Today, the discussion will primarily focus on activities on the TON (Telegram Open Network) blockchain, concerning other platforms.
Open a Wallet in Telegram via the official bot @wallet. After that, the wallet will be displayed in the main menu of the messenger and in personal chats when you click on the "paperclip" in the dialog box. Don't be alarmed that when you first start, the messenger immediately warns that Telegram Wallet is a web application developed by a third party.
The wallet will also automatically open if someone sends you (to your Telegram ID) any amount in TON. A good idea for a gift to advanced friends who have not yet mastered this topic.
Telegram Wallet is a custodial (i.e., registered, for example, on a crypto exchange or in another intermediary service) wallet, thanks to which the user can instantly send cryptocurrency to another user, replenish an account from bank cards or other crypto wallets.
Now go to the Wallet settings and activate the option "Show TON Space Beta." Next, go to the TON Space tab that appears, agree to open a new TON Space wallet, enter your email, enter the 6-digit code from it, and become the owner of a decentralized non-custodial crypto wallet stored (incognito) in the depths of the TON blockchain. It is important to immediately save the seed phrase of 24 words (recovery phrase, available in Ton Space settings). These words encrypt the private key – the only way to restore access to your wallet and funds. With their help, you can access this wallet from other crypto applications anywhere in the world.
For the record, Wallet and TON Space are all hot cloud online wallets, such as most mobile and software wallets, as well as accounts on crypto exchanges. Cold wallets are hardware specialized wallets available as a USB flash drive or similar data storage devices. The flash drive can be lost (it can be taken away), there is a risk that it will break. Knowing the seed phrase of 24 words, it is not a problem to transfer control over your wallet in the blockchain to someone else anywhere in the world at any time. When crossing customs and borders of countries, there is no reason to stop you for "smuggling" millions of dollars in crypto cash. It is clear that this is straining global regulators and central banks, so in the US, for example, there is a constant struggle between crypto activists and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – for and against the free circulation of crypto assets, and in search of ways to state control over them. The legal field has not yet been formed. The rules are not fully defined. However, the recent launch of ETFs (exchange-traded investment funds) on bitcoin and the rapid development of crypto projects under the patronage of major Wall Street players (BlackRock, Coinbase, etc.) demonstrates that big "Western" MONEY has seriously taken up this topic and intends to control it 100%.
China missed the initiative, although until the spring of 2021, more than 50% of the world's crypto mining was carried out there. However, the government decided to ban crypto, and banks and payment services stopped using it. The People's Bank of China declared all crypto activities illegal, including mining, buying/selling, and even storing. Sites for tracking cryptocurrency rates (CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and TradingView) were blocked. Alibaba announced a complete ban on the sale of any mining devices on its platforms. Mining was on the list of industries prohibited for investment (including abroad). However, to this day, all Chinese people who want to hold large volumes of crypto. And in Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) within the PRC, on the contrary, crypto has been actively legalized since 2023 (which, theoretically, hints at a change in China's strategy itself), now it can be bought/sold and exchanged at every turn. That's why many people go there. Following Dubai (UAE), many crypto startups are now "settling" here.
It is extremely curious that the latest reliable data on bitcoin mining by country dates back to January 2022, when the University of Cambridge stopped updating the corresponding map. But it is safe to say that after 2021, the leadership was seized and steadily increased by US miners (plus nearby, in Canada), mining from China largely moved to Kazakhstan, and intensified in Russia. Interest in the topic is growing in the UAE and Latin America.
In the Russian Federation, the law defines cryptocurrency as a type of "digital currency." Crypto is recognized as property (like gold). This is confirmed by the definition of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 2021. You can make various transactions with it. Currently, operations for mining, storing, buying, and selling crypto assets are allowed in Russia. However, there is a ban on the use of cryptocurrency to pay for goods and services in the country, as the Russian ruble is recognized as the only official means of payment. Income tax should be paid on crypto income in the usual manner, declaring it in the tax return.
Russia, in light of the events of recent years, sanctions, problems with international payments, and the de-dollarization agenda, is systematically exploring scenarios for building an alternative financial structure for interaction with the BRICS countries and the whole world. We are waiting for the launch of the digital ruble (developing which the Central Bank, if desired, will be able to take the place of the entire current banking system). We are looking closely at the development of DFAs – digital financial assets, into which you can now digitize anything: contracts for the supply of nickel and oil, bonds (debts) and loans, shares, etc. Among the operators authorized to issue DFAs, such companies as Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, St. Petersburg Exchange, NRD, and CFA Hub are already listed. On August 3, 2023, the Bank of Russia added the Moscow Exchange to the list of DFA exchange operators. The leader in the issuance of DFAs with a market share of ~50% is the blockchain platform Atomyze – a project of Potanin's team (Rosbank is already participating in it, and the Tinkoff ecosystem, I think, will soon be integrated).
At the moment, Telegram is not prohibited in Russia, although on March 1, 2023, Roskomnadzor included it, along with all other foreign messengers (Discord, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Snapchat, Viber, WhatsApp, and WeChat), in the list of prohibited ones for state and financial organizations in relation to the transfer (specifically) of personal data and payment documents. Otherwise, Telegram is developing rapidly, including as a platform for business. According to Mediascope, it has become the most popular social network in Russia, ahead of VK, and is confidently catching up with WhatsApp as a messenger. So our further experiments with buying, selling, and storing crypto assets on the TON blockchain in the Telegram ecosystem remain (I hope) in the legal field of the Russian Federation.
We first heard about the launch of the Telegram Open Network blockchain platform and the new GRAM coin in 2017. However, the American regulator immediately turned against the project, and by May 2020, under the terms of a global agreement with the SEC, Telegram (and Pavel Durov) withdrew from the development of this blockchain platform, transferring the project to an independent "community" and transforming the GRAM coins (previously planned for sale to strategic investors) into special smart contracts, available from July 2020 (through mining) to everyone. Soon the team was transformed into The Open Network, the coin was renamed to today's TON, and trading in it began on crypto exchanges in September 2021. By June 2022, all available coins of the TON network (98.55% of the total volume) had been mined by the people, and TON became the first Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain coin distributed through mining (characteristic of "old" and slow Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum).
There is reason to believe that Pavel Durov (and his investors) have not abandoned their plans, and the current impressive development of the TON ecosystem with comprehensive integration into Telegram is based on a unified strategy and funding, with the alleged decision-making center in Dubai (UAE).
In November 2023, the presentation of the Notcoin (NOT) project took place in Dubai at the TON Foundation conference. Then the coin appeared in a test version for a limited number of participants. From January 1, 2024, everyone was able to freely "mine" it in Telegram, clicking on smartphone screens and (with much greater efficiency) performing the simplest tasks — reading useful information about the ecosystem and subscribing to various services. Over 3 months, more than 35 million people joined the project. On average (without fanaticism), it was easy to collect from 10 to 20 million NOT. On April 1, 2024, at 15.00 (Moscow time) — the "distribution" of Notcoin ended, and the next stage began — minting and listing NOT on crypto exchanges. The process is underway. The results of this impressive "gamification" have not yet been finalized, but will definitely go down in crypto history. Currently (at the moment) NFT vouchers (10 million NOT) are traded on GetGems (the largest NFT platform of the TON blockchain) in the range of 8—11 TON (that is, 40-50$).
What is much more interesting is that in parallel with the "games" in NOT, on January 30, 2024, the mining of the "new" GRAM was quietly launched on the TON blockchain. One of its official creators, Oleg Oskolsky, writes that this is just an "experiment," which, to his surprise, has received increasing support from the audience. Quotes, starting from $0.0000107 per GRAM, have already reached $0.8 at their peak... this is with only ~60,000 coin holders. GRAM is created on PoW mechanics, that is, it is in many ways similar to bitcoin (BTC). It is also mined using graphics cards (GPU) on ordinary PCs. I followed the instructions in the Gram Official channel on Telegram, downloaded the software, and connected the wallet to the official mining Pool — I managed to start the process in just 5 minutes, but on my old GTX-1070, the output in 12 hours was ~1 GRAM. After that, I abandoned this idea and decided to go another way — I registered (with a TON Space wallet) on STON.fi (the largest crypto exchanger/exchange on the TON blockchain) and exchanged 50% of my savings in TON for GRAMs, sending them further to liquidity farming in the TON/GRAM pair (a kind of deposit at %, but with much greater risks and rewards). This is my personal choice — I do not urge you to such adventures.
A total of 5 billion GRAMs are available for mining, and today approximately 40% have already been mined (the difficulty increases proportionally, just like in BTC), it is expected that at the current rate of mining, mining will be completed in 12—18 months.
The volume of TON is also limited to 5.1 billion coins, and today ~3.5 billion of the mined assets are already in circulation. How TON quotes will change as the circulation of available coins grows in the face of a constantly growing number of transactions can only be imagined.
On March 26, 2024, another coin, TGRAM (GRAM-20), appeared on the TON blockchain, the origin, logic, and prospects of which I cannot yet understand. We are watching.
It is important that many of the 35 million people who were previously far from crypto have now clearly become interested in the topic after playing Notcoin and have begun to explore the possibilities of the TON ecosystem.
Important facts about TON:
1. Sending TON between wallets inside Telegram is now FREE, and works between accounts around the world! TON is easily exchanged for popular USDT (crypto-dollar) and BTC (bitcoin). Against the background of sanctions, we have an excellent opportunity to "throw" money to loved ones and friends wherever Telegram works, without commissions - the main thing is that their region has the opportunity to sell USDT and BTC.
2. Sending ANY amount in TON from a Telegram wallet to an "external" wallet in the blockchain (TON Space or my favorite Tonkeeper, for example) now costs 0.05 TON (~25 rubles).
3. Buying TON for rubles in Russia is now only possible through the P2P exchange (that is, from private sellers), the Add Crypto/Express Purchase option. The rate displayed initially in the list of proposed banks is given only for reference, and when the system finds a seller, the rate will be updated to the current one. Transactions from $100 (9000 rubles) usually cost approximately ~5-7% of costs (seller's commission) relative to the current TON/$/ruble rate. Not so bad. Approximately the same amount is spent on buying TON for $ (and other currencies) from foreign cards. I made several purchases, without problems, but there are, of course, risks, I will not dare to acquire large amounts in this way.
4. Staking is like placing money on deposit in a bank, at %. Staking TON now brings approximately 2.8-4.5% per annum. Sending 10 TON to staking, for example, in TonStake, will cost 0.01 TON for input, and 0.02 TON for output. Pay attention that staking cycles can "freeze" assets for 36 hours or more. There are staking "deposits" with freezing for longer periods, read the terms carefully!
5. You can also place funds (TON and other coins on this blockchain) in Liquidity Pools (automated market maker and liquidity provider) – only in pairs, for example, TON/GRAM. To do this, you need to have both coins in equal (to the desired deposit amount) proportion relative to the current rate to $. The current yield is formed from transaction fees, and on STON.fi for the TON/GRAM pair that interests me, it is now ~20-25% per annum, but everything can change quickly here – depending on the volatility of the quotes of selected cryptocurrencies, and the filling of the pool with liquidity (the number of people who want to participate) vs the volume of transactions for this pair. STON.fi charges a commission of about 0.3~1.5 TON for entering any amount into the Pool, the withdrawal will cost the same, so it makes sense to operate with volumes from ~100$. The main risks: fraud on the part of the organizers and developers of the exchange, its possible hacking, errors in the programming of the blockchain and smart contracts.
6. Within the Liquidity Fund (Pool), part of the funds can be transferred to farming "sessions", which usually last several weeks, and allow you to earn large yields (up to 400% per annum) + additional rewards, often in other coins.
7. A list of applications for the TON ecosystem can be easily found on TON.app – it is always better to use the top 3 services from the rating.
Results. At the beginning of 2024, the global Telegram audience amounted to 900 million people (8th place in the world, Facebook in first place with 3 billion, WhatsApp has 2 billion, but "Telega" is quickly catching up with them), it ranks 6th in the ranking of the most downloaded applications in the world. In Russia, almost 48% of the population uses Telegram daily. TON has already entered the top 10 cryptocurrencies.
TON is officially recognized as the fastest blockchain in the world. And the cost of transactions on it is one of the lowest. Those who have performed actions on the Ethereum platforms know what I am talking about. Two years ago, publishing an NFT on ETH cost me 20-50$, the same amount was required to send an NFT to another wallet. Today on TON I published and sent an NFT to a friend for only ~1$. However, significant freezes of transactions in the culminating moments of the Notcoin game demonstrate that there is still work to be done, and opponents are definitely not dozing.
Competitors. According to the Blockchain Life Awards 2024 rating, in the short list of TOP-3 "Best Layer-1 blockchain solution", in addition to TON, Cardano and MultiversX are deservedly included, the best global forces and huge money are now thrown in this direction. The feverish refinement of Ethereum continues, where Layer-2 platforms Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism stand out on the horizon. TON is too "independent" from the West, so the "big" corporate world will ignore it, and there are risks that, as in 2017, such a rapid development of an "independent global blockchain and payment platform" may be tried to be stopped by US and European regulators.
The US and its allies have something to worry about. At the end of the calendar year 2023, the US budget deficit amounted to ~2.1 trillion dollars (~8% of GDP), and continues to grow against the background of a stagnating economy, falling revenues, and a sharp increase in spending in the run-up to elections and escalating international threats. The US national debt accelerated its growth, and has already reached $34 trillion (this year it is necessary to repay old bonds for 9 trillion, pay >1 trillion in % and borrow at least 1.5 trillion new debts). The total money supply (M2) in the US now exceeds 20 trillion (in 2000 it was less than 5 trillion – gives an idea of how much money was "printed" during this time). It is easy to guess why they cannot cope with inflation in any way. A similar situation in Europe and the UK. Japan's debt has exceeded 263% of GDP and the situation there is already getting out of control. Big changes are clearly brewing in the global financial system. All this is being tried to be "treated" in the only way – they are printing more and more new money. They are pouring gasoline on the fire. But according to the laws of mathematics, such a "structure" will soon collapse. The world is waiting for a big reset, as in World War I and II.
Against this background, crypto for many, and is becoming an ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY faster and faster. In parallel with gold, bitcoin and other "coins" are again rushing to new heights. Gold mining is objectively limited, and it is definitely not enough for everyone who wants it. Bitcoin, although the blockchain itself is outdated and does not perform any useful functional load (only its mining eats up more and more electricity, accelerating climate change) – was the first, and as a result transformed (in the minds and hearts of people) into "digital gold", which is also extremely limited in supply. The remaining blockchains and coins (objectively or on simple hype) are frantically trying to take their place in the formation of the "new" economy. All of them represent a growing threat to the DOLLAR. USDT recently "printed" 100 billion coins, and in my virtual wallet it is increasingly replacing real "bucks" on trips. So the Fed has already lost $100 billion just because of this coin. The capitalization of bitcoin is now more than 1.3 trillion – and more and more people are investing in BTC instead of US bonds. And every time you transfer money or pay for something, for example, through the TON blockchain – you are already doing without dollars, striking blow after blow to its dominance. China, which is transferring an increasing share of trade settlements to yuan, the BRICS countries, which are starting to conduct settlements in their own currencies, oil, which is traded for rubles and dirhams — all this undermines and shakes the former $ financial system. The process is accelerating sharply before our eyes. It's funny, but in the port of Macau, after passport control, in the only official exchange office (with a traditionally indecently low rate, especially for tourists) this time they simply refused to accept dollars (they didn't even take them with a discount). Because they are "old-style". Not torn, not dirty, in perfect condition – just "outdated" banknotes. Funny. Fortunately, I had a crypto wallet with me.
On April 18 (2024), Pavel Durov will speak in Dubai at the key crypto conference TOKEN2049.
(c) April 2024. This text is not an investment recommendation. It is important to realize that the value of all the mentioned cryptocurrencies is determined by the market, supply and demand, manipulation and a rapid change in the mood of the "crowd" are possible here, a large volatility of quotes is logically present. Bitcoin has already fallen 4 times from 60K to 15K. TON has already "folded" from $5 to $2. But the trends mentioned in this review make sense to observe and understand.
Kurilo Alexander
