TON Ebb and flow: A folding narrative of VC, trading platform and traffic carnival

Original title: "TON Ebb and Flow: A Folding Narrative of a VC, Trading Platform and Traffic Carnival - Starting from the fact that the founder of Yescoin was taken away"
Original author: Su Yuchen

1. The "Fate Reincarnation" between Yescoin and TON

Recently, the fact that the founder of Yescoin was taken away by Uncle Hat has caused a lot of controversy on Twitter. I remember that Zhang Chi was updating his entrepreneurial reflection a month ago, and millions of users also played this Telegram click game last year.

Following my curiosity, I found that the information disclosed mentioned "missing the best opportunity to issue coins in May 24" and it reminded me of the madness of the TON ecosystem half a year ago.

At that time, VCs and KOLs shouted "TON will become the WeChat of Web3", the overwhelming myth of "clicking to get rich" on social media, trading platforms scramble to launch TON ecological projects, retail investors frantically register Telegram account to "play airdrop"... And now, Yescoin's dilemma is like a mirror, reflecting the parabolic trajectory of the TON ecosystem from its peak to falling...

2. Tide rise: "triode" between VC, trading platform and TG

1. VC hype: precision design from narrative to pulling the market In 2024, Pantera Capital called out a high-profile order to TON, positioning it as a "Web3 super application portal" to ignite market sentiment. At that time, TON's on-chain TVL soared 20 times to US$600 million in two months, and the user growth rate crushed Ethereum. VCs are well aware of the logic of "traffic is valuation": Telegram's 1 billion user pool is a "rich mine" that no public chain can reach.

2. Trading platforms grab the beach: "harvest competition" in traffic depressions. Trading platforms such as Binance and OKX quickly smelled business opportunities and rushed to launch TON ecological projects. Mini games such as Notcoin and Catizen have quickly become popular with "zero threshold + social fission". Notcoin's user base exceeded 35 million, and Catizen attracted 20 million fans in two months, and its market value is 1 billion. The grand occasion of Telegram users pouring into trading platforms is very similar to the "Pinduoduo-style fission" in the Web2 era, and what the trading platform needs is this "data growth" financial report story.

3. Telegram’s “Online Conspiracy”: Closed-loop payment and business Telegram founder Durov publicly supports TON many times, and even launched the embedded wallet TON Space to open up the closed-loop of “communication + payment + gaming”. Tether issues stablecoins on the TON chain and officially launches a $5 million developer incentive program, each step points to the ambition to transform Telegram’s social empire into a crypto economy.

It is precisely the conspiracy of these three that has promoted the prosperity of TON ecology.

If early participants encounter Notcoin and Dogs, the order number is $30. This wave also made a group of TG dealers engaged in cross-border e-commerce operations make a lot of money. Some people directly earned millions of dollars a night, which caused a lot of shock to me at that time: So this is the airdrop of the TON ecosystem?

After Binance launched Notcoin and Dogs, the drama finally reached its climax

• Binance finally launched TON, with the highest coin price reaching US$8, followed by the launch of several celebrity projects such as Catizen and Hmster.

But as an in-depth participant in the TON ecosystem, the author also realized a problem that cannot be ignored: the value of airdrops began to shrink rapidly after TON was launched on Binance. At this moment, I began to short the TON ecosystem tokens. Looking back, this was an extremely correct decision.

3. Tide fall: value collapse after flow exhaustion

1. User fatigue: From "National Carnival" to "All-split"

In the middle and late stages of the TON ecosystem, the project party and the trading platform jointly launched the "TON Ecological Month", and the gameplay is still the three old ways of signing in, attracting people, and consuming gas. The trading platform is gradually awakening: the so-called "1 billion user pool" conversion rate is less than 1%, and most people come just to get the wool. When the price of the coin fell from the highest $8 to less than $3, even the most loyal community members began to sell.

2. VC and trading platform exit: narrative disintegration and capital cashout

Early investors such as Pantera quietly reduced their holdings, and the frequency of TON-based projects on trading platforms dropped sharply. Analysts who once shouted "TON will surpass WeChat" began to turn to AI and other emerging narratives. Telegram has already earned enough handling fees through ecological cooperation and achieved profitability in 2024, leaving only retail investors lamenting at the parabolic K-line chart: Where is the promised web3 WeChat?

The project parties of the TON ecosystem have expanded from early mini games such as Catizen and Hmster to more and more mini games and DeFi applications, but in fact they have just changed their shells and have no substantial innovations.

As a witness and witness, he also watched TON's ecological valuation from $1 billion to $100 million to $ million, and Binance has no TON ecological project launched after Hmster. Seeing the red building bringing guests to the red building, the building collapsed.

Ending: When you wake up from the dream, continue to chase the wind

When the TON ecosystem started, the author bought 32 TONs and hoped to fully experience the rise of telegram through these 32 TONs, becoming a super app like web3 WeChat, so that the wallet balance of TON network will continue to appreciate like gold.

But now I'm awake. It allows us to see the VC's sickle, the traffic magic of trading platforms, and the collective madness of human nature under the temptation of getting rich. TON's story is not over yet, perhaps as Durov says, "Telegram is always the rebels."

Just the next resistance should not be a betrayal of self-rationality, and can you and I smell the wind earlier than VC and press the button faster than the trading platform?