Introduction
In the past week, when everyone was still staring at whether BTC could hold the $80,000 line, the most ferocious increase in the crypto market quietly changed its protagonist.
Toncoin (TON) was still sitting quietly at $1.65 on May 5. Seven days later, it once reached $2.71, with a maximum increase of nearly 80%. During the same period, the single-day trading volume soared from less than US$100 million to US$1.7 billion, a 17-fold increase. This action directly pulled TON from the 30th place in the market capitalization ranking back to the 20th place, and returned to the mainstream asset table.
The author has been in the industry for so many years, and has a conditioned and reflexive alertness to the market trend of “deep V sudden pull” – most of the time it is the inducement of short-term funds before shipment. But TON’s layout is different this time. It is not alone. Several tokens in the entire Telegram ecosystem are moving; at the same time, the stablecoin stock on the chain, the monthly activity of the official miniApp, and a series of public statements by Durov himself on social media all gave continuous positive signals at the end of March and early April.
In other words, the market is not speculating on TON, the market is re-pricing the Telegram ecosystem**.
In this article, the author wants to make three things thoroughly clear:
- What happened to TON in the past 30 days? What events correspond to each acceleration in price?
- What is the underlying value logic of the combination of Telegram + TON? Why did it fall for a year and a half after reaching $8.25 ATH in 2024, and is now being targeted again by funds?
- Should ordinary people get in the car now, how should they pursue it, and what are the risks?
Section 5 of the main text plus FAQ, risk warning and conclusion is about 5500 words. It is recommended to save it and read it slowly.
1. Let’s put the data in order first – TON’s true trend in the last 30 days
Many readers’ impressions of TON are still limited to the black swan event when Durov was arrested in Paris in August 2024 and the currency price dropped from US$8 to US$4, and they have never looked at it seriously since then. The author first lists the daily closing prices of the last 30 days, so you can feel the slope:
- April 11, 2026: $1.308
- April 15, 2026: $1.394
- April 20, 2026: $1.288 (lowest in nearly one month)
- April 25, 2026: $1.339
- April 30, 2026: $1.322
- May 1, 2026: $1.334
- May 3, 2026: $1.344
- May 4, 2026: $1.352
- May 5, 2026: $1.646 (first acceleration point, +22%)
- May 6, 2026: $1.957 (+19%)
- May 7, 2026: $2.466 (+26%)
- May 8, 2026: $2.715 (+10%, nearly one-year high)
- May 9, 2026: $2.525 (-7%, first retracement)
- May 10, 2026: $2.41 (-5%, current price)
From $1.35 on May 4 to $2.71 on May 8, it doubled – four days. And it was a continuous rise without any decent retracement. This kind of “step-up” is a typical form of institutions and market makers concentrating on building positions, and it cannot be done by retail investors.
What’s more critical is trading volume. TON’s average daily trading volume throughout April 2026 has been hovering between 100 million and 200 million U.S. dollars. On April 24, it was even only 56 million U.S. dollars. The market is basically in a state of no one cares. On May 5, the trading volume suddenly reached 370 million US dollars, 1.02 billion on May 6, 1.35 billion on May 7, and 1.76 billion on May 8. In just 4 days, trading volume increased more than 30 times.
The author drew this set of data into a graph and showed it to a friend, and his first reaction was: “This is not retail FOMO, this is big players accumulating funds.” The price-volume relationship when retail investors enter the market intensively is that the price jumps first, and the trading volume lags behind to catch up; the form of institutional fund-raising is that the trading volume increases first, and the price climbs at a constant speed. TON is obviously the latter this time.
The market value during the same period has also risen with the tide. From US$3.3 billion at the end of April, it rushed all the way to US$7.3 billion on May 8, doubling in five days. Now it has fallen back to US$6.4 billion, which is still a phased high in a year.
If you want to keep an eye on TON’s real-time price and K-line, it is recommended to use the spot area of OUYI OKX or Binance. Both support TON/USDT spot and perpetual contracts, so liquidity is no problem. For novice registration tutorials, you can first read This novice guide.
2. Four real catalysts for this market trend
An asset that has been dormant for a year and a half will not suddenly skyrocket. There must be fundamental support behind it. The author has sorted out the important information about TON in the market since late April and listed it according to the impact weight.
Catalyst 1: Daily active users of Telegram’s built-in mini program exceeded 150 million
The most valuable card of TON has never been the blockchain itself, but its native integration with Telegram. According to Telegram’s internal data for the first quarter of 2026 (cited by multiple media), Telegram’s mini-app daily activity has steadily increased from 50 million when Notcoin broke out in August 2024 to 150 million.
what does that mean? This means that Telegram, an instant messaging application with 1 billion monthly active users, has turned itself into the world’s largest Web3 distribution channel. TON is the only native payment token in the mini-app. All transactions involving playing games, completing tasks, buying memberships, and sending virtual gifts in Telegram will eventually be settled in TON.
The author checked the stablecoin activities on the TON chain: the number of daily active transfers of USDT on TON (natively issued by Tether) increased from 800,000 at the end of 2025 to 2.2 million in April 2026. This data means that TON is no longer a mere speculative asset, it has begun to assume real daily payment functions.
Catalyst 2: Durov’s own public change of attitude
The arrest of Pavel Durov at the French airport in August 2024 was a devastating blow to both Telegram and TON – the currency price fell from US$8.25 to around US$3. Durov was then restricted from leaving France for 14 months. During this period, Telegram has been keeping a low profile externally, and the development of the TON ecosystem has slowed down significantly.
At the end of March 2026, Durov finally gained full freedom from France and flew back to Dubai as soon as possible. Afterwards, he posted on the Telegram channel one after another:
- March 28: Announced that Telegram will make “crypto-native user experience” its primary product direction in 2026
- April 10: Announced that Telegram Wallet will be open to global users in the second quarter (previously it was only open to some countries)
- April 25: It is hinted that Telegram’s built-in trading function will support non-TON assets (meaning that Telegram may directly become a super APP with its own exchange)
Each of these three pieces of information is enough to drive prices. One of the core reasons why the market is willing to reprice TON is that these three things happened at the same time: the return of the founder + a clear strategy + a clear product roadmap.
Catalyst 3: Regulatory settlement with mainstream exchanges
After the Durov incident in 2024, several major U.S. exchanges (Coinbase, Kraken) had concerns about TON’s compliance, and Coinbase even removed TON spot stocks from its shelves. Since 2026, as the U.S. SEC’s classification policy for digital commodities has become clear (for related discussions, see This in-depth analysis of the SEC/CFTC joint ruling), TON has been listed on many mainstream exchanges and its liquidity has gradually recovered.
In late April, there were rumors that Coinbase was evaluating re-listing TON spot; in early May, Binance announced the launch of TON’s perpetual contract (with a multiple of up to 20x). These are real liquidity benefits – meaning that institutional funds finally have a compliant channel to enter the market.
Catalyst 4: A sharp return of funds in the Asian market
Judging from the on-chain data, the main buying force of TON’s rise is obviously during the Asian session. From May 5th to May 8th, the peak daily trading volume occurred between 9 am and 3 pm Beijing time, while the European and American time periods were relatively deserted.
This is in line with TON’s basic plan – Telegram’s penetration rate in Southeast Asia (especially Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia), CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan), and the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia) is much higher than that in the United States. Users in these areas are accustomed to paying for content, online games, and cross-border remittances on Telegram. TON’s real economic activities have always been concentrated in the non-US financial system.
3. How much is the combination of Telegram + TON worth?
The author knows that many readers will ask after reading this: No matter how good the fundamental story is, how much is TON worth? The author is not a fortune teller, but I can give you a rough range from several benchmarkable dimensions.
Dimension 1: User scale comparison
- Telegram monthly active users: 1 billion+
- Active addresses on the TON chain (monthly): approximately 12 million
- Penetration rate: 1.2%
Compare this:
- The monthly active addresses of the Ethereum ecosystem (including Metamask, Rabby, and hardware wallets): about 30 million, backed by about 500 million global crypto users, with a penetration rate of 6%
- Average monthly active addresses of Solana: about 10 million, targeting pan-Web3 users
If TON can increase its penetration rate from 1.2% to 5% in the next three years (that is, 1 out of every 20 Telegram users is using TON), the number of active addresses will be in the order of 50 million – close to the current Ethereum + Solana combined. This is not an exaggeration, because Telegram’s user acquisition cost is almost zero, and the mini-app is already doing user education.
Dimension 2: Stablecoin carrying capacity
Stablecoins are the best proxy indicator of the true value of a public chain.
- USDT balance on the TON chain: approximately US$1.2 billion as of early May 2026, a year-on-year increase of 200%
- USDT balance on TRON chain: about 65 billion US dollars
- USDT balance on the Ethereum chain: approximately $58 billion
- USDT balance on Solana chain: approximately $4.5 billion
TON’s current stablecoin TVL is still very small, but it is growing very fast. Comparing Solana’s stablecoin growth over the same period (from US$1 billion in 2024 to US$4.5 billion in 2026, 4.5 times in two years), if TON can reach the US$10 billion level in the next two years, it will be a very reasonable path.
Dimension 3: The imagination space of market cap
TON’s current market value is US$6.4 billion, benchmarked against:
- Solana: $53.7 billion (ranked 7th)
- TRON: $33.1 billion (ranked 8th)
If Telegram can really turn TON into the default payment layer for 1 billion users, it would not be radical for TON to catch up to TRON’s level (market value of 33 billion) – which means that the currency price will rise another five times to the $12-13 range. Catching up to Solana’s magnitude (53 billion) means $20+.
Of course, these are extremely optimistic scenarios. A more realistic short- to medium-term expectation is: If Telegram fulfills its promise of Wallet globalization + mini-app transaction to open up these two products in Q2, it is a relatively verifiable goal for TON to stabilize at US$5-6 by the end of 2026.
If you want to learn more about cryptocurrency valuation methodology, you can first read this article Complete Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency, which explains the basic concepts of market value, circulation, and FDV.
Dimension 4: See the chip structure from on-chain data
Finally, the author will add another aspect that is easily overlooked by everyone – chip structure. The sustainability of TON’s rise in this round depends largely on whether high-end chips have been fully changed hands.
According to the public data of browsers on the TON chain, in the past 30 days:
- The proportion of currency held by the top 100 addresses: dropped from 63.2% to 58.7% (meaning that large accounts are distributing)
- Number of currency holding addresses: increased from 870,000 to 1.12 million (retailers are taking orders)
- Number of addresses with median holdings (10,000-100,000 TON range): increased from 41,000 to 63,000 (middle-class buyers increased by 53%)
This set of data shows that in the past 30 days, TON has been transferring from the hands of large households to the hands of retail and middle class people. This is a very typical “distribution + change of hands” structure – only when new buyers are willing to take over at a higher price can the chips truly complete the preparation before the main rise.
Compared with the time when it rushed to ATH in June 2024, the proportion of the top 100 addresses plummeted from 72% to 55%, and then directly entered a downward channel for a year and a half. The current turnover rate (63.2% → 58.7%) is quite moderate, indicating that large investors are not panicking about distribution, they are just cashing in profits in stages.
This signal has more reference value than the price itself – If the proportion of large investors returns to more than 60% around June, it is a sign that the main force is re-accumulating funds, and you can be more active; if it falls below 55% all the way, then you must be wary of the main force’s complete withdrawal.
4. In this round of TON’s rise, there are several risks that cannot be ignored
While Lao Pao’er is bullish, he must also see clearly where the risks lie. The author gives the 4 most critical risk points.
Risk 1: Political risk of Durov’s second arrest
Although the story of Durov’s arrest in France in 2024 has been over, Telegram’s regulatory pressure in the EU has not been completely lifted. If the EU introduces a new regulatory framework for “encrypted instant messaging” in the second half of 2026, the probability that Durov or Telegram will be subject to judicial intervention again is not zero.
Historical experience tells us that TON is highly sensitive to Durov’s personal fate – after his arrest in August 2024, TON fell 40% in a single week.
Risk 2: ATH ceiling pressure
TON’s all-time high was $8.25 on June 15, 2024. The current price is $2.41, which is 3.4 times the distance from ATH. It still sounds very far away, but there are a lot of “hold-up orders” piled up in this 3 times space-that is, people who bought in the range of $4-8 from May to June 2024, and they haven’t gotten out of it yet.
Technically, if TON breaks through $5, it will encounter the first wave of obvious pressure, and if it breaks through $6, it will be the second wave of pressure zone. Unless there is a big event catalyzing it, the probability of a rapid impact on ATH is not high. It is more likely that the hold-up will be slowly digested in Q3 and Q4 of 2026 before the next wave is launched.
Risk 3: Short-term profit taking has been loosened
On May 9, TON retraced 7%, and fell another 5% on May 10, closing negative for two consecutive days – this is short-term bulls taking profits. After market makers pull the currency price from 1.3 to 2.7, they must distribute some chips to retail investors chasing the price, otherwise the profits will not be realized.
Judging from the K-line shape, TON is likely to have a wide range of fluctuations in the range of **2.0-2.5 US dollars in the next two weeks, rather than continuing to rise. Those who are eager to chase higher are likely to catch the knife above 2.6.
Risk 4: Systemic risk for the overall crypto market
Don’t forget that TON is not an isolated asset. BTC currently stands at $80,000, and the market as a whole is fluctuating at a high level. If BTC experiences an unexpected retracement (for example, falling below 75,000), high-Beta assets such as TON are likely to fall even more fiercely.
The author’s rule of thumb: When altcoin skyrockets, be wary of BTC peaking. When altcoin plummets, it is one of the signals that BTC bottoms out. Now that old coins like TON, which are far away from the mainstream track, can rise so fiercely, it shows that the market’s risk appetite is full, which is often a characteristic of the end of the cycle.
5. How should ordinary people operate?
The clichéd principle is put first: Don’t chase highs, don’t go all in, and position control always takes precedence over forecast accuracy.
Based on this, the author gives three typical strategies, corresponding to readers with different risk preferences.
Strategy A: Aggressive (up-chasing faction)
Suitable for people: Strong risk tolerance and rich experience in short-term trading.
- Wait for TON to retrace to the range of US$2.0-2.2 to open positions in batches, and the position shall not exceed 10% of the total position.
- Stop loss set at $1.85 (below recent support)
- The target is US$2.8 and US$3.2 to take profit in stages.
- After taking profit, keep 30% of the bottom position and continue to observe
Strategy B: Steady type (swing style)
Suitable for people who are optimistic about the mid-term but don’t want to watch the market.
- Wait until TON returns to the $1.7-$1.9 range (back near the starting level) before considering entering the market.
- The position is controlled at 5-8% of the total position
- The holding period is 3-6 months, and the target level will be evaluated after seeing $4.
- There is no strict stop loss, but if TON falls below $1.5, you must leave the market decisively.
Strategy C: Conservative (fixed investment)
Suitable for people: Believe in the long-term story of Telegram+TON, but don’t want to guess short-term fluctuations.
- Set a fixed monthly amount (for example, 1%-2% of monthly income), and buy once on the 1st and 15th of each month
- Insist on not watching the market for more than 12 months
- Regardless of whether it goes up or down, buy as planned
- If fundamentals deteriorate after one year, consider exiting
The author personally prefers a combination of strategy B and strategy C. The short-term gaming value of TON is not great (it has already increased by 80%), but the medium-term story is very good.
If you don’t have a suitable exchange account yet, you can complete basic registration first:
- OKX registration complete tutorial (Supports TON spot + perpetual + leverage)
- Binance registration tutorial (Supports TON spot + perpetual)
- A must-read for beginners: A guide to encryption security and anti-fraud
6. TON vs other Layer1: horizontal comparison with a table
The author knows that many readers will ask after reading the fundamentals: TON has so many advantages, why has it not caught up with SOL and TRON? A sideways comparison will make it clear.
Key indicator comparison (May 2026 data):
| Public chain | Market value | Active address(month) | USDT on the chain | Daily activity applications | Distribution channel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | 280.4 billion | 15 million | 58 billion | 3000+ | Wallet/DApp |
| wave field | 33.1 billion | 35 million | 65 billion | Mainly stablecoins | Binance/Exchange |
| Solana | 53.7 billion | 10 million | 4.5 billion | 500+ | Phantom/Exchange |
| TON | 6.4 billion | 12 million | 1.2 billion | mini-app 500+ | Telegram native |
Do you see the gap? TON’s active addresses have caught up with ETH and SOL, but its market value is less than one-eighth of SOL and less than one-fifth of TRON. There are two main reasons:
First, the size of stablecoins is still small. TRON relies on USDT to take away the cross-border remittance business in Southeast Asia and Africa, with annual revenue exceeding US$2 billion. If TON wants to reach the value level of TRON, it must increase the stablecoin TVL to tens of billions. Whether this can be done depends on the official push of Telegram.
Second, the DApp ecosystem is still thin. The reason why Solana has a high valuation is because of its billion-dollar applications such as Jupiter, Phantom, Jito, and Pyth. TON’s current largest mini-app, Notcoin, is valued at less than US$500 million, and the ecosystem is not deep enough.
But looking at it conversely, this is also TON’s biggest opportunity – Once Telegram makes up for these two shortcomings, TON’s value will have a lot of room for revaluation. The same story as Solana rising from $10 to $260 in 2021 may repeat itself with TON in 2026-2027.
Of course, the premise is that the story can be fulfilled. The author’s judgment: look at two hard indicators in the next six months – whether the stablecoin balance on TON can exceed US$3 billion, and whether there is a unicorn with a valuation of more than US$1 billion in the mini-app.
7. FAQ frequently asked questions
**Q1: What is the relationship between TON and Telegram? Is Telegram Open Network Telegram’s own project? **
Strictly speaking, the current TON (The Open Network) is no longer the official Telegram project in 2018. The original TON was officially abandoned by Telegram due to SEC litigation in 2020, and the community took over and renamed it The Open Network to continue. Now Telegram officially has a cooperative relationship with the TON Foundation, not an ownership relationship. But starting in 2023, Telegram will officially integrate TON (built-in wallet, mini-app payment, and advertising splitting) to a high degree and in depth, which is actually equivalent to Telegram’s native blockchain.
**Q2: What are the technical differences between TON, ETH and SOL? **
TON is a multi-chain sharding architecture (master chain + workchains + shardchains), and the theoretical TPS upper limit is millions. The actual application layer TPS is about 100,000, which is much higher than the 15-30 TPS of the ETH main network, and slightly higher than the 65,000 TPS theoretical value of SOL. However, TON’s development ecosystem is relatively closed, using the FunC/Tact language, which is not compatible with Solidity/Rust, and the development threshold is relatively high.
**Q3: Where is the price of TON now? Is it too late to catch up? **
The current price is $2.41, which is still 3.4 times away from the ATH of $8.25, but it has risen 87% from the 30-day low of $1.29. It is very risky to rush in in the short-term. In the mid-term, it is more appropriate to at least wait for the retracement to below $2.0 before opening positions in batches.
**Q4: How to buy TON cheaply and safely? **
The mainstream approach is to directly exchange USDT for TON on compliant exchanges (OKX, Binance, Coinbase), with a handling fee of about 0.1%. It is not recommended to buy directly from the built-in Telegram wallet, as the prices quoted there are usually at a premium. If you want to hold it for a long time, you can transfer TON to a cold wallet (both supported by TonKeeper/Ledger).
**Q5: What wallet can TON be deposited into? **
Mainstream wallets include TonKeeper (TON native wallet), TonSpace (Telegram official wallet), Ledger hardware wallet, and SafePal. Different wallets support different mini-apps and functions. TonKeeper is enough for daily use. Cold wallets are recommended for large amounts of storage.
**Q6: In addition to the TON main currency, what else is worth paying attention to in the Telegram ecosystem? **
There are several highly relevant targets: Notcoin (NOT), Hamster Kombat (HMSTR), Catizen (CATI), and DOGS. These are tokens issued by Telegram mini-app games and are deeply bound to the TON ecosystem. However, the speculative nature of these projects is much higher than that of TON, and positions must be smaller and more cautious.
8. Risk warning
Crypto asset prices fluctuate greatly. Historically, TON’s largest single-day decline exceeded 30%, and weekly declines exceeded 50%. This article is only the author’s personal analysis and observation and does not constitute any investment advice.
Before making any decisions, readers must:
- Double-check all data and information yourself (see Resources at the end of the article)
- Decide on your position based on your risk tolerance and financial situation
- Never invest more money than you can afford
- Stay away from any projects that promise “guaranteed profits without losing money” or “capital guarantee and high returns” and so-called “inside information”
- Protect your private key, mnemonic phrase, and 2FA
The author emphasizes again: There are no gods in the encryption market, only people who survive. Controlling risks is more important than seizing opportunities.
9. Conclusion
TON’s 80% increase is not a meme-style carnival, nor is it a simple rotation to make up for the increase. Behind it is Telegram, a super APP with 1 billion monthly active users, which reopened the Web3 card. It is Durov’s strategic restart after returning to the front line. It is the result of the joint efforts of Asian funds and institutional market makers.
But the market will never give you the opportunity to be “cheap and rise fast”. TON has completed the first wave of pricing from 1.3 to 2.7. To go further, the fundamentals need to be continuously realized – Wallet globalization, mini-app transactions opened, Coinbase re-listed, stablecoin TVL exceeding US$3 billion.
If these events occur one after another in Q2 and Q3, it is reasonable to expect TON to see US$4 or even US$5. If it cannot be fulfilled, the current position will be the mid-term top.
The author still says the same thing: Follow the fundamentals, don’t follow the K-line. The K-line can only tell you what happened in the past, and the fundamentals can tell you what may happen in the future.
I wish you safe positions and clear thinking.
Reference data source:
- CoinGecko TON real-time data
- TON official statistics panel
- Stablecoin distribution on Tether chain
- Telegram official product update
- CoinDesk crypto news
Extended reading (must read for newbies):
- Complete tutorial on registration and use of OKX exchange
- Binance Exchange Registration Tutorial
- SEC/CFTC Digital Commodity Ruling Analysis
- Complete Getting Started Guide for Crypto Beginners
*This article was published on May 10, 2026, and the data is as of the morning of that day. The crypto market is constantly changing, so readers are asked to verify the latest prices and information themselves. *