Chill Guy is a viral meme illustration that took social media by storm before a crypto project used the meme to launch a Solana-based token. Learn more here.

What started as a simple illustration of a laid-back dog has become a global meme sensation, with the cartoon character known as Chill Guy dominating both social media trends and cryptocurrency markets. Created by artist Phillip Banks in October 2023, the easygoing canine character sparked a viral movement that has attracted major brands worldwide.

This article follows Chill Guy’s transformation from a social media sensation to a cryptocurrency asset. We'll examine its viral beginnings, community growth, market impact and what potential investors can expect from CHILLGUY in the future.

 is a viral meme illustration by artist Phillip Banks, depicting a laid-back dog in casual clothes whose easygoing attitude took social media by storm before a crypto project used the meme to launch Just a Chill Guy as a Solana-based token.

What Does Just a Chill Guy Aim to Achieve?

The CHILLGUY meme coin aims to spread a "Why worry?" philosophy into cryptocurrency markets by embracing the laid-back, stress-free attitude that made the original meme go viral. The project transforms this easygoing vibe into a community-driven token, where being low-key isn't just a catchphrase — it's a shared mindset among holders.

The CHILLGUY community brings this philosophy to life by sharing endless variations of the CHILLGUY meme across social platforms. Through market swings and viral trends, CHILLGUY keeps his iconic pose: hands in pockets, subtle smirk, perpetually relaxed.

Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY) operates as a Solana Program Library (SPL) token on the 

 blockchain, leveraging the network's ultrafast speeds and low costs to ensure smooth trading. The token was created using Pump.fun, a specialized platform that lets users launch Solana-based tokens without any fees, removing traditional barriers to token creation.

CHILLGUY is a community takeover (CTO), meaning it's completely owned and directed by its token holders with no central team in control. This decentralized structure ensures the project stays true to its community-driven nature, its holders collectively guiding its future while embodying the laid-back spirit of the original meme.

The CHILLGUY token launched with a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 999,965,435 are currently in circulation. This near-complete distribution of tokens to the market supports active trading and community participation.

What makes CHILLGUY's tokenomics particularly notable is its widespread distribution across more than 142,000 unique holders (as of Nov 27, 2024), achieved in just 12 days. This rapid expansion of its holder base demonstrates strong community adoption and aligns with the project's decentralized, community-driven principles.

CHILLGUY has exploded across social media, especially on TikTok, where the meme has amassed hundreds of millions of views. Its laid-back character resonates with users worldwide, inspiring countless creative adaptations.

Major brands worldwide have embraced CHILLGUY in their marketing campaigns. From Sprite Europe to NFL on CBS, the character has resonated across mainstream media, even catching the attention of global figures like El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele.

The “Chill Guy” meme’s influence spans multiple social media platforms, with a growing community of followers: 96.6K on X (

). On the other hand, the meme token itself also has a vast community, with 39.9K on X (

) and an active Telegram channel of over 15,000 members. These numbers reflect the meme's ability to engage audiences across different platforms.

The token's popularity in cryptocurrency markets matches its social media success, with CHILLGUY maintaining a substantial 24-hour trading volume of over $330.03M as of Nov 27, 2024. This high trading activity demonstrates the strong market interest in CHILLGUY beyond its meme status.

Looking to trade Just a Chill Guy tokens? Bybit now offers the CHILLGUY/USDT Spot trading pair and CHILLGUYUSDT Perpetual contract. To get started, you’ll first need to create a Bybit account, then fund it with cryptocurrency and navigate to the 

While CHILLGUY has maintained strong trading volumes and continues gaining mainstream attention through its viral social media presence, investors should carefully weigh its strengths and risk factors before making investment decisions.

With its widespread brand adoption, sustained trading activity and explosive community growth of over 142,000 holders, CHILLGUY demonstrates significant market potential. However, meme coins are inherently volatile. Potential investors should 

 and invest no more than they can afford to lose.

CHILLGUY is the latest viral sensation to harness the power of the attention economy to convert social media momentum into crypto market success. While CHILLGUY has already demonstrated its ability to capture mass appeal, its position as a leading meme token will depend upon how effectively it maintains its cultural relevance and community engagement in this fast-moving market.

Intermediate

chill guy, chillguy.png

Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY): Embracing the Art of Nonchalance

Zircuit (ZRC) combines optimistic and ZK rollups with AI-driven security, offering fast, low-cost Ethereum Layer 2 solutions. 

 network has flourished, mainly due to the ongoing network congestion, high fees and poor scalability of the latter. Many of these platforms use rollup technology, whereby batches of multiple transactions processed off-chain are bundled together and posted in bulk to the underlying Layer 1. Ethereum-linked rollups mainly come in two varieties 

 (ZK). While optimistic rollups boast lower computational overhead, the ZK variety of these networks features a higher degree of security.

Zircuit (ZRC) is a Layer 2 chain that adopts a hybrid approach, combining the elements of optimistic and 

. This lets the platform offer the performance benefits of optimistic technology along with the security of ZK validity proofs. To further enhance overall security, Zircuit uses a unique 

 (AI)–driven system of monitoring for malicious transactions.

 (ZRC) is a hybrid Layer 2 blockchain that combines the features of optimistic and ZK rollups, and uses AI-driven monitoring for potentially harmful transactions. 

 rollup development technology, a popular framework for building optimistic rollup networks. Additionally, it uses zero-knowledge proofs, which lets the platform offer the best of both worlds 

 the performance benefits of optimistic rollups and the security of ZK technology. Zircuit is 

The Zircuit project takes security very seriously, and has introduced a unique system of AI-based protection against malicious transactions at the sequencer node level. The use of ZK proofs and an AI-based protection system make Zircuit one of the most secure platforms in the competitive world of Ethereum Layer 2 chains.

Along with its excellent security benefits, Zircuit also boasts low costs, fast transactions, excellent scalability and 2-second block production intervals. All these features make it an ideal environment for 

 (DApps) in various niches, particularly 

 (DeFi). In fact, the leading protocols within the Zircuit ecosystem are all dedicated to the finance niche, with Zircuit Staking being the largest application by TVL.

With its heavy focus on DeFi, Zircuit aims to become a leading liquidity hub for various token types within the sector, including 

. These assets can be staked through the Zircuit staking program — supported by the platform's Liquidity Hub — to earn staking APRs, airdrop rewards and points based on the Zircuit Point program (covered further in our article).

The platform also operates a secure native bridging solution, 

, to help users transfer assets between its Layer 2 network and Ethereum Layer 1.

The company behind the project, Zircuit Ltd., was founded in 2021 in Canada by Dr. Martin Derka, Jan Gorzny and Angel Xu. Zircuit's testnet was launched in November 2023, but made headlines in April 2024 when the project reported that its 

 (TVL) had soared past $2 billion. While testnet TVLs are more a gauge of future potential for a blockchain than an indicator of its existing worth, the news attracted the attention of industry observers toward the platform. Following its highly publicized testnet success, Zircuit launched the first phase of its mainnet in August 2024. This was followed by the launch of the platform's native token, ZRC, in November 2024.

As a typical rollup, Zircuit uses an off-chain sequencer node to batch and organize Layer 2 transactions for subsequent posting to the underlying Ethereum Layer 1. The batches have ZK validity proofs attached to them to signal to Layer 1 validators that they’re free from fraudulent transactions. Zircuit's architecture also includes prover nodes, whose job is to produce these validity proofs.

However, unlike other rollups using ZK proofs (also known as validity proofs), Zircuit doesn't generate validity proofs for every block of transactions. Instead, some blocks have pre-generated template proofs, while others go through the process of having a dedicated validity proof created for them. After a few blocks featuring validity proofs, there are several more that utilize template proofs. The image below illustrates this approach.

The key reason Zircuit has adopted this form of proof design is that the process of generating ZK proofs is computationally intensive. By using template proofs for some of the blocks in a sequence, Zircuit can reduce the overall computational overhead. However, the project’s team has stated that the template proof model is temporary, and will be phased out in the future. At that stage, the platform will move to generating ZK proofs for each block.

Zircuit features a highly modular design whereby provers — responsible for generating validity proofs on the platform — can easily be plugged into or removed from the network. This modular approach is distinct from the standard ZK rollup design, in which provers are more tightly and less flexibly integrated into the overall architecture.

As noted earlier, Zircuit uses a dedicated sequencer to organize and batch transactions into blocks. The platform also applies AI-driven monitoring at the sequencer level (the Sequencer Level Security, or SLS) to spot and exclude fraudulent transactions before they’re finalized on Layer 2.

When transactions are first posted to Zircuit, they enter the 

 — a temporary area from which the sequencer picks and organizes individual transactions into blocks. The mempool is being monitored at all times, using AI algorithms to identify suspicious transactions. If a transaction in the mempool raises a flag, it's quarantined and assessed for validity before the sequencer can include it in a block. The image below shows how this process works.

One of the distinct features of Zircuit is its hybrid architecture, which combines the properties of optimistic and ZK rollups. At the base level, Zircuit is built using Optimism's Bedrock development framework, a technology popular for optimistic rollup networks. However, the use of ZK proofs — or, to be more precise, a combination of validity proofs and template proofs — ensures that Zircuit enjoys a security level that standard optimistic rollups normally can't match.

The use of AI-based SLS provides robust security to Zircuit, complementing the already highly secure ZK proof system. Very few Layer 2 networks in the industry currently feature anything similar, making the platform a true pioneer of AI use for sequencer-level operations.

Like any rollup based on Optimism Bedrock, Zircuit enjoys EVM compatibility. This allows for smooth interoperability with the underlying Ethereum Layer 1. EVM compatibility also makes it easy for developers familiar with Ethereum’s environment to develop Zircuit-based DApps, or to port existing Ethereum applications to the platform. Developers can take advantage of technologies commonly used for Ethereum (e.g., the Solidity programming language and the Hardhat development framework) to build Zircuit applications and smart contracts.

Zircuit Bridge is a native bridging solution designed to easily transfer tokens between Ethereum and Zircuit. It boasts high security, low transaction fees and fast transfers, and allows users to move a variety of cryptocurrencies between Ethereum and Zircuit, including ETH, 

) and LRTs like Super Symbiotic LRT (weETHs). As of late November 2024, the total number of cryptos supported by the bridge is close to 30.

Zircuit has launched a reward program called Zircuit Points. Users can earn these Points by staking supported assets, and by participating in the Build to Earn initiative (more on this below). Accumulated points will be converted to ZRC tokens in the future. Points also create the opportunity to qualify for token airdrops.

The primary way for most users to earn Zircuit points is via 

. The Zircuit Staking program lets you stake LSTs, LRTs, popular stablecoins, some wrapped tokens and Ether (ETH) to earn points. Using LSTs and LRTs, you can earn yields (along with native Zircuit staking APRs and Points) from the respective staking and restaking platforms that issue these assets.

Zircuit Points earned via staking have different multipliers, depending upon the asset. For example, Ether has a multiplier of 0.5, while LSTs, LRTs and stablecoins have a multiplier of 1. Multipliers for different LST and LRT assets may be subject to change in the future.

Build to Earn is another way to qualify for Zircuit Points. The program allows developers to contribute to the Zircuit ecosystem and earn Points in a number of ways, including:

Launched in November 2024, ZRC is the platform's native cryptocurrency. It's an 

 asset deployed on both Zircuit and Ethereum Layer 1. ZRC is mainly used for reward distributions, and participation in token airdrops for ecosystem DApps. Currently, transaction fees on the network are paid in Ether. It's possible that, in the future, ZRC might be used for some transaction fee payments.

ZRC is also used for rewards under the Gas Rebate program. As users conduct transactions on the platform, they 

. Zircuit’s Gas Rebate program provides rebates to offset some of the incurred fees. The amount of ZRC earned as a rebate is proportional to the amount spent on gas in ETH; the project's documentation states that for each ETH spent on gas, the user earns 125% in ZRC. All kinds of gas fee payments qualify for the rebate, including ordinary asset transfers and transactions involving interaction with Zircuit DApps.

ZRC is a supply-capped token, with a maximum and total supply of 10 billion. The token's supply allocation shares are as follows:

The ZRC token is available on Bybit's Spot market as a swap pair with USDT (

 to grab a share of the 5 million ZRC prize pool. New users who sign up for a Bybit account and complete identity verification can earn ZRC rewards by accumulating a deposit volume of at least 2,000 ZRC, or by depositing 100 USDT and trading 100 USDT worth of ZRC via their first trade with Bybit. 

Meanwhile, existing users can qualify for ZRC rewards by trading at least 500 USDT worth of ZRC on the Bybit Spot market, with the possibility of earning up to 10,000 ZRC based on trading volume. The 

 event will run through Dec 10, 2024, 8:59AM UTC.

Zircuit is among the pioneering Layer 2 platforms to adopt a hybrid design for a rollup network. Thanks to the platform's architecture, users can take advantage of low transaction costs, fast transfers and great scalability while enjoying the benefits of high security delivered by ZK proofs and AI-driven mempool monitoring. AI-based monitoring for fraudulent transactions is a particularly notable feature of the platform and is undoubtedly among the most advanced technologies employed in the blockchain industry.

User security combined with faster and cheaper transactions for the Ethereum network — all in one package — is now feasible, thanks to Zircuit's innovative technology and unique approach!

Advanced

Zircuit.png

What Is Zircuit (ZRC): Where Performance Meets Cutting-Edge Security

Bybit is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the #Super6Bybit event, offering a $1.2 million prize pool and focusing on its bbSOL token.

Daily Top Performer — Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL)

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.38% as tech stocks dropped and inflation data reinforced a hawkish Fed outlook. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was down by 0.40%, with Bitcoin and Ether dropping by 1.86% and 1.79%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is VIRTUAL, which surged 53.6% following the launch of the $MUSIC token by Agentstarter, featuring AI-driven music video capabilities and community-focused tokenomics.

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), founded in 2021, allows users to invest in and co-own AI-driven virtual assets like companions and influencers. Its model fosters community ownership, transforming AI agents into revenue-generating assets across platforms like Roblox and TikTok. The platform attracts contributors from AI and gaming to drive innovation in virtual economies. 

, using AI to create music videos and offering features like animated videos, voice mimicry, and karaoke tracks. The tokenomics allocate 60% for airdrops, 20% for liquidity, and 10% each for the development team and Virtuals Protocol.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

Bybit is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the 

, offering a $1.2 million prize pool and focusing on its bbSOL token. Launched in September 2024, bbSOL is the first exchange-backed Liquid Staking Token on Solana, providing liquidity and staking rewards. The campaign, running from November 28, 2024, to January 6, 2025, invites participants to build, transform, and supercharge their bbSOL through tasks, leaderboards, and community milestones, increasing rewards. The event combines gaming mechanics, community engagement, and opportunities to win prizes while promoting innovation and growth in the crypto space.

Yesterday, there were no flows in BTC Spot ETFs, including GBTC and non-GBTC categories.

. Stake BNB on Lista's portal to get slisBNB, then deposit it into Astherus to earn airdrop points with multipliers (3X for Lista, 1.15X for Astherus). No lockup is required, and slisBNB is the most efficient option.

Beginner

1.png

Bybit Celebrates 6th Anniversary with $1.2M Prize Pool and bbSOL Supercharging Campaign

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, and futures, options and perpetual contracts.

ETH has outperformed, bolstered by SEC Chair Gary Gensler's announcement of his Jan 20, 2025 departure, and suggested by growing open interest in ETH perpetual. This positive momentum extends to several large-cap altcoins previously scrutinized by the SEC, as indicated by bullish funding rates for long positions.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

ETH Open Interest Grows While BTC’s Declines

ETH is outperforming BTC following the announcement of SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s departure, as evidenced in perpetual swap markets. BTC open interest has decreased from last week's highs, while ETH contracts have increased. Additionally, ETH trade volumes constitute a larger share of daily trading as compared to much of the past six months, despite an overall dip in trade volumes this week. The gradual decline in BTC open interest, without a surge in trading activity, indicates a strategic repositioning, rather than a wave of liquidations.

BTC Option Curve Inversion Deepens as Price Retreats

The pullback in the spot BTC price from the $100K target has led to a flat ATM volatility term structure, with short-tenor options dropping below 60%. 

This trend continues the correlation between term structure inversion and BTC spot price returns observed since the U.S. election on November 5, 2024

. The decline in front-end volatility aligns with lower realized volatility levels. While demand for short-tenor options has moderated, there hasn't been a notable change in open interest for calls or puts. Instead, their growth has stalled at the week's start.

Sentiment in ETH options markets seems moderately more bullish than in BTC's during the recent decline in momentum from the post-election rally. Call options lead in both trading volumes and open interest. 

block-scholes-x-bybit-report.jpeg

Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Nov 27, 2024): Signal on ETH Outperformance Against BTC Surfaces on Long-Term Contracts

Bybit Learn

Crypto Insights

Learn more about the TON ecosystem with insights from our guest author, Sherry.

 Sherry is the Research Lead at Future3 Campus, a web3 innovation incubation platform initiated by Wanxiang Blockchain Labs and HashKey Capital. 

From prominent figures bringing attention to the BTC ecosystem and the resurgence of Solana and the popularity of DePIN and Meme within its ecosystem, to the influx of TVL brought by Blast staking airdrops and EigenLayer restaking, public chain ecosystems have once again become the hot topic in the recent wave.

It’s evident that the competition between L1 and L2 is extremely fierce at present, especially with the emergence of new L2 solutions as one-click chain deployment tools gradually improve. Therefore, in this bull market's public chain competition, it’s crucial for each blockchain enterprise to establish its unique characteristics and competitive advantages. This article primarily analyzes the competitive advantages of TON.

II. TON: The Next Generation web3 Traffic Gateway

From the perspective of creating breakout applications and attracting Web 2.0 users, TON is a public chain ecosystem with tremendous potential in the most recent bull market (Q3 2023 through Q1 2024). In the current public chain competition, The Open Network (TON), as the official technical partner of Telegram, possesses unique competitive advantages and trump cards, and is poised to open channels connecting traditional markets and introducing new assets and traffic. The reasons are as follows:

Currently, Telegram boasts over 900 million monthly active users, primarily concentrated in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, with strong characteristics of retail investors. These users, who are highly suitable for web3, have yet to be fully tapped, presenting a high-potential user base. Leveraging Telegram's traffic can create a competitive edge distinct from major U.S. institutions.

Moreover, with user habits changing in the Web 2.0 world, traffic aggregation and monetization channels have gradually shifted to various social platforms such as instant messaging, short videos and live streaming. Social products exhibit strong user stickiness and high usage frequency, making it easier to acquire users directly through recommendations, forwards and information streams, resulting in more efficient traffic acquisition and lower costs.

Over the past year, Telegram has made significant progress in product feature development, expanding from simple instant messaging tools to include features such as Telegram Channels, Telegram Stories and live broadcasts, as well as to launch advertising platforms and lottery systems. These platforms can be utilized for promoting applications, channels and groups, making Telegram an advantageous platform for acquiring new traffic within the ecosystem.

It’s widely known that acquiring and converting traffic follows a funnel model. While accessing a large number of potential users is fundamental, the more important question is how to convert these users into participants within ecosystems and applications. The most critical aspect of this conversion process is the entry point.

Currently, there exists a significant gap between web3 and Web 2.0 users, with one of the main reasons being poor entry product experiences that make it difficult for users to convert smoothly. However, this problem has been effectively addressed within the TON ecosystem.

For less advanced users, Telegram offers a more user-friendly experience than web3 products, serving as an information aggregator and user traffic entry point. This is evidenced by the popularity of Telegram bots in 2023, with data showing continuous growth in Telegram bot transaction volume. The total daily transaction volume of various bots approached $100 million at its peak, with leading bots such as Banana Gun and BONKBot surpassing $30 million in daily transaction volume, exceeding that of SushiSwap.

This demonstrates that users prefer applications with lower entry barriers, aggregated functions and mobile accessibility, rather than switching between various desktop websites, primarily targeting encrypted degen applications.

Data Source: Dune Dashboard @whale_hunter

Furthermore, Telegram has introduced Mini Apps based on bots, which are HTML framework-based mini-programs. Compared to bot commands, Mini Apps offer frontend interaction, providing a more friendly interface and user experience, similar to mini programs in WeChat. They seamlessly integrate with Telegram accounts, allowing Mini Aps to be launched within Telegram, making them the ultimate form of mobile applications. 

For users, there’s no need to leave Telegram throughout the process, enabling them to interact with web3 applications using Web 2.0–like experiences, with higher efficiency in user acquisition and retention.

Although TON has a significant advantage in acquiring potential traffic, it must be acknowledged that assets are the underlying foundation of web3, with finance being its core. Therefore, an important aspect of TON’s ecosystem development lies in how to convert potential users into on-chain TON users through assets and transactions.

In this process, TON boasts two killer applications.

First, the TON Wallet embedded within Telegram is expected to attract a large influx of new assets. On one hand, it enables the creation of recoverable noncustodial wallet accounts, with traditional account models such as accounts and email addresses reducing high-threshold behaviors (e.g., holding private keys), while also directly supporting credit card deposits, eliminating the need for new users to consider issues such as gas fees. 

On the other hand, the TON wallet is embedded within the Telegram interface, seamlessly integrated with Telegram accounts, allowing for a friendly interface within Telegram and supporting all payment and transfer actions within it, providing an overall user experience similar to using WeChat Pay.

The second application is the newly launched advertising revenue sharing system, which can significantly increase the circulation of Toncoin on TON. On February 28, 2024, TON announced that starting in March, the Telegram advertising platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries, with ads being paid in Toncoin. Channel owners can receive 50% of their channel's advertising revenue in Toncoin. 

This initiative creates a huge potential application market for the TON blockchain, acting as a de facto Toncoin airdrop reward and significantly increasing assets on TON, while also benefiting Telegram in building more high-quality channels.

III. How Developers Can Strategically Position Themselves in the TON Ecosystem

With its abundant potential user base and increasingly robust traffic infrastructure, TON’s ecosystem holds immense promise. It's highly worthwhile for both users and developers to enter and capitalize on early growth dividends and long-term explosive opportunities. So, which areas of focus on TON deserve more attention, and how can developers effectively occupy positions within the TON ecosystem?

Users and developers can choose from two perspectives.

From the analysis above, we can discern that TON's main advantages lie in its traffic reserves and social attributes.

Accordingly, we see promising directions for development in two areas on TON:

Gaming represents a typical high-interaction avenue. While the core areas of Web 2.0 games are traffic attraction and consumption, web3 games focus on facilitating transactions and interactions. Overall, TON's traffic advantage can be effectively leveraged in gaming projects.

In actual development, web3 games have long faced a dilemma: low game quality and short life cycles. This issue is inseparable from the market size and user attributes of web3 itself. The market size of web3 remains relatively small, which means users lack strong incentives to participate.

Therefore, the future development logic of web3 games may need to evolve toward Web 2.0, which emphasizes both transaction profitability and user consumption. This includes direct consumption or obtaining advertising revenue through traffic, giving web3 games stronger vitality and the chance to truly become breakout applications. Such applications need to simultaneously access Web 2.0 and web3 users, and to meet their needs in terms of gameplay and mechanism design.

In this regard, Telegram can attract a large amount of traffic, primarily from Web 2.0, while TON's wallet and other infrastructure can accommodate web3 users' participation and gradually introduce web3 concepts to Web 2.0 users. Game developers on TON don't need to resort to airdrops and price pumping, as they can acquire users through normal gameplay and monetize via their consumption and traffic.

Currently, projects that perform well in Telegram's tApp Center can earn the "Editor's Choice" label. Several representative web3 games, such as 

, have monthly average users exceeding 400,000, 570,000 and 1.5 million, respectively.

Telegram is currently a privacy-based platform, unable to access crucial user information. This makes it challenging for the official platform to have a highly efficient advertising platform, which presents a significant opportunity for developers in the ecosystem: leveraging Telegram's traffic-rich environment and combining it with the transparent data characteristic of blockchain to build new types of social traffic tools within the TON ecosystem that could serve as innovative advertising support systems.

. Although categorized as a game in the tApp Center, its functionality is too basic, making it more suitable as an advertising or traffic diversion tool with some gaming elements.

 has garnered over 21 million users and 3–5 million DAUs. It allows users to earn 

 points simply by pressing buttons in the app. Users can also earn more points by inviting others through tasks, or by diverting them to other apps. Additionally, 95% of 

 users come from referrals, demonstrating the power of social networks.

 can generate substantial advertising revenue through its traffic diversion function, which, while simple and direct, doesn't hinder its impressive traffic data. Therefore, I have high expectations for more sophisticated and effective traffic tools to emerge within the TON ecosystem, combining social gaming elements to enhance Telegram's entire traffic and advertising system.

It's undeniable that, despite being backed by Telegram's 900 million active users, TON’s ecosystem is still in its early stages in terms of on-chain interactions and applications. This is partly due to the difficulty of the blockchain language and the inadequacy of the infrastructure, as compared to other EVM-compatible chains. Additionally, its ecosystem's formal development time has been relatively short.

If developers can recognize the future development potential of the TON ecosystem, seizing key positions during its early stages could lead to exponential gains once the ecosystem fully matures.

I believe that the key areas worthy of early positioning in the TON ecosystem include the following.

Currently, various DeFi applications and gameplay have matured significantly. It's rare to see new narratives emerge. However, almost every chain will have at least one or two leading projects, such as DEXs and lending platforms. These projects face significant competition, making it challenging to establish a dominant position, due partly to the liquidity barriers formed as assets and user numbers increase.

From the perspective of public chain ecosystem development, these DeFi infrastructures can retain users' assets through high returns. Users first need to have assets on your public chain before they’re willing to participate in interactions with other applications on the chain. After all, cross-chain activities are time-consuming and costly. Therefore, DeFi serves as the foundation for the development of almost all generic public chains.

TON is no exception. Although it boasts traffic advantages, total value locked (

) is directly related to commercialization and is an important channel for traffic monetization. Therefore, whether out of necessity for the TON ecosystem's development or the attention of the TON Foundation, DeFi remains one of the most critical tracks.

Due to the high barrier of TON's contract language, projects compatible with EVM can’t migrate quickly. Therefore, there haven’t yet been any significantly robust DeFi applications on TON, and the competitive landscape has yet to take shape.

Another core ecosystem position is infrastructure. Within the TON ecosystem, the blockchain's infrastructure itself is relatively complex, so lightweight tools are recommended.

In the short term, Telegram's core functionalities, such as Groups and Channels, offer significant market opportunities for practical tools. These include group management tools, data analysis tools for groups and channels, and information aggregation tools. Tool projects have low entry barriers, but they also have strong market demand and user stickiness. Once a significant number of users are acquired, they can form a moat.

While these tools have grown organically within Telegram in the past, integrating them into TON can provide advantages, such as incentive and governance mechanisms based on data and user behavior, outperforming regular Web 2.0 tools. Additionally, they can gain better official support and quickly acquire customers, establishing their own moat.

In the long term, as Telegram evolves into an entry point connecting Web 2.0 and web3, exploring more diversified applications, such as finance and e-commerce, within its social functions will attract traditional entities and non-developers, with Mini Apps serving as essential carriers. These traditional entities boast significant market size, creating unprecedented market opportunities for services that cater to Mini Apps, such as SaaS tools and data analysis tools that offer both digital and on-chain services.

TON stands out in the current landscape of blockchain competition, thanks to Telegram's 900 million monthly active users, with three major advantages:

For developers aiming to enter the TON ecosystem, I recommend selecting from two perspectives: leveraging TON's ecosystem advantages, such as gaming and social traffic tools, and seizing early advantages in the ecosystem, such as DeFi and Telegram infrastructure tools.

TON: Next-Generation Web3 Traffic Gateway — Ecosystem Layout and Track Opportunities

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards