Telegram’s total revenue for 2024 is expected to reach at least $971 million and may surpass the $1 billion mark, thanks to the synergy of TON. This article is sourced from Animoca Brands Research’s article “TON Part 2: A win-win outcome from one year of partnership,” organized and translated by Chain Catcher.
(Background: The early core members of TON recount the top 10 key contributions that influenced the initial development of TON.)
(Background Supplement: Telegram’s revenue exceeded $500 million in the first half of the year, showing a year-on-year growth of 190%. The increase in TON’s value and the subscription model have been key factors.)
Original Title: TON Part 2: A win-win outcome from one year of partnership
Key Issues:
How is TON progressing toward its goal of introducing 500 million users to cryptocurrency?
What strategies is the TON Foundation implementing to elevate the ecosystem to a higher level?
What benefits has Telegram gained from its partnership with TON?
Table of Contents
Introduction
Three-Step Strategy
Step One: Promote “Click to Earn” social games to attract users into Telegram Mini Apps
Step Two: Convert Mini-App players into cryptocurrency holders through token airdrops
Step Three: Retain cryptocurrency users through DeFi applications
Notcoin, Hamster Kombat, and Catizen
Growth of the TON Blockchain
Activity Level
Total Value Locked (TVL)
Comparison with Other Layer 1s
Summary of the TON Section
Success of Telegram
Features Related to the Partnership with TON
Growth in Popularity of the Telegram Platform
Impact on Telegram’s Profitability
Conclusion
TL;DR
In September 2023, the TON Foundation and Telegram announced a strategic partnership aimed at introducing 30% of Telegram’s active users into the TON ecosystem by 2028. As the infrastructure layer, TON has leveraged Telegram Mini Apps to cover and attract Telegram’s vast user base. The success of Notcoin has paved the way for activating Mini-App users through social gaming. Subsequently, users gradually engaged with cryptocurrency through token and meme coin airdrops. To support this growth, the foundation has utilized TON Grants, The Open League, and offline events to achieve its goals. By July 2024, the monthly active users (MAU) of Telegram Mini Apps reached 500 million, driving Telegram’s overall MAU to a new high of 950 million. As of October, 30 million of these users successfully entered the cryptocurrency realm. The high engagement rate of Telegram Mini Apps not only enhanced user participation on the platform but also significantly increased platform revenue, particularly boosting high-tier account subscriptions and exclusive use of Toncoin on the advertising platform. Telegram is expected to achieve its first profitable year in 2024, with annual revenue potentially reaching $1 billion. To further accelerate ecosystem growth, the TON Foundation is transitioning from a centralized governance model to a community-driven funding allocation model through the “Society DAO.” This shift aims to promote more development and innovation within the ecosystem.
Introduction
In September 2023, the TON Foundation deepened its collaboration with Telegram, aiming to introduce 30% of Telegram’s active users into the TON blockchain ecosystem by 2028. Since the announcement, the TON Foundation has been dedicated to nurturing the Telegram Mini-App (TMA) ecosystem, positioning Mini-Apps as the gateway for existing Telegram users to enter the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This collaboration has enabled TON to reach over 900 million Telegram users. For Telegram, the community activities organized by the TON Foundation have become a core market expansion force for the Mini-App ecosystem, filling the market gaps resulting from the company’s streamlined operations. This article will explore the journey of both parties since their partnership and the impacts generated thus far.
Three-Step Strategy
In the partnership announcement, Mini Apps were proposed as an intermediary layer connecting TON’s infrastructure with Telegram’s Web2 user base. Successfully implementing this strategy requires addressing the following three key questions:
How to attract Telegram users into Mini Apps?
How to convert Mini-App users into cryptocurrency users?
How to retain these cryptocurrency users in the long term?
Jack Booth, former Head of Market Development at the TON Foundation and co-founder of TON Society, shared insights on this strategy during a podcast interview in August 2023:
“We engage everyone through ‘Click to Earn,’ and then some users can easily facilitate global cryptocurrency transactions via DM. Following that, some of these users will start using more complex DeFi products on TON. That’s the logic of the entire plan.”
In summary, the foundation’s answers to the above questions are:
Promote “Click to Earn” social games to attract users into Telegram Mini Apps.
Convert Mini-App players into cryptocurrency users through token airdrops.
Retain cryptocurrency users through DeFi applications.
In practice, this three-step strategy is more of a retrospective summary of a community-driven innovation development process rather than a top-down plan execution. Next, we will delve into each of these three components.
Step One: Promote “Click to Earn” Social Games to Attract Users into Telegram Mini Apps
Following the initiation of the collaboration with Telegram, the TON Foundation actively promoted the development of Mini Apps through its community interaction channels. In the third quarter of 2024, GameFi projects began to appear among the funded projects of TON Grants, alongside traditional on-chain functional projects. This change indicates that the foundation has recognized the significant potential of game development in driving the popularity of Mini Apps.
In January 2024, the first phenomenon-level Mini-App game, Notcoin, was launched. This “Click to Earn” social game quickly became a hotspot on Telegram, attracting 35 million users even before its Token Generation Event (TGE). Interestingly, Notcoin originated entirely from community innovation and was not initially included in the foundation’s plans. However, its success prompted the foundation to prioritize social gaming as a key funding area.
In the first half of 2024, the number of funded GameFi projects continued to increase. For instance, Hamster Kombat and Catizen were launched in March 2024, attracting 300 million and 39 million users, respectively, before their TGEs. By the end of May 2024, the monthly active users (MAU) of Telegram Mini Apps reached 400 million and surged to 500 million in July. Considering that Telegram’s total MAU during the same period was approximately 950 million, this means that over half of Telegram’s users interacted with Mini Apps each month. Achieving this milestone in less than 10 months is undoubtedly a significant success for the TON Foundation.
Step Two: Convert Mini-App Players into Cryptocurrency Users through Token Airdrops
The launch and airdrop of tokens have become a key step in converting Web2 players into cryptocurrency users. Points earned through the “Click to Earn” mechanism are converted into on-chain tokens with real market value, incentivizing users to explore and engage in cryptocurrency trading.
The infrastructure supporting this conversion has already been established on Telegram. By November 2023, the Telegram Wallet and non-custodial TON Space wallet were integrated into Telegram, allowing users outside the United States to receive Jettons (the fungible token standard on the TON blockchain).
The launch of Notcoin and its airdrop was the first significant move in this conversion process. In the first week of the Notcoin token airdrop on May 16, 2024, 2.7 million out of 35 million users claimed Notcoin tokens, and by August, this figure reached 11 million.
This impact was reflected in key metrics of the TON ecosystem: the number of enabled wallets doubled from 4.2 million to 8.5 million in the first month following the token launch, while the number of wallets with non-zero balances grew from 3 million to 6 million during the same period.
This success was replicated by subsequent social games such as Hamster Kombat (TGE on September 26, 2024) and Catizen (TGE on September 20, 2024), which respectively brought in 3.2 million and 1.8 million on-chain token claims, driving further growth in the number of wallets with non-zero balances in October.
The GameFi-driven wallet proliferation laid the foundation for broader cryptocurrency application scenarios on TON. For instance, the meme coin DOGS became the first popular meme coin on the TON network, with its launch at the end of August 2024 triggering a new wave of wallet activations, paving the way for subsequent game token releases. This success was entirely community-driven by TON, unexpected yet significantly impactful.
By November 1, 2024, registered users of TON Space (Telegram’s non-custodial wallet) reached 100 million, while the total number of enabled wallets on the TON blockchain (including TON Space and third-party on-chain wallets) reached 34 million.
Step Three: Retain Cryptocurrency Users through DeFi Applications
After attracting Telegram users into Mini Apps and introducing them to cryptocurrency, the primary task for the projects and the foundation is to retain these users within the ecosystem.
The challenges of user retention can be illustrated by the performance of GameFi projects on the TON blockchain. Measured by unique active wallets (UAW), the top-performing projects maintain about 60% daily activity even after their peak. However, for mid-tier and lower-tier projects, retention rates drop sharply: projects in the second tier retain only 37%, while those in the third tier retain just 25% of their activity.
Measures to Address User Attrition
To tackle this issue, the TON Foundation and project teams have strengthened user retention through the following methods:
Integration of DeFi Tools: Introducing decentralized exchanges (DEXs), staking, and liquidity mining tools to provide users with more opportunities for cryptocurrency asset management and earnings.
Optimization of Reward Mechanisms: Incentivizing users to participate in on-chain activities long-term through airdrops and in-game economic designs.
User Education and Support: Assisting users in becoming familiar with more complex DeFi applications through embedded tutorials in Mini Apps and interactive community support, lowering the learning threshold.