Telegram’s TON Blockchain Hits 1 Billion Total Transactions
The Open Network, also known as TON, is a blockchain closely affiliated with the messaging giant Telegram. It recently surpassed the 1 billion mark in total transactions. This comes directly on the heels of an extremely abnormally fevered pitch in network activity due to one prominent memecoin airdrop and subsequently two network outages.
According to statistics from TON Scan, the number of transactions on-chain is now over 1.04 billion, and close to half of those have been within the last three months alone. The rapid uptick in the number of transactions reflects a significant surge in usage of the blockchain, especially considering it was integrated with Telegram’s nearly 1 billion users worldwide.
TON Introduces Gasless Transactions
It will be one of the main drivers for further development in the future; one can count TON’s recent innovations as the reason behind that, including the launch of a standard W5 smart wallet. This new standard was designed with Tonkeeper, allowing no-gas transactions on the TON blockchain, which is much more user-friendly than before.
In July, The Open Network Foundation announced a partnership with 1inch and Sign to launch Triangle, a Web3 startup accelerator geared toward fostering new blockchain projects in the TON ecosystem. Adding to that, the newly created Bitcoin bridge by the TON Foundation has really positioned the platform as the “blockchain of blockchains.”
Besides, investment by Pantera Capital earlier this year gave significant impetus to the TON development and growth.
Challenge Emerges As Memecoin Madness Unleashes
As promising as all that sounds, the TON network has seen some stressors lately, particularly in the light of the airdrop of the DOGS memecoin. That caused two outages between August 27 and 29. The network reportedly handled 20 million transactions on that day, from which more than 30% were DOGS-related.
That means the rise in transactions consequently brings with it the highest transaction fees in six months. The same activity likely pushed TON to record its highest daily active users to date, says Ian Wittkopp, head of TON Ventures. The surprise spike in demand put unsustainable loads on some validators, which eventually disrupted transaction processing and consensus across the network.
Crypto analyst Maartun said DOGS transactions at one point made up some 35% of all transactions in certain blocks, with the network processing an average of 100 transactions per block in under few seconds.
Telegram’s Growing Crypto Holdings
In its financial statement, Telegram said it had $400 million in digital assets as of the end of 2023. For the messaging platform-already at the end of 2023 with some four million premium users-the number jumped by mid-2024 to more than five million.
Telegram posted $342.5 million in revenue, while recording an operating loss of $108 million for the year. Of note, almost 40% was derived from activity associated with digital assets, including an integrated wallet and the sale of digital collectibles.
Legal Issues Pile Up for Telegram CEO
In a related development, the French authorities have released the Chief Executive of Telegram, Pavel Durov, from prison on very stringent bail conditions, including a payment of 5 million euros and biweekly presentations to the police. Durov is to remain within the French borders as investigations continue.
The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, says the judge found enough evidence to open a formal investigation into Durov for suspected complicity in the operation of an online service for illegal transactions, dissemination of child sexual abuse material, narcotics trafficking, fraud, refusal to comply with requests from law enforcement authorities, money laundering, and the provision of cryptographic services to criminals.
This could lead to further challenges for Telegram in its ongoing expansion into the digital asset space.
