Ecosystem Brief: TON Growth and Optimism Valuation Premium

Ecosystems Screener

Powered by Messari Screener

Source: Messari Major Ecosystem Screener

The majority of ecosystem tokens are down over the last month with the notable exception of TON, Telegram’s proof-of-stake chain. TON’s rise comes on the heels of this summer’s Telegram Bot apps, such as Unibot, which grew to rival revenues of top DeFi protocols. While popular apps like Unibot only use Telegram’s messaging app as an interface to Ethereum protocols and do not directly use the TON chain, they have popularized a new messaging app-based UX paradigm that simplifies blockchain interactions for users.

That isn’t to say there isn’t activity on the TON chain itself, though. Recently, the TON Foundation held a demo day for new apps participating in the foundation’s $25 million accelerator program. Included are apps around gaming, fantasy football, and social infrastructure. 8XR is a gaming-focused project and already has 30,000 MAUs and 200,000 play sessions over the last 30 days. In addition, DEXs on TON have nearly $6 million in TVL and 21,000 unique users.

The interesting thing about TON, outside of its potential to tap into Telegram’s existing 700 million users, is the chain’s business model. Instead of users bearing the cost of chain operations (paying gas), smart contracts deployed on the chain need to acquire TON tokens and continuously pay rent to the chain. This shifts the fee burden to apps similar to how traditional Web2 apps are constructed.