On this article, we retrace the origins of Telegram’s crypto community, as much as what we all know at this time because the TON blockchain.
We then delve into the technical traits of this challenge, highlighting all of the dynamics which have led it to success within the web3 sector.
Let’s see every thing intimately beneath.
Telegram and the primary (failed) strategy to the world of crypto in 2017
The primary encounter between Telegram and the crypto world dates again to 2017, when the founders of the social media started to discover new options within the blockchain area.
At the moment, there was, the truth is, no cryptographic community able to supporting the whole person site visitors of the platform, estimated in billions of models.
Pavel and Nikolai Durov, brother founders and house owners of Telegram, determined after a yr of analysis to launch their very own challenge.
In 2018, the blockchain referred to as “Telegram Open Community” involves mild, together with the GRAM token (later renamed TON).
This final useful resource, bought publicly by means of an ICO, was launched as a type of enterprise capital financing for the corporate.
In brief, with the proceeds from the general public sale, the Telegram workforce would have enhanced its servers and companies meant for the crypto sector.
Over 80% of the funds raised had been deliberate to be spent on tools, bandwidth, collocation, and person verification prices.
The issue arose when, solely 2 years later, the Durov brothers had been pressured to exit the challenge following an injunction from the Securities and Change Fee (SEC).
The US regulator had detected within the exercise of the Russian entrepreneurs the presence of a public providing of an unregistered “safety”.
The SEC fined Telegram an quantity of 18.5 million {dollars} and the entire challenge was (virtually) deserted to make room for different alternatives.
The Durov brothers had been additionally pressured to return the cash to the traders of the ICO, amounting to about 1.7 billion {dollars}.
The open supply blockchain of TON is born
As talked about, the preliminary Telegram challenge was deserted by the founders themselves, and the brand new crypto GRAM ended up within the forgotten.
Nonetheless, from 2018 to 2020 the social media had made nice strides in designing the blockchain community The Open Community, additionally reaching vital milestones.
Till the arrival of the sanction from the SEC, the product had been improved a number of occasions. The event workforce had launched a lite model of the blockchain community shopper, revealed an entire supply code for nodes on Github and launched a testnet.
Because the crypto community was virtually able to debut available on the market, the founders of Telegram thought it clever to decentralize the challenge.
All of the codes have been distributed in an open supply method to the builders, simply as Tesla did with the liberalization of patents for electrical automobiles just a few years earlier.
From there was born what everyone knows because the TON blockchain, regardless that it has saved the title Telegram Open Community.
GRAM was renamed TON (Toncoin), with the one distinction being that the token was not managed by the corporate itself, however had turn out to be a free useful resource.
This transition has led to a radical shift. From a centralized initiative tied to a company entity to a decentralized challenge managed by the neighborhood.
This modification has allowed Telegram to evolve independently, persevering with to broaden and innovate on this planet of cryptocurrencies
As of at this time, the crypto community is thought for its extraordinary transaction processing functionality.
Traits of the crypto community: integration and scalability with the Telegram app
With the launch of Telegram’s crypto community in 2020, a number of very fascinating technical implementations had been inaugurated.
Its structure options a number of cutting-edge traits, resembling using a dynamic sharding mechanism.
This characteristic permits the blockchain to handle transaction processing load extra effectively, leading to a high-performance scalability.
Moreover, the builders of the Telegram neighborhood have carried out an instantaneous routing mechanism that ensures speedy propagation by means of the community.
This implies minimizing latency and enhancing the top person’s expertise.
It also needs to be famous the presence in Ton of a specific Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus mechanism known as “Catchain Consensus”.
This mannequin ensures reliability in reaching distributed consensus, contributing to moral habits on the a part of the node construction.
Crucial to additionally point out the presence on this sense of Proof of Stake which permits sustaining the integrity of the community within the crypto world.
Similar to on Ethereum, the Ton blockchain additionally options its personal digital machine, known as the TON Digital Machine (TVM). It’s chargeable for executing good contracts and gives an operational framework for the event of dapps.
One of the fascinating points is, nonetheless, its good integration with the messaging app Telegram.
The community has certainly been designed to be complementary to the construction of the social media, having the ability to adapt to its excessive efficiency.
The crypto TON performs a basic position on this area: it represents the gasoline token of the chain in addition to the foreign money used for funds.
Customers can ship and obtain Toncoin immediately throughout the Telegram app, by means of a quite simple and intuitive course of.
The identical useful resource is used to reassure the community by means of staking, in addition to to tip content material creators and builders. Funds can be made by way of bot, because of options like Telegram Stars.
The majestic progress of Telegram’s crypto ecosystem in 2024
Though the Telegram crypto community was formally launched in 2020, it is just from 2024 that it has reached true mainstream adoption.
After some advertising and marketing stunts, the Basis managed to convey a superb person base to the community, changing into the twentieth chain by whole worth locked (TVL).
For instance, in February 2024, Telegram determined to share 50% of its promoting earnings with channel house owners by means of funds in TON.
This has allowed the crypto TON to be elevated, bringing it to the eye of most of the people, given its new utility.
In March then, the workforce introduced the allocation of 30 million TON in rewards to the neighborhood, for a price of 115 million {dollars}.
Moreover, in April the stablecoin USDT was built-in into the community, offering customers with a brand new onboarding useful resource.
The actual success, nonetheless, got here with the introduction of play-to-earn video games primarily based on Telegram. Video games like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat have created plenty of engagement given the opportunity of incomes cash without spending a dime.
Their success has allowed this pattern to broaden, attracting tons of of tens of millions of gamers to a blockchain product.
This can be a true file on person numbers: no blockchain till then had managed to convey such site visitors.
Right this moment TON seems as one of the crucial promising chains within the crypto panorama, probably able to reaching mass adoption.