Author: Nancy, PANews

A tweet from Pavel Durov caused a surge in the TON ecosystem.

From being forced to withdraw to regaining control, Telegram took six years to return to TON's home turf. Behind the slogan "Make TON Great Again," Telegram has now grown into a platform with billions of users, and TON has also gained the ability to survive.

After six years, Telegram regains control of TON

On May 4th, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram would replace the TON Foundation as the primary driver of TON and serve as its largest validator. This significant news signifies that TON has officially returned to Telegram's control.

Back in 2020, a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) forced Telegram to put TON on hold. Afterwards, TON was taken over by the community and the TON Foundation.

In the past two years, Telegram has been gradually integrating TON into its ecosystem through Mini Apps, wallets, and other means, and last year it established TON as its exclusive blockchain partner. Now, Telegram has finally transitioned from a partner to a leader.

In the "Make TON Great Again (MTONGA)" seven-step technology and ecosystem upgrade plan that Telegram began leading in April this year, two core upgrades have been implemented so far.

First, the TON network performance has been significantly improved, with processing speed increased by about 10 times, block generation speed increased by 6 times, and transaction confirmation reaching sub-second levels. Second, fees have been further reduced to an extremely low level, with each transaction costing only about 0.00039 TON (about 0.05 US cents), moving towards near-free.

The latest step still revolves around technological optimization. Durov clearly stated that TON's focus will shift entirely to technological advantages, with plans to launch a brand-new ton.org website, developer tools, and performance upgrades within the next two to three weeks. This is also the third step in the MTONGA plan.

This series of technological accelerations is not surprising. TON's previous network congestion and slow iterations had begun to affect user experience and were inconsistent with Telegram's user base and product ambitions. Rather than waiting for the TON Foundation to push things forward, it's better to take direct control of the pace.

Behind Telegram's full return: multiple considerations

In fact, Telegram's return to the market was not a spur-of-the-moment decision.

On the one hand, the regulatory environment of the crypto market has improved significantly, clearing key obstacles for Telegram's re-entry and providing more room for development.

On the other hand, Telegram itself has transformed from burning cash for growth to diversified monetization, with subscriptions, advertising, and other businesses building a stable cash flow. In the first half of 2025, its revenue increased by 65% year-on-year to $870 million, providing TON with the financial strength to continue investing.

Moreover, Telegram now boasts over 1 billion monthly active users and has evolved from a simple communication tool into a super platform integrating social networking, content, commerce, and Web3. Its natural traffic entry point and rich application scenarios give it even more confidence in its efforts to promote TON.

More importantly, TON has become a crucial part of Telegram's revenue structure (the exclusive partnership agreement contributed approximately $300 million in revenue). However, Telegram's profits are under pressure due to TON price fluctuations. Especially given IPO considerations and debt pressures, Telegram needs to transform TON, its core revenue source, into a more stable and sustainable business engine.

Furthermore, Telegram's takeover is also intended to consolidate governance and improve decision-making efficiency. By becoming the largest validator, Telegram can better promote protocol upgrades, security, and feature implementation, avoiding the uncertainties of a foundation-led system.

With Durov's strong return, TON's ecosystem sentiment has been significantly boosted in the short term. As a result, Coingecko data shows that TON has risen by approximately 26% in the past 24 hours, and by a staggering 72.9% in the past month. Simultaneously, the TON ecosystem has also rebounded, with the total market capitalization of MEME coin increasing by over 34.2% intraday.

The benefits and concerns of TON after being linked with Telegram

Telegram was once the main force behind the full-scale explosion of the TON ecosystem.

Dune data shows that TON’s large-scale usage was concentrated between 2024 and 2025, with a transaction volume of over US$184.29 billion during the two years, accounting for nearly 87% of the total historical transaction volume (approximately US$210.8 billion); the number of transactions reached 2.59 billion, accounting for approximately 80% of the total historical number of transactions (3.257 billion); in terms of user growth and retention, TON did indeed experience a significant surge in the second half of 2024, with daily new users and returning wallets once reaching the millions.

This is thanks to the continuous integration between Telegram and the TON ecosystem during this period, including wallet embedding, the explosion of Mini Apps like Notcoin, payment binding, and the formal establishment of TON as the exclusive blockchain infrastructure.

However, while the deep integration with Telegram allows TON to reach the public faster than most L1s, over-reliance on a single platform is also considered to make it difficult for the ecosystem to achieve sustainable and independent long-term development.

Currently, the TON ecosystem covers multiple sectors including infrastructure, payments, DeFi, AI, NFTs, and Mini Apps. However, most are still in their early stages, with core applications highly concentrated within the Telegram ecosystem: NFTs and Gaming Mini Apps. NFTs encompass usernames, anonymous numbers, and gifts, with a cumulative transaction volume exceeding $920 million. There are over 1,300 monetization-enabled Gaming Mini Apps with more than 14 million active addresses.

Meanwhile, TON is also facing challenges in user activity and fund retention. Data from Dune and DeFillama shows that the number of on-chain users has been declining from its peak, dropping to a fraction of its peak level; transaction volume and number of transactions are also significantly lower than historical highs; and TVL has fallen from a high of approximately $760 million to approximately $77.17 million.

While Telegram's emergence as TON's largest validator has improved efficiency, it has also exacerbated concerns about decentralization. Furthermore, the global regulatory pressure Telegram faces is also seen as potentially impacting TON users and assets.

Regarding tokens, Telegram previously caused market panic due to a large-scale sale of TON, but Telegram responded that it would limit its TON holdings to about 10%, and the excess would be sold to long-term investors through a discounted lock-up method, with the main buyer being TONX, for long-term holding and staking.

Regarding governance, Durov stated that Telegram's involvement actually strengthens the network's decentralization, creating conditions for other major participants to join the validator network rather than causing the network to revert to centralization. Telegram will act as a balancing force. As competition for validation rewards intensifies, more TON will be locked for staking in the future.

But for TON, which has been in a slump for a long time, Telegram's re-entry and Pavel Durov's personal endorsement have at least rekindled market expectations for its growth.

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