Telegram signs exclusivity deal with TON

Looking to carry over last year’s momentum into 2025, TON Foundation and Telegram have signed an exclusivity agreement, which will see TON blockchain become the only infrastructure to power mini-apps on Telegram. As such, TON will be the sole protocol for linking Telegram games to crypto wallets.

For developers making the migration to TON in order to enable web3 wallets in their games, they must implement Ton’s wallet protocol TON Connect within the next month. From then, all web3 mini-apps on Telegram Messenger will be powered by TON, to link wallets as well as authorize onchain transactions.

This will be an issue for projects such as Tatsumeeko, whose Lumina Hunt Telegram mini-game linked through to Ronin. Immutable had also previously added support for Telegram.

Further, as part of the tighter partnership, users will only be able to use TON as a crypto payment for various Telegram services such as Premium, Gateway, Stars, and Ads. This will be the exclusive currency for non-fiat payments for assets and services on the platform.

Expanding its utility further, Toncoin will also be the only token used to pay Telegram-based game developers for their earned Telegram Stars and ad revenue.

“After laying foundational groundwork over the last years, TON is now ready for explosive growth in 2025”, commented TON Foundation president Manuel Stotz.

Since September 2023, TON blockchain developer TON Foundation and Telegram have continued to deepen their strategic partnership. One of their initial goals was to onboard 30% of Telegram’s active users to TON by 2028. At the start of November 2024, total onchain activated TON wallets on Telegram had reached 34 million.

“Telegram is the sixth most downloaded app in the world, a beacon for free speech, and the default messaging platform for the global blockchain community. No other blockchain has a comparable distribution vector. As TON continues its global expansion, we reiterate our ambition to empower over 500 million users before the end of the decade,” added Stotz.