📉 How much has TON changed in a year?

⚫️ It has been over two months since Pavel Durov announced MTONGA’s fourth step. The transition was supposed to take around three weeks, yet the fifth step has still not been announced. Meanwhile, the upcoming self-custodial wallet built into Telegram makes no mention of MTONGA and may well be a separate initiative altogether.

⚫️ So the ecosystem is once again waiting for its next big catalyst. And the longer the silence drags on, the harder it is not to look back and ask: what has actually changed in TON over the past year?

⚫️ Looking at the last 365 days, the numbers are pretty grim. Gram is down more than 50%, DEX volumes have roughly halved as well, onchain activity has declined, and a number of projects have either shut down or quietly disappeared. The community even launched @TheOpenCemetery, a channel that tracks dead TON projects. The active user base has shrunk too: most of those still around are OGs who were here before the tap-to-earn wave.

⚫️ Still, the year was not a complete write-off. Gram has attracted more English-speaking traders and builders. Mikey from Groyp, for example, brought people into the ecosystem who probably would not have paid attention to TON otherwise. And Gram shifting from TON Foundation to Durov looks like a positive signal, reviving hopes that the coin could eventually see deeper integration with Telegram.

⚫️ So yes, things in TON are not looking great. But honestly, they could be worse. We are hanging on for Telegram’s birthday and the launch of its self-custodial wallet—probably the ecosystem’s best chance in a while to finally get some momentum back.

@thedailyton