Author: Turbo Guo
Reviewers: Mandy, Joshua
TLDR：
Telegram, which has the potential to become a Crypto traffic portal, has received a lot of attention. This article will summarize the Crypto-related applications in Telegram, analyze its advantages and areas for improvement. In addition, this article will analyze why Discord has the opportunity to become a traffic portal and why it has not succeeded, as well as the possibility of browsers (PWA) as traffic portals. The main contents are:
Telegram has a wealth of Crypto-related applications, and the user experience is good, making it a good carrier for Crypto applications. The only drawback is that the application center and various bots are mixed with chat channels, which may cause inconvenience to users.
Telegram is not limited to the TON ecosystem. It allows various chains and protocols to be integrated more conveniently. The EVM ecosystem’s trading bot and multi-chain wallet tracking application are examples.
Discord has the opportunity to assume the current role of TG, and its Bot system has a wide range of capabilities. However, DC has not fully integrated into Crypto for three reasons: the antipathy of the main user gamers, too many Crypto frauds affecting user safety, and unclear supervision.
Browser applications are very compatible with the existing Crypto ecosystem, but the traffic entrance on mobile devices may no longer be Metamask, but a specific application. Friend Tech is a good example.
Who will become the traffic entrance depends largely on two factors: user experience and supervision. In terms of user experience, applications with built-in Crypto functions (built-in wallets) such as TG and FT are very attractive. In terms of supervision, traditional social giants are under great pressure, which gives many opportunities to applications with weaker supervision or native applications.
1. Telegram as a traffic portal
Telegram already hosts many Crypto applications. Let’s first discuss the existence and access methods of the applications.
Image source: Kernel Ventures
There are two kinds of "apps" in Telegram, one is the Telegram bot that interacts through the chat box, and the other is the Telegram Web App (TWA) that calls a small web window. In the picture below, the Unibot on the left is a typical bot, while the football game on the right and many blockchain games in Telegram are TWA. In terms of implementation, TWA uses JavaScript, HTML and CSS to implement various functions in Telegram through a small web browser.
There are three ways to access apps in Telegram: by link, by searching for the app name, and by entering from the Telegram apps center. The link and search methods are the same as joining a channel, and the way to enter the apps center is the same, by linking or searching @tapps_bot.
Image credit: Unibot and Fanton Fasntasy Football interface
Telegram not only has TON chain ecological projects, but also applications based on other public chains, which are introduced separately here.
1.1 TON Ecological Application
First of all, there are wallets. Telegram has had many wallets in the past, such as Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, Tonhub, etc. But now that the official custodial wallet Wallet and the built-in non-custodial wallet Ton Space have come out, previous wallets will face greater challenges.
Wallet is a custodial wallet that supports payments in USDT, TON, and BTC. In Wallet, there is a TON Space non-custodial wallet that is being tested. In the future, users will be able to access DeFi applications such as DEX, staking and lending protocols in TON Space, and can also directly access third-party dapps on the TON blockchain. In addition, TON Space directly uses email to restore the wallet, which is very friendly and comfortable in actual experience, although there may be security risks.
In terms of DeFi, the TON ecosystem is still in its early stages. DEXs include Megaton Finance, STON.fi, DeDust.io, and STON, which is trying to do cross-chain, etc. The lending agreement is Evaa, and the derivatives are Storm Trade. In addition, the TON ecosystem already has launchpad-Tonstarter and domain name TON DNS.
TON's NFT ecosystem is also in its infancy. NFT markets include Fragment and Getgems. Users can buy Telegram usernames and Anonymous Numbers on Fragment, while on Getgems, users can buy and sell not only usernames and anonymous mobile phone numbers, but also other NFT projects on the TON chain. However, the current transaction volume of Fragment is still greater than that of Getgems. In terms of total transaction volume, as of September 25, TON's NFT market has grown well, and the content of the projects is not much different from the Ethereum ecosystem, such as TON Diamonds, TON Punks and other projects.
Image source: nftscan, 2023/09/25
Another major category is games that integrate TON, such as Fanton Fantasy Football, a P2E placement football card game where you can earn coins if you win, and it can seamlessly connect to the TON ecosystem; Punkcity, a turn-based game where you can get tokens if you win; and Tongochi Game, which is also a P2E game and an MMORPG that is currently in the demo stage.
In addition, there are many auxiliary tools, such as TON Wallet Tracker and TON Notify Bot, which track the flow of tokens and NFTs of a certain address in the TON ecosystem; NFT TONificator, which tracks the pending and selling orders of a certain NFT series; community onboarding bounty tool community; Ton Gifts Bot, which can send gifts to friends. There is also a comprehensive auxiliary robot Friends All-in-One BOT, many of its functions have not yet been launched. The team hopes to deliver translation, new NFT mint reminders, and NFT floor price reminders first. These three functions will also be provided by three independent bots.
What is more interesting is mobile, which is a life service tool for purchasing esim cards, allowing people to use the Internet more conveniently when traveling internationally. More importantly, it can be paid not only by credit card, but also by TON wallet.
1.2 Application of Ethereum Ecosystem
Image credit: DUNE @tk-research
For this category, here we will introduce the trading bot that was very popular before. If we abstract away the details behind it, we can see that the trading bot is essentially an agent commission business. Judging from the weekly trading volume, TG bot is now in a stage of declining popularity after experiencing a burst of popularity.
Unibot is essentially a scientist agent. It requires users to deposit coins into the official wallet, and then trigger limit buy and sell orders through the Telegram conversation window, automatically follow orders, and automatically purchase coins at the first time. In principle, Unibot first opens an EOA for the user, and then the user deposits money into it. When the user initiates a transaction (such as selling coins on uniswap), in theory the user's EOA can directly interact with uniswap, but now it first goes through the unibot router contract through EOA, and the unibot contract will call the uniswap contract to sell. Going through the official Unibot contract more often can do a lot of things, such as collecting handling fees. Every time unibot changes its own contract, it may be updating the function. The contract is not currently open source.
Unibot Transaction Flow Image source: Kernel Ventures
Other trading bots similar to Unibot include Banana Gun, Maestro, and DexCheck. Banana Gun requires users to enter private keys or generate new addresses through the official bot. Its advantages include canceling transactions when it detects the risk of being squeezed, optimizing block bribes, etc. Maestro, also a trading bot, provides whale tracking, token trading, etc. DexCheck also does wallet tracking, new token contract sniping, and token trading.
In terms of transaction volume, Unibot has the highest volume, followed by Banana Gun. In terms of DAU, Maestro has the highest volume, but is only slightly higher than Banana Gun and Unibot.
Image source: DUNE @whale_hunter , 2023/09/25 1:10
In addition, there are service projects that issue tokens based on the Ethereum ecosystem. For example, LootBot can help users automatically get airdrops, and those who hold $LOOT tokens can participate in the distribution of profits. There is also IMGNAI, which has made a bot that allows users to send messages in the channel to generate pictures. The project party promises that those who hold tokens will have rights and interests in the future, and the coins are on Ethereum. ChainGPT itself has a lot of business. The tele bot it developed can be used as a general LLM to generate smart contract codes and do contract verification. $CGPT is mainly used to purchase services within ChainGPT. The official also provides token services such as staking to obtain income, and the tokens are also on Ethereum. This is also using Ethereum to issue coins, and the tokens will be used to purchase services, so the coins have relatively more functions.
1.3 Application of multi-chain ecology
On Telegram, we can also see applications that support multiple chains, mainly data services or auxiliary tools. The more representative ones are the following four:
Cielo is a relatively complete wallet tracking bot that does a good job in multi-chain. It can track a single wallet's various operations on more than a dozen chains, including swaps, lending, NFT mint, etc. It can also track large transactions of a single token. It is worth mentioning that Cielo's user experience is good.
Pessimistic Spotter can detect whether a contract has been attacked and supports contracts on Ethereum and BSC, such as uniswap.
CoinCrackerBot can track the price of coins, push price reminders, etc. This product experience is better because it is obviously more convenient to get information push on the chat software.
Crypton research is used to track project progress. Users can subscribe to projects such as 1inch and aave, and then choose whether to receive all news or key news. After selecting, the bot will push messages to users.
1.4 Advantages and areas for improvement of Telegram as an entry point
Telegram's silky smooth user experience is a huge advantage. Every time I transfer money, open the app, and interact with the bot, it is very smooth, which is better than the experience of most web3 products, and even better than web2 products such as discord.
The only drawback is that the way to start Telegram Apps Center is a bit complicated. You can't find the center directly in the original interface of Telegram. You need to enter it through an external link or actively search, just like joining a new Telegram channel. Moreover, Apps Center and all apps will be mixed with the original channels, making it easy to lose track. If users are required to pin it themselves, it will also be placed together with important chats. In addition, many apps in Telegram will make a new bot for each function for users to use, which will be relatively confusing for users to manage. It may be necessary to create a separate interface for apps and let users easily find commonly used apps.
At present, TG has well met the needs of ordinary users for transfers, while the EVM-based TG bot has met the needs of retail investors for new coin sales, etc. How TON will build large-scale DeFi applications in the future is worth further exploration.
The trading bot provides us with a new idea, that is, Telegram can be used as the front end of various applications on various chains. Not only can DeFi protocols have a common front end, but people can also integrate various protocols on Telegram. If there is a project to help users manage, users don’t even need to know the existence of each chain. This is very promising on Telegram, so the threshold for using Crypto will be greatly reduced. Of course, there are also problems with using Ethereum directly in Telegram, such as how to easily trigger signatures in Telegram.
Currently, the government is vigorously promoting the development of the TON ecosystem, and bots such as Unibot that are based on non-TON ecosystems have also made a lot of progress. How it will perform in the future will have to be tested by time.
2. Opportunities for Discord as a traffic portal
Image source: A tweet from Discord CEO
Discord (hereinafter referred to as "DC") tried to integrate Metamask as early as 2021. If it is popularized, we can imagine people transferring money and making payments in DC. Even various dapps can develop their own channels or bots to allow users to swap, borrow, etc. in DC, turning DC into the front end of the entire Crypto.
In fact, Discord already has many Crypto use cases. Bankless DAO uses Discord as a governance tool and has developed governance bots and governance processes on it, such as verifying NFTs to obtain identities and opening up specific channel permissions based on the number of tokens held. Especially during the NFT summer period, DC became the most important community tool for NFT project owners. People used it to create roles, get whitelists, and open AMMs, and the amount of community accumulated on it was huge. DC officials also solicited NFT-related feedback from users, indicating that the team is seriously considering adjusting the product for the NFT community. Theoretically, DC bot can also achieve many functions. Currently, there are bots that can track wallets, track NFT purchases and sales, and manage whitelists.
Image source: Bankless DAO Discord
But why didn't Discord move forward? We can guess at three reasons:
The antipathy of the main users, gamers;
Too much fraud affects user safety;
The supervision is unclear.
Discord's earliest vision was "Chat for Gamers", and it also started by serving gamers. According to a 2021 CNBC report, 70% of users use DC for games or other purposes. Although the company's vision was later changed to "Chat for Communities and Friends", which expanded the user positioning range, it can be guessed that serving gamers has always been the core of Discord. When DC tried to support the NFT community, many users protested, canceled their Nitro subscriptions, and expressed great disgust for NFT. In fact, the gamer circle has always been dissatisfied with the Crypto circle. As early as the POW era, mining caused the price of graphics cards to soar, resulting in higher costs for players to assemble consoles. After mining cooled down, it was easy for players to buy second-hand mining cards (that is, graphics cards that have been used for mining for a long time. Some players believe that they are overused and are not good second-hand graphics cards). It can be guessed that some gamers have extended their dissatisfaction with Crypto during the mining period to the present.
In addition, the founder tweeted that there are a lot of spam and fraud in Crypto, and DC is committed to protecting users, so it has no intention of fully integrating Crypto. As a compliant platform, it is very reasonable for DC to try to reduce fraud. In addition, government supervision was not clear at the time. If a rash integration with Crypto causes a large number of users to suffer losses, this cost is not something DC can afford.
This also reflects the core difference between DC and TG: the difference in user portraits and platform positioning. DC's main users are compliant users, and many of them are even gamers, but TG has many gray area users, so TG's vigorous promotion of Crypto will not cause resentment among the main user group. DC is positioned more as a community tool, while TG is positioned as a gray area. Spam and regulation have less impact on TG than DC, which is conducive to TG's free rein in Crypto.
3. Browser (PWA) as the “entry”
The browser/webpage replacing local applications in some scenarios is a direction that deserves attention. Friend.tech uses PWA; Photoshop provides a web version, which uses cloud storage, allowing users to switch between multiple devices; many people are also exploring cloud games. On the one hand, after the development of cloud computing power, web applications implemented using the cloud can carry more functions, and on the other hand, PWA does have many advantages.
For example, PWA can operate offline, support dynamic content updates, push reminders, and achieve compatibility with different platforms. PWA can also call mobile phone hardware like local applications, such as opening the camera or using GPS. In terms of convenience, it is controversial whether web pages or local applications are more convenient. Some people think that web pages can be opened through links, which is more convenient than installing applications, but some people think that after the application is installed, it is more convenient to open it directly on the desktop than to enter the browser to open the URL. Of course, if you use PWA, it is the same. On the web PC side, the current wallet plug-in system is relatively complete, and you can even imagine calling wallet plug-ins when playing games on the web side, or calling other web DeFi applications. In addition, PWA can avoid the commission of platforms such as Apple, which is of great significance to Crypo applications.
But will the wallet continue to serve as the "entrance" in the browser? On the mobile side, friend.tech tells us that it will not, because users can accept built-in wallets. It is acceptable for users to put money into the application (which may be L2 in essence, or even handed over to the project party) and then operate the assets inside the application, because users don't care what wallet they use, and the experience of calling Metamask alone on the mobile phone is not good. Therefore, specific social applications can replace MetaMask to undertake traffic, and the core of realizing the closed loop of the economic model is not the wallet but other services. The service provider can have a built-in wallet like friend.tech.
Image source: friend.tech’s Buy Key interface
4. Conclusion
Comparing Telegram, Discord and web pages (PWA), we can see that who will become the traffic entrance depends to a certain extent on two factors: user experience and supervision. In terms of user experience, TG is more fluent than many native Crypto applications, which is its huge advantage. On the mobile side, built-in wallet applications such as FT will also reduce the competitiveness of Metamask as an "entrance". In terms of supervision, traditional social giants will face great pressure to access Crypto, which gives TG or FT, which are less regulated applications or native applications, many opportunities.
References
TON Foundation Vivi - Social and gaming asset NFTs will have a larger market share on the TON blockchain: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/t4OMitWh7YnAYzFCODronQ
MetaMask's growth flywheel is failing, and pan-user applications are the center of the new "entrance": https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TT68OrEXxP2i99vBIX24wg
TWA Examples：https://docs.ton.org/develop/dapps/telegram-apps/app-examples
TON blockchain: a group of related whales mined 85% of TON supply：https://medium.com/@whiterabbit_hq/ton-blockchain-a-group-of-related-whales-mined-85-of-ton-supply-2e3300cc93bc#:~:text=At%20least%2085.8%25%20of%20the%20token%20supply%20was%20distributed%20between,impact%20on%20the%20TON%20price.
Discord Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023)：https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/
NFTs and crypto wallets could be in Discord’s future：https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/09/discord-nfts-metamask-crypto/
Overview of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)：https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/progressive-web-apps-chromium/
Will Web Apps Replace Websites and Mobile Apps?：https://topdigital.agency/will-web-apps-replace-websites-and-mobile-apps/
