The Development History and Future Prospects of TON

The TON network has experienced a transformation from being relatively unknown to gaining significant attention over the past two years. Leveraging Telegram's vast user base, TON quickly established a strong presence in the crypto community. However, in the face of price fluctuations, market capitalization declines, and decreasing activity, TON has also exposed some deep-seated structural issues.

TON Chip Distribution

The chip distribution of TON is extremely uneven, showing serious polarization.

• Most tokens are concentrated in the hands of a few early miners.
• Retail investors holding less than 100 TON account for nearly 99.9%
• The number of retail investors began to increase significantly starting from March 2024.

To alleviate the issue of chip concentration, the TON official has taken some measures:

• Launch a discount program to buy back tokens from early miners.
• Provide an annualized return of 6-7% for large holders of long-term locked tokens.
• Freeze part of the tokens held by large holders until October 2025.

Valuation and Market Performance of TON

The price and market value of TON have experienced several significant fluctuations:

• November 2021: Launched on exchanges and received public support from the founder of Telegram, causing the price to soar.
• February to March 2024: Large capital inflow, Telegram users surpass 900 million, cryptocurrency prices hit new highs.
• June-July 2024: The coin price reaches an all-time high of $8.25
• August 2024: News of the CEO's arrest causes the coin price to plummet by about 20%

Currently, the market value of TON has dropped over 50% from its peak, but there is still room for growth. The key lies in whether it can convert the ecological enthusiasm into long-term value.

TON's Inflation and Application Scenarios

The supply of TON tokens is unlimited, growing at a rate of approximately 0.6% per year. The main uses include:

• Pay smart contract transaction fees
• Payment platform application service fee
• Staking for Rewards
• Cross-chain trading
• Governance Voting
• Storage service fee

Telegram Stars is an important part of the TON ecosystem, serving as a bridge connecting Web2 and Web3 users. It allows users to purchase Stars with credit cards, which can then be used to buy digital goods, while merchants must withdraw in TON.

Challenges Facing the TON Ecosystem

TON is currently facing some development bottlenecks:

• The types of ecological projects are single, mainly focused on the gaming and NFT fields.
• On-chain activity continues to decline, reflecting insufficient ecological vitality.
• The developer ecosystem is under pressure, and the infrastructure needs improvement.
• The number of validators is relatively small, presenting a certain degree of centralization risk.

To break through these limitations, TON is exploring new development directions:

• Focus on developing payment-related applications
• Launch TAC architecture to achieve compatibility with the EVM ecosystem.
• Strive to expand more practical scenarios and enhance ecological sustainability

Future Outlook of TON

The future development of TON will focus on the following aspects:

1. Achieve interoperability with the EVM ecosystem through the TAC architecture.
2. Continue to expand the user base, aiming to cover 30% of Telegram users.
3. Improve developer tools and infrastructure to attract more developers.
4. Explore more practical application scenarios, especially in the fields of payment and financial services.
5. Optimize the validator mechanism to improve the level of decentralization.

Whether TON can truly carve out its own development path from platform dividends remains to be seen. After the gradual decline of traffic dividends, TON needs to prove that it has the ability to sustain itself.