Bijie.com reports:
Author: Mario is exploring Web3. Source: X, @Web3Mario
In general, I have found that the ecological construction concept of TON official differs from traditional execution layer projects, also known as public chains. It seems to have chosen traffic-driven development rather than asset-driven development. This brings a new requirement for developers who want to obtain official endorsement or become a project that the officials prefer during the cold start phase. The core operational indicators need to transition from asset-related metrics such as TVL, market value, and token holdings to traffic-related metrics such as DAU, PV, and UV.
Summary:
Recently, I have been studying TON DApp development-related technologies and contemplating some product design logics. With the increasing popularity of TON, there have been more AMA sessions and roundtable discussions. I have participated in some of them and discovered some interesting things that I would like to share with you. In conclusion, I have found that the ecological construction concept of TON official differs from traditional execution layer projects, or so-called public chains. It seems to have chosen traffic-driven development rather than asset-driven development. This brings a new requirement for developers who want to obtain official endorsement or become a project that the officials prefer. In the cold start phase, the core operational indicators need to transition from asset-related metrics such as TVL, market value, and token holdings to traffic-related metrics such as DAU, PV, and UV.
Asset-driven development has always been the core of Web3 project development and operation.
The core criterion for judging the success of a public chain project has always been the accumulation of assets. The composition and distribution of assets determine its sustainability and core competitiveness. In simple terms, the TVL of a chain, the composition of these TVLs, the proportion of native assets, blue-chip coins, and altcoins, the proportion of voucher-like assets, and the degree of Matthew effect, all correspond to different conclusions. Let’s give a few examples to illustrate:
Suppose a chain has a higher proportion of blue-chip coins like BTC and ETH, and the top 10% of people own 80% of the total assets. This roughly indicates that the chain is more friendly to traditional cryptocurrency whales or has a strong appeal to them. Usually, there may be endorsement support from projects such as CEX.
Suppose a chain has a higher proportion of native assets, a more even distribution, and a smaller standard deviation of user assets. This roughly indicates that the team’s operational capabilities are good, and there may be related community resources and good community development. The developer ecosystem is more active. Usually, it is driven by a community with a successful background and has broad community support.
Suppose a chain has a higher proportion of voucher-like assets. This needs to be treated with caution, as it roughly indicates that it is still in the early stage of development and has not effectively attracted core assets. However, the team may have some whale resources, but the cooperation is not close or the attraction is not strong, resulting in whales being unwilling to directly transfer core assets to the chain. This type of Web3 project on the chain is prone to be harvested by whales in a tidal manner.
Of course, different situations may lead to different interpretations, but you will find that assets are the key to judgment. The reason for this is that the core value of Web3 lies in digital assets, which has been fully discussed in my previous article “The Popularity of Runes Is a Regression of Cryptocurrency Technology Development, but It Also Reflects the Core Value of Web3”. If you are interested, we can discuss it further. Therefore, for a long time, Web3 developers have focused on how to create and maintain the value of assets or how to effectively attract assets in the product design, cold start plan, and economic model design processes, depending on the type of project, the priority of these two issues may vary.
However, it seems that TON’s team did not follow this approach in the process of ecological construction. Instead, they chose the conventional method of traffic-driven development commonly used in Web2 or traditional Internet projects to guide or support products and build ecosystems. There are two reasons for this statement. Firstly, there have been many articles analyzing TON’s ecological DApps, and I believe everyone should have some understanding of TON’s current situation. The most active category is APP, especially small games like Notcoin. If we examine their technical architecture in detail, we can see that they cannot even be considered DApps. Normally, Web3 games have two notable features: on-chain assets and on-chain core algorithms, both of which utilize the blockchain’s trustless capabilities to reduce trust costs in game operations. However, Notcoin does not possess these features. It simply maps the final reward points to a type of FT token on the TON public chain and performs an airdrop. You can find many similar examples, and their current situation is naturally inseparable from TON’s support. This indicates that in the eyes of TON officials, some traditional Web3 values are not as important as traffic. As long as there are users, you may not even be a Web3 project and still receive official support.
Secondly, in some public occasions, TON officials have actively guided the community to focus on a specific direction in product design. Last Friday, I participated in a Twitter space discussion about the TON ecosystem. It included TON Foundation officials and some Web3 VCs. The impression I got is that there is a big gap between the two parties’ views on the TON ecosystem. The officials seem to like comparing the TON ecosystem to the WeChat Mini Program ecosystem, strongly encouraging the association between the two and promoting traffic-driven products. On the other hand, Web3 VCs focus more on considerations regarding digital assets. This also indicates that TON officials may have significant differences from the traditional Web3 model in the process of building the ecosystem.
So why did TON officials make this choice? This involves the core narrative logic of TON’s ecological construction, which is the potential for breaking barriers rather than the ability to accumulate assets.
How should we understand this statement? We know that the core narrative logic of most public chain projects mainly revolves around the competition for digital assets. By improving network throughput, reducing usage costs, and increasing usage efficiency while ensuring compliance with Web3 core values such as decentralization, these projects aim to attract more digital assets. The value of these public chain projects’ business models relies on higher adoption rates, which mean a higher demand for official tokens used as transaction fees. This will help support the value of the project’s large number of tokens.
However, TON’s desired narrative is different. It focuses on its potential to break barriers. You can easily find articles or opinions online that state that Telegram has the highest number of global users among communication applications, reaching 800 million. TON, backed by this large user base, will have unparalleled potential to break barriers. Breaking barriers is the core narrative logic behind TON’s ecological construction.
So why is there such a difference? This involves two issues:
TON’s core business logic;
The relationship between TON and Telegram.
Firstly, TON’s core business logic is actually similar to most public chain projects, which is based on maintaining the value of TON tokens. However, TON has an additional option compared to other projects, which is Telegram’s advertising system. Since the beginning of this year, TON tokens have had an important use as settlement tokens in Telegram’s advertising commission system. Advertisers use TON tokens to pay for traffic acquisition costs, and this payment is given to channel owners as commissions. Telegram’s official platform deducts a certain percentage of the fee.
This means that in addition to being used as transaction fees on the chain, there is a second option for supporting the value of TON tokens, which is to expand Telegram’s advertising system. This is actually a traffic-driven model commonly used in Web2 projects, but the settlement token has switched from fiat currency to cryptocurrency. In order to optimize the efficiency of Telegram’s advertising system, it will involve two aspects: creating more valuable advertising space and labeling Telegram users. The TON team found that a highly efficient scenario to achieve these two effects is Mini Apps. As long as Mini Apps are frequently used, they can become high-quality advertising spaces after introducing the advertising commission system.
Secondly, we know that Telegram emphasizes privacy protection and it is extremely difficult and sensitive to label users for the purpose of precise marketing for advertisers. Therefore, Telegram cannot provide precise marketing services to advertisers, such as distributing advertisements for a dessert brand to Indian users who like desserts. This affects Telegram’s commercialization capabilities. However, in Mini Apps, users are not directly interacting with Telegram, but with third-party applications. Telegram is just a carrier, which provides the conditions for labeling users. During user participation in Mini Apps, their habits and preferences will be labeled, and the entire process is less likely to cause user aversion and is smoother.
The above two aspects also explain the phenomenon mentioned earlier. In TON’s choice of project support, they do not value some traditional Web3 values. As long as there is traffic, you can receive official support.
Some may wonder why Telegram does not take the lead in this construction process, as TON, as a public chain, should follow some traditional Web3 values in order to build a cohesive community. This involves the second issue, the relationship between TON and Telegram. I have already introduced the relationship between TON and Telegram in my previous article. In general, from the observed phenomenon, TON’s position is more like a subsidiary supported by Telegram. This subsidiary has established certain legal isolation, allowing it to operate certain risk-related businesses through the subsidiary, thereby reducing its own risks. For Telegram, an app with such a high adoption rate and emphasis on privacy protection, it naturally receives “special attention” from governmental departments worldwide. In order to explore a more stable and less easily disrupted profit model, Telegram chose to use cryptocurrency as the settlement target in its advertising system instead of fiat currency. However, this will bring new risks to regions that are not friendly to cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the current architecture effectively reduces this risk. Understanding this relationship, we can draw a conclusion that they fundamentally have a master-slave relationship. Therefore, when developers design applications, it is recommended to think from the perspective of Telegram rather than the TON public chain in order to more easily obtain official support.
In conclusion, TON has chosen a traffic-driven development path in its ecological construction, rather than an asset-driven path in the short term. This brings a new requirement for developers who want to obtain official endorsement or become a project that the officials prefer. In the cold start phase, the core operational indicators need to transition from asset-related metrics such as TVL, market value, and token holdings to traffic-related metrics such as DAU, PV, and UV.
