The popularity of The Open Network (TON) blockchain project, integrated with the popular Telegram messenger, remains at a significantly lower level compared to 2024. Activity on the network itself, as well as the quotes of the native TON cryptocurrency, has been falling for more than six months.
However, Steve Yun, the former president and current member of the board of directors of the TON Foundation, the organization behind the development of the project, is confident in the sustainability of TON, despite the current difficulties. He told The Block about this during an interview at the BUILD 2025 conference in Hong Kong.
"The main drop occurred when Pavel [Durov] was arrested in France… The market perceived this as a factor that could affect the TON. But at the same time, the network did not reset to zero. This proves that TON itself is recognized as an independent, self—sufficient, developing ecosystem - at least to some extent," Yun said.
In September 2023, after the integration of the TON Wallet crypto wallet into the Telegram messenger, Toncoin entered the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization.
In August 2024, against the background of Durov's arrest in Paris, the price of TON collapsed by tens of percent within a few days, and the asset left the top ten coins by capitalization.
At the end of 2024, the price was briefly able to return to above $7, but since the beginning of December, the quotes have been falling almost steadily, reaching the lowest level since the beginning of 2024 — $2.35 on March 11.
In mid-March, when Pavel Durov left France and headed to Dubai by court order, the TON price briefly recovered to levels slightly above $4, but along with the general correction of the crypto market, it dropped to levels around $3.
Toncoin quotes reached their historic peak in June 2024 at around $8.3. Since that time, the asset has lost more than 72% of its value to $3.13.
According to Coinmarketcap on April 8th. TON ranks 12th in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization with an indicator of $7.75 billion.
According to the Token Terminal, monthly active TON user addresses decreased from peaks in September 2024 by 83%, to 2.3 million, by April 8.
Yun noted that the hype around mini-games in Telegram, which occurred during his leadership of the foundation, turned out to have a "very limited" effect.
The capitalization of the Notcoin token alone was at $2.5 billion at its peak in March 2024, which is four times the capitalization of all such projects as of April 8, 2025, according to Coinmarketcap.
"Despite this, there are a lot of new experiments going on at TON, and we haven't lost the social momentum. TON is working on creating two new programming languages, Tolk and Tact, to make the web more attractive to developers," Yun said.
The expert noted an important role in the development of the TON built-in messenger Wallet Wallet, which announced integration for users from the United States in the second quarter of 2025. As well as the fact that TON will focus on the development of payment solutions and the expansion of the ecosystem of mini-applications.
Separately, Yun added about the prospects of monetization of advertising in Telegram by transferring part of the messenger's revenue directly to users for viewing targeted ads:
"Telegram doesn't want to be intrusive, they want to respect people's privacy. But we have to find the right balance. In return, you receive income in Toncoin... if I can earn a passive income of $500 just by watching ads that are relevant to me. While you don't get anything on Google and YouTube, this can be a powerful approach," Yun said.
Despite the deep drop in prices for existing Notcoin-type mini-application tokens, Yun believes that it is p2p payments and the uniqueness of the Telegram mini-application concept that are the strengths of the TON blockchain.
"As for expansion in the United States, we certainly need a listing on major exchanges and at least one significant stablecoin hosted on the TON network," Yun said.
Meanwhile, Tether's USDT, which is the largest stablecoin on the market, has already been launched online since April 2024.
Yun left the post of president of the TON Foundation at the beginning of the year, and Manuel Stockz, the founder of Kingsway Capital, was appointed instead, according to The Block, in order to more actively promote TON in the United States.
