Opinion by: Tracy Jin, chief operating officer of MEXC
While Ethereum remains the core infrastructure for DeFi and smart contract innovation, it still hasn’t solved its most significant promise: mass adoption. After nearly a decade of development, Ethereum-based apps are still too complex, fragmented and expensive for the average user.
The Open Network (TON) is betting on a completely different future, and that’s already unfolding inside Telegram.
With over 900 million users globally, Telegram is the largest active social layer in crypto, and TON is the only blockchain natively embedded into it. This isn’t just about building decentralized applications; it’s about making Web3 disappear into the UX in the best possible way.
From concept to cultural layer
Conceived in 2018 to integrate blockchain technology into Telegram’s messaging platform, TON took time to establish a foothold as its infrastructure and ecosystem were built out. By 2024, the ecosystem had experienced a parabolic adoption curve, aided by Tether’s decision in May to launch USDt (USDT) on the chain.
This year, TON has solidified its position as a vital cog in the omnichain landscape. A major wallet upgrade in March aided it, adding trading and TON staking for over 100 million Telegram Wallet users. In the last two years, TON has also introduced valuable infrastructure in TON DNS, TON Storage and TON Proxy, supporting decentralized domains, storage and privacy solutions.
Today, The Open Network has comfortably fulfilled its promise of leveraging Telegram’s vast user base to onboard millions to Web3 in a manner that feels more akin to Web2. More than 150 million accounts have been created on TON, whose network records an average of 2 million daily transactions. The number of active monthly wallets also stands at around the 2-million mark. These are solid benchmarks, but they don’t make TON the most popular blockchain ecosystem. Not yet.
What TON does differently
TON is not selling an ecosystem. It’s giving users tools they already know how to use, with crypto running under the hood. Telegram Wallet, now available to millions of users globally, turns tokens from speculative instruments into usable units inside chats, channels, games and P2P experiences.
What do we know about the future of crypto onboarding and everyday usage? It’s going to get effortless, and most of the current friction points, from gas fees to private key storage, will be abstracted away. It doesn’t require a crystal ball to glean this. The history of the internet tells you that Web3 will follow Web2’s arc: better UX, less complexity and deep integration and aggregation of products and services into a single interface.
What else do we know about the next wave of retail-focused blockchain adoption? It will be driven by chains that abstract complexity — no convoluted onboarding — and fast, inexpensive and deeply integrated into existing Web2 platforms. These are attributes that first-generation smart contract chains such as Ethereum, which is embroiled in a multi-year scaling challenge, can’t supply. And neither can so-called next-gen chains that are highly scalable but lack a Web2 distribution channel. Only TON, with its native integration into Telegram’s billion-strong messenger, ticks all these boxes.
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This brings us back to Mini Apps, the key to mainstreaming TON. If there’s one advantage the blockchain has over its rivals, it’s native integration with Telegram’s 900-million user base. Mini Apps, such as Notcoin, Hamster Kombat and Catizen, are onboarding millions of users, many of whom don’t even realize they’ve started using blockchain infrastructure. These are real-world stress tests of what scalable, low-friction Web3 can look like.
While Ethereum has talked about onboarding the following billion users since 2018, TON is quietly doing it — one meme, one microtransaction, one tap at a time. By contrast, Ethereum apps like Uniswap or Aave require browser extensions, seed phrases and an understanding of gas mechanics — barriers still insurmountable for the average mainstream user. Even Solana and BNB Chain, despite faster networks and larger total value locked, rely on external wallets and Web3 onboarding flows. TON bypasses these frictions entirely.
A new behavioral norm
TON’s rise coincides with a broader shift in the crypto industry. Global trust in traditional platforms is eroding, and attention is shifting to ecosystems that offer self-custody, interoperability and fluid UX. While L2s and rollups compete to scale Ethereum, TON is building where most layer 1s can’t reach — inside a native, everyday interface.
The broader crypto community is also experiencing fatigue from over-engineered UX, speculative volatility and fractured onboarding experiences. TON, by contrast, rides the wave of the Mini App boom — a format popularized in Asia via platforms like WeChat —…
cointelegraph.com