⚫️ Tomorrow, TON Blockchain turns five. On May 26, 2021, the “community” voted to rename testnet2 into mainnet, and shortly afterward, NewTON became TON Foundation.
⚫️ Birthdays are usually about gifts, so we decided to think on Telegram’s behalf: what could it give to its own blockchain?
⚫️ Obviously, there are many ways TON could be integrated deeper into Telegram. But there is also a limitation: things like this always come with legal risks. Otherwise, it is hard to explain why Telegram is still mostly built around Stars internally, rather than Toncoin.
⚫️ The first possible gift is TON payments through the Bot API. Right now, bot developers can accept payments in Telegram Stars through the standard Telegram Payments mechanism. A logical next step would be the ability to issue invoices directly in Toncoin: the user pays for a purchase from their internal TON balance, while the bot receives payment confirmation without unnecessary intermediaries.
⚫️ Especially since the first step in this direction has already been made. Telegram already has an internal TON balance. Of course, it is not a full-fledged wallet, but rather just an option for paying for Telegram Gifts. Still, the foundation for future integration is already there.
⚫️ The second option is paid MTProto proxies. Telegram has long had its own protocol for bypassing blocks, but proxy monetization has never been particularly elegant: once a user has a link, they can share it with anyone. In theory, TON could help turn this into a proper marketplace where users pay for traffic and proxy owners receive rewards.
⚫️ TON Payments could be especially relevant here. If the technology really enables very fast and low-cost transfers, it would be a good fit for small recurring payments — for example, proxy traffic. A user tops up a deposit, connects to a node, and then micropayments are charged invisibly in the background, with billing possible even per byte.
⚫️ Of course, all of this is still speculation. We do not know what Telegram can afford to do legally, and what will remain a beautiful idea on paper. But if we are talking specifically about a gift for TON, what it needs most right now is not congratulations, but
🔥 Although, to be honest, attention would also be enough. So, Pavel Durov, even a simple announcement of the next MTONGA step on TON’s birthday would work for us.
🖊 Do you have any ideas on how Telegram could integrate TON even deeper?
@thedailyton