Since September 2023, TON blockchain developer TON Foundation and Telegram have continued to deepen their strategic partnership. One of their initial goals, which in the midst of 2023’s bear market was seen as rather ambitious, was to onboard 30% of Telegram’s active users to TON by 2028.
In a 3-part report from web3 firm Animoca Brands, of which part 2 has now been released, the recent success of the Telegram and TON Foundation partnership is highlighted, pointing to some areas of particular growth. Most notably, these include Telegram mini-apps and their utility as a funnel to onboard web2 users to web3.
For instance,
- In July 2024 Telegram mini-apps hit 500 million monthly active users, more than half of Telegram’s total 950 million user base. Three months later, 30 million of these had activated a wallet and entered the cryptocurrency world.
- At the start of November 2024, Telegram’s non-custodial wallet TON Space reached 100 million registrations, while total onchain activated wallets – including TON Space and third party wallets – reached 34 million.
- These generated a total of 220 million in monthly trading volume in October 2024, a x30 increase from September 2023.
Starting off this growth of social mini-games on Telegram was the early 2024 success of clicker game Notcoin, where players were introduced to crypto through token airdrops. This trend was later enhanced by projects like Hamster Kombat, and Catizen. According to the report, 70% of the top 50 Telegram channels are now dedicated to the TON network, and TON Foundation has now included social games as a specific focus area for grants.
However, the main challenge remains user retention. Keeping users engaged beyond initial hype and rewards is vital to accomplish the goal of converting 500 million Telegram users to web3 by 2028.
To that end, TON Foundation is pivoting from its top-down governance model to a more community-led structure in terms of resource allocation. Instead of rewarding TON tokens to projects that drive interest, users themselves that generate more activity and engagement to the projects will be rewarded. This focuses on incentivizing onchain users instead of subsidizing builders.
Considering that user engagement is an important factor for the platform’s revenue, this is proving to be strategically well-timed. For instance, due to the growth of users buying a premium account subscription and the exclusive use of TON on ads platform, Telegram is on track to achieve its first profitable year in 2024.
Telegram’s onchain name and virtual phone number marketplace Fragment also provides a significant source of revenue, including both primary sales from Telegram and a platform cut from secondary sales. Additionally, Telegram’s online point system Stars was also introduced in June 2024. Stars can be bought using fiat through Apple and Google stores or with TON via Fragment, and enables users to buy various digital assets and services.
You can read the full report here >>
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