Why does a public chain without listing on Binance and without a mature ecosystem have such a high market value? This is a question that many industry practitioners may ask.
On March 13th, after a slight decline in the overall market, the TON public chain token, Toncoin, surged to 4.5U before falling back. TON ecological projects also saw a surge, such as the TonUP token reaching 0.95U, a 20% increase.
Since TON went live on the OKX exchange, within the small cycle from 2022 to 2024, the K-line trend of Toncoin formed a clear “W” shape, which is favored by K-line enthusiasts.
In addition, from the trading data, TON prices have risen by over 200% within 2024, and over 400% within half a year. As the price rises, token trading volume has increased dramatically, with trading volume in the past three weeks being about four times that of a month ago.
What is even more eye-catching is that with the price surging to 4.5U, TON’s total market value exceeds 15 billion US dollars, ranking 11th on the cryptocurrency rankings (excluding stablecoins and anchor coins), highlighting its value performance.
When comparing TON with other tokens in the top 30 rankings, we can also find that TON is the only token that is not listed on Binance, yet it has already occupied a high market value without the liquidity support of the world’s largest exchange.
Compared to other ecosystems, TON has a relatively small number of ecological projects. So what exactly has driven the token price increase and the rise of TON and its ecosystem?
Table of Contents:
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Finding Analytical Entry Points from the Logic of Token Price Increase
Influencers of TON
Who are the Market Makers of TON?
Performance of TON’s Ecosystem
Continued Value Capture of TON’s Future
We try to find the reasons and explore the subsequent development space. According to basic logic, the price increase of tokens originates from more buying demand, continuously pushing up the price of individual transactions, which can be clearly seen from recent trading volumes.
In this process, external buying is one aspect, and the other is the promotion of TON market makers. In the cryptocurrency trading market, market makers can sense market buying and selling trends through market-making data. They actively push up prices to maintain price fluctuations within a relatively stable threshold.
Under this idea, market makers actively drive up prices, while external investors who buy in will make their own judgments. They will be influenced by external factors and influencers.
Finally, TON’s characteristics may attract users and investors or form a trend of self-driven ecosystem valuation compared to other ecosystems.
Therefore, we try to find reasons from three aspects:
Who are the influencers in a bull market?
Who are the market makers?
What supports TON’s market value and liquidity?
When searching for TON on X, most of the recent news is related to TON and Telegram’s founder, Durov. However, when you open Durov’s account, you will find that his tweets stopped in 2022, but his Telegram account is still being updated and currently has over 200 million subscribers. This shows that although Durov has left the Twitter platform, his influence has grown even larger. Along with Durov’s increased influence, Telegram’s user base has also grown. According to official disclosures, Telegram now has over 900 million monthly active users.
Before and after the publication, most users were discussing the holdings of TON tokens in Durov’s account, including large amounts of TON tokens.
In addition, there have been two major news clues recently. One is Durov’s statement that he may lead Telegram to conduct an IPO. From an external perspective, TON and Telegram are inseparable. Telegram is already the biggest trump card for TON’s user and business potential. If an IPO is conducted, it will provide great support to the valuation of the TON ecosystem.
The second news is that Durov proposed a solution to address the centralization impact and investment returns of TON. After Telegram adopted TON tokens as advertising payment tokens, some users were concerned that Telegram’s holding of too many TON tokens would have a negative impact on decentralization.
To limit Telegram’s holdings of TON tokens to no more than 10% of the supply, Durov proposed a plan to sell excess TON tokens at a price lower than the market price with a lock-up period of 1-4 years, targeting long-term TON investors to stabilize the ecosystem and reduce volatility.
The above performances once again clearly illustrate that each project founder is the center of the entire ecosystem and the representative of the ecosystem’s legitimacy. Durov’s declaration is the core of TON’s strong performance and a strong guiding force in the development of the ecosystem. From Durov’s subjective behavior, we can predict that TON and Telegram will not separate under any circumstances and they are closely related, just like the integration of Telegram and TON in the Web2 and Web3 models.
When we first use Web3 assets or wallets in Telegram, you will be surprised to find that your personal account page will have a wallet option. In the wallet, you can seamlessly exchange cryptocurrencies (using fiat or stablecoins or other tokens) and fully experience Web3 games or interact with the blockchain in any Telegram chat page.
This may be the most important disruptive meaning that Durov pursues in the ideal of Telegram’s establishment.
In the first section, we talked about the main internal driving force behind token price increases being in the hands of market makers. So who are the market makers of TON? There is no accurate confirmation from external sources, but based on disclosed partnerships, we can confirm the direction.
Currently, the identities of market makers in the industry mostly possess capital attributes. In April 2022, the TON Foundation announced the establishment of the $250 million ecological fund Toncoin Fund, which received investments from Huobi, KuCoin, MEXC, DWF, and others.
Among them, besides exchanges, DWF is a well-known Web3 market maker in the industry. In addition to this investment, DWF Labs has also sponsored TON hackathons and deployed two verification nodes on the TON blockchain.
By analyzing the performance of previous projects invested or market-making plans by DWF Labs, we can make corresponding predictions about market-making styles. The project list includes CFX, Mask, YGG, SNX, ACH, RSS3, but this is only a general inference in the market.
According to insiders, the TON Foundation is also collaborating with other mainstream market makers, such as GSR. However, it is uncertain whether these market makers have the capability to actively push up TON. Therefore, it remains a mystery as to who is the market maker pushing up TON.
Influencers and market makers are one of the major external manifestations, but what is even more important externally is substantive growth and construction, which is the internal improvement of a public chain.
According to statistics from the TON official website, the entire ecosystem currently includes 602 application projects, divided into 19 categories including centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges, staking, wallets, browsers, bridges, utilities, channels, NFT collectibles, chat, social, gambling, games, Jettons, NFT services, VPN, development tools, shopping, and launchpads.
TON’s DApp promotion as an example
By specifically calculating the number of projects in each category, we can conclude that exchanges, wallets, browsers, channels, utilities, NFT collectibles, chat, gambling, and games account for a large proportion. However, if we only calculate the number of on-chain applications, the quantity is approximately around 300, mainly including games, bots, gambling, and DeFi.
From the perspective of overall application types, most applications are a fusion of Web2 and Web3, with only the corresponding functional boundaries distinguished. It can be said that TON’s ecological applications have integrated the attributes of Telegram and Web3.
And if you have experienced the use of applications and the built-in wallet function in Telegram, you can clearly see that Telegram is the external entry point of TON, and from this entry point, entering Web3 is extremely smooth.
The applications within the ecosystem are consistent in using Telegram as the entry point and mode of interaction, and wallets as interactive tools.
The wallet also has two types of transaction methods, Web2 and Web3, allowing for smooth exchange of USDT for TON and independent account transfers, as well as interaction with other applications. Additionally, it supports various types of calls and invocations.
In the end, it can be summarized that TON has achieved a thorough integration within the Telegram ecosystem. Telegram is present in the form of Web2 but exists as a super application with the spirit of Web3 and the decentralized core of TON. Within Telegram’s nearly one billion global users, the TON token will become an absolute value performance outlet, and it is these applications that support the value of TON.
After TON performs its value as a native token, with the support of applications for native tokens and ecosystem construction, DeFi applications will also carry the same value performance, such as Dex, Launchpad, lending, etc. The most obvious example is the short-term surge of the TonUP token, which is a shovel in the ecosystem, achieving an increase of about 300% during the period of TON token’s explosive rise. Its quick response to the association is worth noting. For ecosystem projects further away from the core native token business, such as games and social, they will be the target of backend rotation in the associated response.
In addition, the TON Foundation has recently actively promoted the ecological construction of Meme and other tracks and launched the Open League’s liquidity incentive program. The program has selected core ecological projects including STON, DeDust, and TonUP to jointly promote and provide support of 50K TON. According to statistics, the number of TON ecological projects has increased by about 10% in the past six months, and with the price increase, more projects have joined TON, choosing Launchpad platforms like TonUP for IDOs.
TON’s on-chain data verifies the current growth trend. Firstly, according to DeFiLlama data, TON’s on-chain TVL reached a new high after the surge in TON prices, with a lock-up of about 13.86 million TON tokens, worth about $56 million at its highest. Secondly, according to Token Terminal data, both the weekly active users and monthly active users of TON have reached new highs, with weekly active users surpassing 490,000 and monthly active users surpassing 730,000.
TON currently has a high market value, but compared to other ecosystems, it has two obvious characteristics. Firstly, there is a shortage of the number of ecological projects, leaving great room for expansion in the future. Secondly, TON currently lacks a huge potential for trading release. Recently, news of TON being listed on Binance has been spreading. Once the news is confirmed, the trading potential of TON will be even greater.
We are currently in a bull market, and expectations for tracks and ecosystems will be transformed into buying actions, which means voting with our feet. TON offers expectations from Telegram’s 1 billion users to the performance of the founding team and ecosystem expectations, which have aroused market appetite.
When we put aside the easily dazzling vocabulary, the core of TON’s value capture still comes from the platform value of Telegram:
The valuation of 1 billion internet users.
The liquidity demand generated by using TON as advertising fees within the platform.
Telegram’s ability to acquire customers through convenient and smooth marketing communication.
Complete integration of Web3 into the product design, breaking the barriers of entry for Web3.
By referring to any platform with such characteristics, TON can continuously provide the value it wants to capture, and businesses closely related to TON and the ecosystem, whether it is the aforementioned gold shovel TonUP or Dex STON, DeDust, or the game Notcoin, will all benefit infinitely.
Of course, long-term gains come from holding and construction, and the biggest breakthrough in the short term is still the listing on Binance. Binance has already listed perpetual contracts for TON, and the news of TON spot trading going live is still fermenting. Judging from the recent actions of the foundation, it seems to be actively preparing, and investors, both old and new, in the market are eagerly awaiting.
PS: This article mainly presents to readers how to track the driving factors behind the surge in token prices. It does not constitute investment advice. In addition, this breakdown logic is more suitable for one-sided trends.
This article is authorized to be reproduced from PANews.
