After the craze of "TON Mini Games" subsided, the TON ecosystem gradually faded from the main attention of the market. Unexpectedly, the TON ecosystem has once again become the focus of the market because of another concept that has long been out of favor in the market - NFT.
On January 1, Telegram released its first update of the year. In this new year update, the "gifts" previously received on Telegram were officially upgraded to "collectibles". Collectibles are NFTs, which have the characteristics of traditional NFTs such as randomness and rarity, and can also be transferred to other Telegram users or traded on the NFT market.
Judging from the transaction volume, Telegram "gifts" started to gain momentum in mid-May and have experienced explosive growth in recent days. The increasing number of related discussion tweets on Twitter also indirectly reflects the breakout effect of Telegram "gifts" in recent days.
From June 7 to June 9, the daily transaction volume of Telegram "gifts" almost doubled, from nearly 3 million US dollars to over 9 million US dollars.
Comparing the NFT transaction volume of each chain, starting from mid-May, TON also began to firmly suppress Solana, ranking second in the NFT transaction volume of each chain.
In the past few days, TON even beat Ethereum, reaching a daily transaction volume of nearly 10 million US dollars, about 3 times that of Ethereum.
On June 9, Telegram founder Pavel Durov personally tweeted to promote Telegram "gifts", mentioning several Telegram "gift" series that have risen sharply in the past month, and said that the TON chain has achieved the achievement of surpassing Ethereum in daily NFT transaction volume in a single day.
In the competition of NFT trading markets, the current largest TON NFT trading market TONNEL has surpassed OpenSea in terms of daily trading volume in the past two days. Other TON NFT trading markets such as Portals and Getgems have also been comparable to Blur and Magic Eden in terms of trading volume in the past two days. Considering that the TON NFT market only has the TON chain while OpenSea and others support multiple chains, it can be said that TON is the only one that stands out in the NFT market.
Judging from the transaction data of the on-chain market Getgems in the figure below, there is currently only one absolute leader in Telegram "gifts", Plush Pepes. While maintaining the floor price of 5,100 TON (about 16,800 US dollars), it also ranks first among all Telegram "gift" series in terms of weekly trading volume. It can be said that "the more expensive, the more popular."
All Telegram "gift" series with weekly transaction volume on the chart are all rising in the above figure. It is difficult to say where the second dragon will be. Judging from the transaction volume and floor price, Durov is currently the caps, but it is not ruled out that there will be a latecomer.
The TON NFT market is actually the Telegram "gift" market. So how did this develop? How is it different from the NFTs we are familiar with? What do NFT whales like the laser cat @BitCloutCat think about it?
The Development of TON NFT
On January 24, Telegram officially supported the addition of "gifts" to the TON chain. Users can send "gifts" to the TON chain for transactions in Telegram. From this time on, "gifts" have officially become an important part of the TON ecosystem. \
Telegram has also updated the "gift" upgraded to NFT again, giving the "gift" a social attribute. In this update, the "gift" can be worn like a medal to be displayed behind the name bar of the Telegram user's profile.
On February 14, Telegram launched a new series of nine limited-edition "gifts," which sold out within hours, with sales exceeding $5 million.
On March 7, Telegram once again strengthened the social function of "gifts". After this update, users can not only wear one "gift" after their name, but also wear 6 "gifts" on the cover of their personal profile.
On May 8, Telegram updated its built-in "gift" trading function, supporting the use of "stars" in Telegram to trade "gifts".
On June 9, Telegram founder Pavel Durov personally tweeted to promote Telegram "gifts", mentioning several Telegram "gift" series that have risen sharply in the past month, and said that the TON chain has achieved the achievement of surpassing Ethereum in daily NFT transaction volume in a single day.
The difference between TON NFT and traditional NFT
1. Different main project types
The NFT projects we are familiar with are mainly PFP, token airdrop vouchers, Pass cards, blockchain game props, etc. In the current TON NFT market, the absolute main line is Telegram "gifts". It is more appropriate to find a position for "gifts" in Web2 - QQ Show.
From the weekly transaction rankings of Getgems, in addition to Telegram "gifts", the first-ranked "Anonymous Telegram Number" and the third-ranked "Telegram Usernames" are not Telegram "gifts", but they are still "QQ logic" - the former is a Telegram account that does not need to be bound to a mobile phone number, and the latter is a username that is as unique as a Twitter handle. A beautiful number, a beautiful name.
Whether it is Telegram "gifts" or good numbers and names, they all come from Telegram officials and can play a practical role in Telegram. However, PFP from the community and on the TON chain has not improved for the time being.
2. Different trading models
Judging from the first-level new issuance transactions, Telegram "gifts" are officially issued, and new series are released in the form of surprise attacks from time to time, and the "stars" purchased in Telegram are used as new issuance currency, which is very different from the on-chain minting we are familiar with.
It is also worth mentioning that the opening mode of the new "Gift" series is also quite unique, and has a longer lock-up period. First of all, if you successfully buy the new "Gift" series, the "Gift" at this time is in a "non-NFT blind box" state. Only when Telegram officially opens the upgrade function can the holder choose to upgrade. The upgrade is equivalent to the process of opening the picture + turning it into NFT. After the upgrade is completed, you still need to wait 21 days before trading (to prevent.
From the perspective of secondary buying and selling transactions, the implementation mode of the trading market itself is also divided into on-chain and off-chain. The representative of the off-chain is TONNEL, whose implementation mode is to have a trading intermediary robot to send and receive Telegram "gifts", and the market is built into Telegram in the form of a Mini App. The representative of the chain is Getgems. As long as it is an NFT on the TON chain, it can be found on Getgems, which may also be more in line with the operating habits of old NFT players.
At present, the transaction volume of the off-chain market is much greater than that of the on-chain market. Perhaps this can partly reflect that the Telegram "gift" craze has considerable support from Telegram native users.
For a long time, the off-chain transaction volume has an overwhelming advantage over the on-chain volume, often close to 10 times. But in recent days, the transaction volume of the on-chain market has also begun to grow, and the gap has narrowed. This may be one of the signs that more crypto users are starting to enter.
3. Different usage methods
If you use the on-chain trading market, the "gift" you get is in the NFT (on-chain) state, and you need to upload it to Telegram before you can wear it. This is another reason why the off-chain trading market is more popular. The trading robot can directly transfer it to your account in the off-chain state and wear it directly, saving a step.
What NFT whales think
BitCloutCat was interviewed by BlockBeats. He said that he first noticed Telegram "gifts" in March, when Plush Pepe (currently the leader with the highest floor price of Telegram "gifts") was priced at about 1,000 U, but he missed out because he didn't notice that "gifts" could be worn and had social attributes.
After the popularity rose, he conducted further research - there are social scenes and people can show off, isn't this "QQ Show"? The "stars" used in the primary market to buy new shares are also similar to Q coins. Moreover, this time, celebrities inside and outside the circle, including Snoop Dogg's official Telegram account, Telegram founder, and Fat Penguin founder Luca Netz, have used it, so the potential audience is quite wide.
Because of the existence of the cooling-off period, there will be some price differences between the on-chain and off-chain trading markets. On-chain trading allows buying and selling at any time, which will be more expensive, while off-chain trading allows it but will be locked for a period of time before trading can be resumed.
According to Laser Cat’s observation, the main players now seem to be Russians and some NFT players, and many discussion groups are in Russian. Although there have been some discussions in the Chinese-speaking circle, there are still not many, so there is no way to say whether it is early or late. But he believes that if it is done well, it has great potential and has the opportunity to break the circle and directly attract people from Web2, because it is a "gift" that can be given directly to friends in Telegram, and the other party does not need to have an encrypted wallet at the beginning. At present, in the secondary market, the series with relatively small total volume and relatively good appearance have basically risen. If the author ecosystem can be created later, the popularity may be even higher.
Conclusion
This time, Telegram "gifts" and the recent MapleStory Chain game have both brought NFT back to the market's attention with their practical applications. It has been 4 years since the hot summer of NFT. The word NFT is no longer a golden signboard for hype, but it has quietly assumed more practical applications and demonstrated its role on a larger platform. I hope that there will be more and more NFT applications like Telegram "gifts" to inject more vitality into the market.
