DeFi
Telegram’s TON blockchain grows 1,000% in 2024, but DeFi activity is still quiet – DL News
- The TON blockchain has grown 10 times this year.
- Part of this growth is due to the adoption of USDT on the blockchain.
- TON still lags behind major blockchains in DeFi activity.
User activity is booming on TON, a blockchain network linked to the messaging app Telegram.
The total network value locked, or TVL – a DeFi metric that tracks capital invested in a protocol or blockchain – increased 10x this year, making it one of the most successful blockchains in decentralized finance.
Over the past month, the performance of the TON blockchain has continued its upward trajectory, with TVL increasing by 46% and peaking at $260 million, DefiLlama data watch.
The increase in TVL coincides with the deployment of Tether’s stablecoin USDT on the blockchain in April.
TON TVL is up 46% since adopting USDT
USDT is the largest crypto stablecoin with a market size of 110 billion dollars. Half of that volume is on Tron (not to be confused with Ton), a blockchain with $8.6 billion in investor assets.
The appeal of the stablecoin comes from the low fees users pay when sending and receiving USDT. This makes the network particularly attractive in developing countries where stablecoins became a tool to protect heritage against inflation and currency devaluation.
But TON developers could aim for a share of the stablecoin market by integrating USDT on their blockchain.
To achieve this, they can leverage Telegram’s 800 million monthly active users to overcome the cold start problem, a common challenge for new blockchains trying to generate initial activity on their networks.
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It seems that TON developers are already taking steps in this direction.
Telegram integration
The TON blockchain has a crypto wallet integrated into the Telegram app, allowing users to send USDT to their contacts around the world directly from the app.
This is not the only incentive introduced by the TON team to promote USDT adoption on the network.
Users who store USDT on their Telegram mobile wallets can earn up to 50% annualized returns, much higher than the average DeFi interest rate offered by lending protocols. Yield comes from TON token rewards for providing liquidity on major decentralized blockchain exchanges.
Aside from stablecoin retail transactions, TON has yet to establish itself as a robust DeFi chain. This means hosting DeFi protocols that can command significant user activity.
TON’s current DeFi market is dominated by Tonstakers and STON.fi. Tonstakers is a liquid staking protocol that allows users to earn yield by staking TON tokens, and STON.fi is the largest decentralized swaps exchange on the blockchain.
However, the combined market size of these two protocols pales in comparison to projects on major blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. Additionally, the network has not been able to attract established DeFi projects to deploy their protocols on-chain.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our DeFi correspondent based in Nigeria. He covers DeFi and technology. To share tips or story information, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.