After the wave of excitement around “TON Mini Games” subsided, the TON ecosystem gradually faded from the main focus of the market. Unexpectedly, the TON ecosystem has once again become the center of attention in the market, due to another concept that has also long been out of favor — NFT.

On January 1st of this year, Telegram released its first update of the year. In this New Year’s update, the “gifts” that were previously received on Telegram have officially been upgraded to “collectibles.” Collectibles are NFTs, which not only have the traditional characteristics of randomness and rarity associated with NFTs but can also be transferred to other Telegram users or traded on NFT markets.

In terms of trading volume, Telegram’s “gifts” officially started to gain momentum around mid-May, and in recent days has seen explosive growth. The increasing number of related discussion tweets on Twitter also reflects the breakout effect of Telegram’s “gifts” in recent days.

From June 7 to June 9, the daily transaction volume of Telegram’s “gifts” almost doubled, rising from nearly $3 million to over $9 million.

Comparing the NFT transaction volumes across chains, since mid-May, TON has also firmly suppressed Solana, consistently ranking second in NFT transaction volumes among all chains.

In the past few days, TON even surpassed Ethereum, achieving a daily trading volume close to 10 million USD, about 3 times that of Ethereum.

On June 9, Telegram founder Pavel Durov personally tweeted to promote Telegram “gifts,” mentioning several Telegram “gifts” series that have significantly increased in the past month, and stated that the TON chain has achieved a daily trading volume in NFTs that surpassed Ethereum.

In the competition of NFT trading markets, the largest TON NFT trading market, TONNEL, has surpassed OpenSea in daily trading volume over the past two days. Other TON NFT trading markets such as Portals and Getgems have also matched the trading volumes of Blur and Magic Eden in the past two days. Considering that the TON NFT market only supports the TON chain while OpenSea and others support multiple chains, it can be said that TON stands out uniquely in the NFT market.

According to the trading data of the on-chain market Getgems shown in the image below, currently, the only absolute leader in Telegram “gifts” is Plush Pepes, which maintains a floor price of 5100 TON (approximately 16800 USD) and ranks first in weekly trading volume among all Telegram “gifts” series, making it a true “the more expensive, the more sought after”.

All the Telegram “gift” series that made it to the weekly leaderboard saw an increase as shown in the image above. It’s hard to say where Long Er stands; based on the trading volume and floor price, it is currently Durov’s Caps, but we cannot rule out the possibility of newcomers surpassing it.

TON NFT market is actually the Telegram “gift” market. So how did this develop? What is different from the NFTs we are familiar with? Like Laser Cats.@BitCloutCatWhat do NFT whales think about this?

The development of TON NFT

On January 24, Telegram officially supported sending “gifts” on the TON chain, allowing users to send “gifts” on the TON chain for transactions within Telegram. From this point on, “gifts” officially became an important part of the TON ecosystem.\ Telegram also updated the “gifts” that were upgraded to NFTs, giving them social attributes. In this update, “gifts” can be worn like a badge to display in the name bar of a Telegram user’s profile.

On February 14, Telegram launched 9 new limited “gift” series, which sold out within a few hours, with sales exceeding 5 million dollars.

On March 7th, Telegram further strengthened the social features of “gifts”. After this update, users can not only wear a “gift” after their name but can also wear 6 “gifts” on their profile cover.

On May 8th, Telegram updated its built-in “Gift” trading feature, allowing users to trade “Gifts” using “Stars” within Telegram.

On June 9, Telegram founder Pavel Durov personally tweeted to promote Telegram “gifts”, mentioning several Telegram “gift” series that have significantly increased in the past month, and stated that the TON chain achieved a daily trading volume in NFTs that surpassed Ethereum.

The difference between TON NFT and traditional NFT

1. Different main project types

The NFT projects we are familiar with mainly include PFPs, token airdrop vouchers, Pass cards, on-chain game items, and so on. In the current wave of TON NFT market, the absolute main line is Telegram “gifts”. In Web2, a more appropriate positioning for “gifts” would be QQ Show.

According to the weekly trading volume leaderboard of Getgems, outside of Telegram “gifts”, the “Anonymous Telegram Number” ranked first and “Telegram Usernames” ranked third. Although they are not Telegram “gifts”, they still follow the “QQ logic”—the former is a Telegram account that does not require binding a phone number, while the latter is a unique username similar to a Twitter handle. A nice number, a nice name.

Whether it is Telegram “gifts” or cool numbers and names, they all come from the official Telegram and can be effective within Telegram. However, the PFPs on the TON chain from the community have not shown any progress for now.

2. Different trading modes

From the perspective of first-level initial offerings, the Telegram “gifts” are officially issued and released in new series sporadically in a surprise manner. They use the “stars” purchased within Telegram as the currency for these offerings, which is quite different from the minting process we are familiar with on-chain.

It’s also worth mentioning that the new “Gift” series opening mode is quite unique and has a longer lock-up period. First of all, if you successfully open the new “Gift” series, the “Gift” at this time is in the “non-NFT blind box” state. Only when the Telegram official opens the upgrade function can the holders choose to upgrade, and upgrading is equivalent to the process of converting the opening image into an NFT. After the upgrade is completed, you still need to wait 21 days before trading (to prevent.

From the perspective of secondary trading, the trading market itself is also divided into on-chain and off-chain implementations. The representative of off-chain is TONNEL, which uses trading intermediary bots to send and receive Telegram “gifts”, with the market embedded in Telegram in the form of a Mini App. The representative of on-chain is Getgems, where any NFT on the TON chain can be found on Getgems, which may also better align with the operating habits of veteran NFT players.

Currently, the transaction volume in the off-chain trading market far exceeds that on-chain. This may partially reflect the significant support from Telegram’s native users for the Telegram “gift” craze.

For a long time, the off-chain transaction volume has overwhelmingly dominated over the on-chain, often approaching 10 times. However, in recent days, the transaction volume in the on-chain market has also begun to grow, narrowing the gap, which may be one of the signs that crypto users are starting to enter more.

3. Different usage methods

If you are using an on-chain trading market, the “gift” you receive is in NFT (on-chain) status, and you need to bring it to Telegram to wear it. This is also another reason why off-chain trading markets are more popular; trading robots can directly transfer it to your account in off-chain status for you to wear, saving a step.

The perspective of NFT whales

Laser Cat@BitCloutCat He accepted an interview from our Rhythm BlockBeats. He stated that he first noticed the Telegram “gifts” in March, when the price of Plush Pepe (currently the highest floor price for Telegram “gifts”) was about 1000 U, but he missed it because he didn’t realize that the “gifts” could be worn with social attributes.

After the hype rose, he conducted in-depth research again – with social scenarios and the ability to show off, isn’t this just “QQ Show”? The first market rush for new releases using “stars” and Q coins is also quite similar. Moreover, this time, celebrities from both inside and outside the circle, including Snoop Dogg’s official Telegram account, Telegram’s founder, and Fat Penguin’s founder Luca Netz, have all used it, which means the potential audience is quite broad.

Due to the existence of the cooling-off period, there will be some price differences between on-chain and off-chain trading markets. On-chain trading can be bought and sold at any time but may be a bit more expensive, while off-chain trading can be used but will be locked for a period before transactions can resume.

According to the observation of Laser Cats, the main players currently seem to be Russians and some NFT players, with quite a few discussion groups being in Russian. Although there have been some discussions in the Chinese-speaking community, it is still not considered much, so it cannot be said whether it is early or late at this stage. However, he believes that if done well, there is great potential, with opportunities to break the barrier and directly attract Web2 users, because the “gifts” can be directly sent to friends within Telegram, without requiring the recipient to have a crypto wallet from the start. Currently, in the secondary market, series that are relatively limited in quantity and visually appealing have basically seen a general increase. If the creator ecosystem can be opened up in the future, the popularity may be even higher.

Conclusion

The recent Telegram “gift” and the earlier adventure island blockchain game have both garnered market attention for NFTs through practical applications. It has been nearly 4 years since the summer when NFTs were all the rage; the term NFT is no longer just a hype label, but has quietly taken on more practical applications, showcasing its role on larger platforms. I hope there will be more NFT applications like the Telegram “gift” to inject more vitality into the market.

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