Exploring the Limits of Tap-to-Earn: TON's Route to Mainstream Decentralized Finance
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The Telegram Open Network (TON), launched as an independent blockchain in 2020, has been making waves in the blockchain industry. With over 2.6 billion transactions processed since its inception, TON's growth trajectory is undeniable.
In the first half of 2024, TON's Total Value Locked (TVL) stood at around $50-60 million. However, by 2025, this figure had grown significantly to approximately $350-400 million. Notably, the sources of the capital increase of 400 million US dollars in July 2025 remain unclear.
TON's proof-of-stake consensus mechanism distributes validation across hundreds of nodes globally, providing a reasonable level of decentralization. This, coupled with its growing DeFi ecosystem, has been attracting institutional attention.
One such instance of institutional backing came in July 2025, when TON received a $400 million token round led by Kingsway Capital, joined by Sequoia Capital and Ribbit Capital. Another significant move was Verb Technology's investment of $713 million to acquire 5% of TON's circulating supply, establishing a hybrid treasury model that mirrors Bitcoin's institutional adoption strategy.
The TON ecosystem's primary automated market maker (AMM), STON.fi, has been instrumental in this growth. Since its launch, STON.fi has processed over $6 billion in total trading volume across 27 million operations, serving 5.5 million users. It accounts for approximately 80% of all traders on TON.
The platform's sharding architecture enables theoretical processing of millions of transactions per second, though current demand remains below these limits. TON Wallet, which enabled native token swaps through STON.fi for 87 million U.S. Telegram users in July 2025, has been a key driver of this growth.
The TON ecosystem's concentration in a few key protocols raises questions about diversity and resilience. However, initiatives such as Ethena's synthetic stablecoin USDe and its staked variant have been bringing a DeFi-native dimension to TON's stablecoin mix.
TON's unique position in the blockchain landscape, combining mainstream accessibility through Telegram with growing institutional backing, has been a key factor in its success. With over 100 million Telegram users activating TON Wallet in 2024, representing 10% of the messaging platform's 1 billion user base, TON has demonstrated its appeal to a broad audience.
Moreover, TON has demonstrated stability under real-world stress, handling massive user influxes during viral gaming periods without significant performance degradation or fee increases. This stability, coupled with its growing ecosystem and institutional backing, positions TON as a player to watch in the blockchain industry.
Security auditing by Trail of Bits and custody services by Copper are also anchoring the TON network with credibility for serious investors, further bolstering its appeal. As TON continues to grow and evolve, it will be interesting to see how it navigates the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
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