This is what Telegram's TON graph looks like today.
But it makes you wonder, will it go higher or is this a peak? Give us a few minutes of your time and we'll show you why it's going higher, and where to.
Telegram Token History
You could skip over this section but it contains "good to know" information.
Telegram is responsible for one of the biggest ICOs in crypto, they ran it in 2018 and raised $1.7 billion from investors. Now, even though they were careful not to piss of US regulators by banning anyone who wasn't an acredited investor, the SEC came knocking right before their planned launch in 2019 calling it an "uregistered security" that had been sold to US investors making it their juridiction.
Later on, the project was shutdown and ICO participants were offered to be repaid.
TON went open source and it got launched without Telegram's involvement (at least not officially) by TON labs after they forked the original network. Regulators are kind of dumb if you ask us, they hinder a project's growth but it still manages to launch with or without their say-so; so why not adapt to the new financial era and become crypto-friendly? Anyway, that's philosophical, let's get back to why TON is so interesting.
Note: We do own TON and bought at $3.80, so we're obviously bullish TON already. We have already talked about it on our Instagram stories before but here's a full fledged piece about it.
TON in 2024
Crypto's pretty much a household name already, a lot of people already entered and those who wanted to go on-chain (interact directly on the blockchain) already have. Whether that's through MetaMask and using Ethereum or Phantom and using Solana. The user experiences improved but they're still complicated for the average person, so to onboard a new wave of people you need seamless user experiences.
Think of it this way: "the simpler the user experience, the wider the door, the more people enter and then hopefully the higher prices go."
To create great experiences you need great developers which are already rare but even if they achieved it, they then need to find users and market to them.
This is why we told you about Coinbase's new blockchain before: Base. They have 100M users on their app and they're sending them and their funds on-chain. But Coinbase isn't alone in this battle.
Telegram is a platform that already has 900 million users on their app and they've decided to create that seamless on-chain experience.
And, all of the acceleration only just started now in April 2024.
TON, standing for "The Open Network", is the official token used within the Telegram ecosystem. You use it to pay for:
- Advertisement on Telegram: This used to have a 2M Euro budget requirement but it recently opened up to all at a minimum 20 TON budget ($100 today). A majority of channel owners are likely to use this.
- Anonymous eSim from TonMobile: Imagine the hassle free travel where you can buy roaming data anywhere you go straight from your phone, no more sim shopping at the airport.
- Monetizing your Audience with Tribute: Subscription models have become increasingly popular amongst content creators, so now anyone can monetize their audience on Telegram. Instagram and Twitter already launched a similar feature.
- Protect your Browsing Experience with TonVPN: Many people use VPNs to protect their browsing experience (or change the country they're accessing something from). Now you can use TonVPN which is a lot cheaper than other services at $3.40 per month ($40.80 per year).
Notice anything here? All of these applications where TON is used for payments are for everyday people, they're not some special DeFi protocol that only 1% of the world will use. These are mainstream applications and TON is at the heart of them.
There are many more updates and applications that they have planned on their roadmap, which you can view here.
How High Can TON Go?
TON is a Layer-1 blockchain like many others, so the best way to try and value it is to compare its valuation to that of other established ones.
Once we finalize the numbers, we move onto our projections.
The first three rows are collected data, the last two are ratios we calculated to better understand how the market is valuing each blockchain.
- The value per user, derived from dividing the valuation by active users, varies across blockchains due to their unique target audiences. Ethereum, with its plethora of financial applications and a higher entry cost, justifies a value per user of $935,000. Conversely, BNB Chain, appealing to a broader base with less capital, aligns with its $63,000 value per user. TonCoin, still a newcomer with less historical data, is one we project settles at approximately $50,000 per user, reflecting its emerging status and potential user base.
- The Val:TVL Ratio, representing the valuation divided by the total value locked, puts TonCoin at an optimistic estimate due to expectations of growing TVL, a perspective we agree with. For our projection analysis, we'll adopt the average ratio of 24, observed across blockchains excluding Ethereum, as our standard benchmark.
Now that we set the stage, we can move onto the projections phase where we determine the number of Active Users and TVL (Total Value Locked) we believe are achievable by TonCoin. Then, we'll use the ratios to extract a price target.
The two metrics that can be changed are the Projected Active Users and the Projected TVL. We also created this interactive calculator that allows you to change these two values and find where that would take TON's price.
Once again, we are a random Instagram page you came across. Don't randomly believe things, verify theories and never bet the farm (i.e. bet more than you can afford to lose). None of this is financial advice, this is created for educational and entertainment purposes only.
Buying & Storing TON
One of the ways we tested our TON thesis is by asking our incredibly gifted business partner, who's not crypto-native, to create a wallet on Telegram and to tell us how long it took them. "Two minutes" was the answer, and that's when we knew that TON was ready.
You can buy TON directly on Telegram. First you'll need to create a wallet by searching for "Wallet" and choosing the official one (with the blue verification badge) and then you just need to follow the steps.
Though be wary, the main wallet you access on Telegram is centralized and will require KYC above €3,500 of usage.
There is another decentralized wallet within the wallet app that you can use by enabling "TON Space" (Beta) from the wallet's settings. This one is slightly more complex to use but it gives you access to the entire TON ecosystem.
TON or Ecosystem Tokens?
Base doesn't have its own token, so we had to pick and choose tokens within its ecosystem to invest in. TON, on the other hand, does have its own token, and getting into its ecosystem is a bit trickier than just dealing with the token itself. Plus, spending TON on regular services doesn't always mean more value for the TON ecosystem.
So, we're mainly investing directly in TON for now. This idea is based on the Fat Protocol Thesis, which is just a fancy way of saying that most of the money to be made comes from the ecosystem's main token.
Managing Expectations
While we do project a future TON price of $47 to $49, it's important to understand that things may go wrong along the road. Telegram could run into legal issues again, we could see hacks, or unexpected events might happen.
Investing is a game of probabilities, not gambling. You must understand that if you go all-in on one bet and it goes wrong, you're out of the game. This is why choosing your allocations carefully is important.
Lasltly, never invest in something before you do your own research and the best way to do that for TON is to try out the user experience and decide for yourself. Then, look for some of the numbers and see if any of what we said makes any actual sense.
Once again, we're a random Instagram page that's trying to bring value into your lives But at the end of the day, that's exactly what we are—a random Instagram page. Just not your average one...