforts: TON Accelerating Mainstream Path

At the beginning of 2025, the personnel adjustments at the TON Foundation sent a clear signal: globalization and compliance will become the core strategic directions for the coming years.

On January 15, Manuel Stotz, the former board member and founder of Kingsway Capital, was appointed as the new president of the TON Foundation. Kingsway is a well-established investment firm managing billions of dollars in assets for American investors, and Stotz's background brings a strong signal of "traditional capital markets" to TON. According to the official announcement, he will work alongside the former president and current board member Steve Yun to promote the international expansion of TON, with a focus on the United States market—a dynamic but highly regulated region that is seen as a crucial battleground in TON's strategy.

On April 24th, the TON Foundation further appointed MoonPay co-founder Maximilian Crown as CEO. MoonPay is a leading global crypto payment infrastructure company that has obtained compliance licenses in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, Australia, and the Netherlands. Crown has extensive global operational experience and compliance handling capabilities, and his appointment is widely seen as a landmark step for TON to formally embrace regulation and move towards global mainstream adoption.

It is worth noting that Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram and an early promoter of the TON blockchain, was once detained in August 2024 due to Telegram's alleged regulatory violations, only returning to the public eye in March 2025. Although there is no conclusion to this incident yet, the timing coincides highly with the strategic adjustments of the TON Foundation, which may have indirectly prompted the team to pay more attention to regulatory issues, clearing obstacles for future global implementation.

Recently, the TON Foundation has been actively communicating with U.S. regulatory agencies. According to the TON ecosystem report, the TON self-custody wallet is scheduled to launch in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2025. In March 2025, the TON Foundation disclosed that certain U.S. venture capital firms hold over $400 million in Toncoin. This can also be seen as an important testimony to TON's transformation towards compliance and globalization.

From the global distribution of Telegram users, if TON wants to convert them into Web3 users, it must meet the regulatory requirements for crypto assets in various countries. Otherwise, it will not only be difficult to land applications in key markets, but it may also pose potential legal and business risks to Telegram itself.

In fact, the global expansion of TON has already begun. Starting from November 2023, TON has initiated a phased promotion in certain African countries, followed by expansion into multiple markets in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, paving the way for subsequent global compliance.

2.2 TON × Telegram: Deep Integration, Binding Ecological Entrance

In January 2025, Telegram officially designated TON as the sole blockchain infrastructure for its continuously evolving mini-app ecosystem, with the core being the TON Connect protocol that seamlessly connects Telegram mini-apps with blockchain wallets, thus simplifying user interactions with decentralized applications within the messaging app. This exclusive protocol establishes TON as the actual blockchain layer for Telegram's nearly 1 billion users. This positions TON to potentially become the "Web3 version of WeChat Pay," fully leveraging Telegram's massive network effects.

In the payment system, Telegram promises to exclusively accept Toncoin as a non-statutory payment currency within its ecosystem, applicable to scenarios including Telegram Stars, Premium memberships, advertising system ( Telegram Ads ), and payment gateway services ( Telegram Gateway ). Developers and channel operators can directly receive income through Toncoin, initially establishing an internal payment and revenue distribution system based on Toncoin.

At the same time, the payment service provider RedotPay has supported the USDT version of Toncoin and USDt( on the TON chain, and has integrated mainstream payment methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Alipay, which can be used at over 130 million offline merchants worldwide, further expanding TON's payment capabilities in the real world.

The TON Space wallet has recently introduced the use of Telegram Stars to pay transaction fees, which is essentially a form of crypto "abstraction" solution that allows users to complete transactions without needing to understand complex on-chain operations. This approach differs from traditional chain abstraction solutions, as it not only relies on massive entry traffic but also promotes the transformation of on-chain applications towards "lifestyle" and "normalization". According to the official plan, starting in the second quarter of 2025, U.S. users will be able to directly experience TON wallet services within Telegram, further bridging the gap between Web2 consumption scenarios and on-chain asset management.

) 2.3 Ecology: From Mini Game Craze to Diversified Track Expansion

The first wave of ecological boom in TON is mainly driven by mini-games. Under the combination of "airdrop incentives + easy to get started," users quickly flock in. For example, the airdrop of "Hamster Kombat" in September 2024 peaked at 300 million monthly active users in July, but by November, only 52 million active users remained, with over 86% user loss in just a few months. While simple and replicable game mechanics can create a "growth illusion" in the short term, they struggle to form long-term user retention, exposing the homogenization problem in the early stages of the ecosystem.

In the face of this situation, TON is focusing on expanding the builder ecosystem on one hand, and accelerating infrastructure layout on the other. In April 2025, TON announced a strategic partnership with Chinese gaming giant KingNet###, which has over 100 million users(, and hosted the first large-scale game developer conference in Asia, attracting dozens of studios from the WeChat ecosystem to explore how to build Web3 applications based on Telegram and TON.

With the launch of the Telegram App Center feature, users can directly explore integrated third-party applications within the platform. An increasing number of TON ecosystem applications are appearing on the recommended list, no longer limited to games, but also including social, payment, DeFi, NFT, and other dimensions, marking the initial expansion of its application ecosystem.

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According to statistics from a certain data platform, among the 187 TON projects that have been recorded, approximately 14% focus on infrastructure. In addition to underlying services such as oracles and wallets, there are also development support platforms like TONXAPI and Play Deck, which lower the technical threshold for new builders and accelerate the sustainable development of the ecosystem.

In addition to gaming, the TON ecosystem is expanding into multiple new narrative tracks: including PayFi, RWA) which will be detailed below(, as well as AI, contract trading)Perp DEX(, DePIN, and other application directions. For example:

• Jointly launch a TON perpetual contract DEX incentive activity with a certain perpetual contract DEX;
• Launch bounty program with AI Agent operating system ElizaOS;
• Collaborating with the aggregator protocol Jupiter to promote the development of the TON ecosystem aggregator......

The ecological potential has also attracted a positive response from institutional funds. In September 2024, a certain investment institution and a certain platform invested 30 million USD in TON, and the following month another platform announced an additional investment of 10 million USD, promoting the development of the Telegram application. In early 2025, former TON Foundation President Steve Yun launched the venture capital fund TVM Ventures, with an initial scale of 100 million USD, focusing on supporting DeFi, PayFi, and underlying infrastructure projects, further enhancing TON's developer appeal and ecological moat.

) 2.4 Technical Upgrade: Advanced Performance and Scalability

According to the roadmap released by TON for the first half of 2025, the core goal of its technological iteration is to alleviate congestion and enhance scalability and stability. This round of updates covers four major directions, reflecting TON's evolutionary logic towards a "high-load, high-frequency application blockchain:"

1. Accelerator Mainnet Upgrade

This is the most significant architectural upgrade since the establishment of TON, aiming to implement the "Infinite Sharding ###" mechanism, and significantly enhance the stability and scalability of the network. Core improvements include:

• Sharding