Cryptoverse: TON takes off on Telegram tie-up

By Elizabeth Howcroft

(Reuters) – A coin referred to as TON has leapt in worth in latest months, with traders betting its integration with messenger service Telegram may deliver the cryptocurrency to the app’s estimated 900 million customers.

Telegram endorsed TON in September final yr, saying the blockchain and related token could be its “official Web3 infrastructure”. Earlier this month, TON stated that tokens is also issued on its blockchain, permitting Telegram customers to ship the stablecoin to one another inside the app.

The TON token has surged, reaching as excessive as $7.63 on April 11, in contrast with round $2.21 a yr earlier, in line with CoinGecko knowledge.

With $18.3 billion in circulation, it is the tenth largest cryptocurrency, coming after memecoin .

The prospect of a “tremendous app” or “every thing app”, uniting funds and buying with social media or messaging providers, has lengthy been a holy grail for traders, who look to China’s WeChat for inspiration. Within the crypto world, it is generally referred to as “SocialFi”, brief for social finance.

Such concepts drove Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, now X. Binance, which helped fund the buyout, stated it could discover how crypto could possibly be used on the platform. Britain’s Revolut, in the meantime, has approached it from the opposite course, beginning with a finance app then including social features on prime.

Whereas the enchantment of TON is a part of broader curiosity in tremendous apps, it has additionally been helped by an total revival in altcoins, stated Thomas Peuch, CEO of digital asset hedge fund Indigo.

“TON did outperform numerous its friends as many individuals are shopping for into the venture as curiosity in alts returned and because of the backing of Telegram,” he stated, including that Indigo had traded the TON token.

TON, brief for “The Open Community”, has a crypto pockets product inside Telegram with greater than 6 million month-to-month customers.

LIBRA FAILURE

Efforts to deliver crypto funds into social media haven’t up to now succeeded on a large scale. Fb (NASDAQ:), now Meta, wound down its “Libra” cryptocurrency venture after fierce opposition from regulators globally, who have been involved that it may hurt monetary stability and erode management over financial coverage.

“The latest foray into crypto funds by means of Telegram introduces a brand new use case for the app, however its acceptance and adoption are nonetheless within the nascent phases,” stated PitchBook senior analyst Robert Le, who stated there was a rise in enterprise capital curiosity in SocialFi.

“The principle problem is shifting person perceptions in non-Asian markets, the place messaging apps are predominantly seen purely for communication fairly than as multi-functional platforms.”

Such integrations current “regulatory, technical and safety challenges”, stated Ram Gopal, a professor at Warwick Enterprise Faculty.

“Regulators could also be involved about how these platforms adjust to present monetary rules,” he stated.

“Making certain customers are shielded from scams, fraud, and potential losses as a consequence of cryptocurrency volatility could be a vital concern for regulators,” he added.

HISTORY OF TON

Telegram Messenger created TON’s blockchain in 2018 and raised $1.7 billion by promoting the related cryptocurrency. However the venture was hit by prices from the U.S. Securities and Change Fee, which stated the token sale violated federal securities legal guidelines.

As a part of a 2020 settlement with the SEC, Telegram agreed to cease growing TON. It neither admitted to nor denied the SEC’s allegations.

A bunch of unrelated builders then continued to work on the venture, choosing up the place Telegram left off, in line with a historical past on TON’s web site.

TON says it’s decentralised, based mostly on an open-source codebase, with no single controlling authority. There is a non-profit basis behind it, registered in Zug in Switzerland.

A spokesperson for TON stated that Telegram and TON have been distinctly separate entities.

The TON Basis’s president is Steve Yun, the physique’s web site says. Andrew Rogovoz, former CEO of Russian social media web site VK, is a founding member of the inspiration, in line with his LinkedIn profile. He appeared on stage with Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino at a convention in Dubai the place the partnership to difficulty the stablecoin on the TON blockchain was introduced.