Boosting crypto payments across Telegram's 1 billion users, with TON Foundation VP
Speakers
Summary
- The TON Foundation's core strategy is to leverage Telegram's ~1 billion monthly active users as a ready-made distribution channel for crypto payments, focusing on ease of integration for merchants and a simplified user experience.
- Key growth areas identified are (1) crypto commerce for goods/services, (2) remittances (citing Tether adding 30-40M users per quarter partly for this), and (3) B2B payments within Telegram-based business communications.
- The thesis is that blockchain payments will not replace the majority of fiat transactions but will augment them, finding product-market fit in specific inefficient B2B flows and corridors where traditional rails are slow/costly (estimated to replace 5-20% of B2B transactions).
- Challenges include breaking into the established stablecoin money movement space and navigating varying regulatory landscapes, as seen with the UK's developing framework and anecdotal crypto use in regions like Vietnam despite legal ambiguities.
- The Foundation is pursuing institutional adoption via partnerships with companies like Shift4 (for merchant settlement) and Bloxcross (for US-Latin America corridors), and is a founding member of a blockchain payments consortium aimed at standardizing on-chain transactions to derisk them for financial institutions.
- A near-term product roadmap includes improving consumer UX with signless/gasless transactions and launching new "viral mechanics" by Q2/Q3 2025 to drive utility and engagement for assets on TON.
- The speaker believes the technical capability in the crypto space is high, allowing for rapid execution cycles compared to traditional finance, but time-to-market for enterprise stablecoin issuance has dropped dramatically.
- An important nuance is the expectation that blockchain payment adoption will be corridor-specific, similar to traditional payments, rather than uniform globally.
Trade Ideas
The speaker states TON has a "unique position" with Telegram's billion users and is launching an SDK (TON Pay) to simplify merchant crypto payments, aiming for "millions of users and... billions of volume" in crypto commerce. By reducing integration friction and improving UX (targeting "Apple Pay level UX"), TON is positioned to capture a significant share of crypto payment activity flowing through the massive, pre-existing Telegram network. LONG due to a clear, large-scale distribution advantage and a focused product strategy to unlock payment utility for a massive existing user base. Failure to attract meaningful merchant adoption or to simplify the user journey sufficiently for mainstream Telegram users.
The speaker cites Tether adding 30-40 million users per quarter, attributing much of it to store of value and remittance use, and identifies remittances as a "second area of huge... growth potential" for TON. USDT is the primary stablecoin for cross-border value transfer in emerging markets. TON's strategy to grow in remittances directly benefits USDT as the dominant asset in that use case. LONG as TON's expansion into payments and remittances is likely to drive increased demand and utility for the most widely used stablecoin in those corridors. Regulatory crackdown on USDT or the rise of a competing stablecoin better integrated with TON/Telegram.
The speaker states blockchain-based stablecoin/money movement solutions will only replace 5-20% of B2B transactions, citing efficient existing rails (e.g., intra-EU euro payments) that "don't need a replacement." The vast majority of traditional payment flows, especially in efficient, regulated corridors, are not competitively threatened by blockchain alternatives in the near to medium term. AVOID investing in the narrative of blockchain payments fully disrupting traditional finance rails broadly; the disruption is targeted and niche. A breakthrough in regulatory unification or cost efficiency that makes blockchain rails universally superior faster than anticipated.
The speaker confirms a partnership with Shift4 for "merchant settlement on... the TON infrastructure" and mentions upcoming "interesting things" regarding direct acceptance at terminals. Shift4's integration with TON provides a bridge for traditional merchant payment flows to settle via crypto rails, potentially opening a new, scalable channel for crypto payment processing if successful. WATCH because this partnership represents a concrete step towards institutional merchant adoption of crypto payments, but its scale and impact are still developing. Slow rollout or limited merchant uptake of the TON settlement option through Shift4's platform.
