The first two months of 2025 have been all about growth, big moves, and setting the stage for what’s next. New leadership, major partnerships, and serious traction across DeFi, GameFi, and payments. If you’ve been watching closely, you already know this ecosystem isn’t slowing down.

Here’s the TL;DR of what went down in Jan–Feb:

• 3.1M new wallets activated
• 170K–590K daily active wallets
• 3M–5M monthly active wallets
• $500M–$700M monthly trading volume
• 20M–30M weekly transactions, placing TON in the top 8 blockchains
• 790 new developers in January (+15%)
• 906 monthly active developers (+40%)

New president, big plans

Manuel “Manny” Stotz is TON Foundation's new president. He’s been on TON’s board since 2023 and founded Kingsway Capital, managing billions in assets and backing 50+ blockchain projects. Now, he’s leading TON’s expansion in the US, setting up stronger partnerships and getting the right people to pay attention.

Telegram + TON = fully locked in

TON is now the exclusive blockchain for Telegram Mini Apps, a huge milestone in one of the world’s biggest social platforms.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said it himself:

"TON will be our blockchain infrastructure for tokenization, payouts, mini app integrations, and more. This standardization will be great for Telegram users—giving them a consistent, predictable experience and better protection against scams."

Projects such as TapSwap (5.2M MAU) and Tomarket (2.8M MAU) have already switched to TON, and TON’s marketing grant program has helped developers transition smoothly to the ecosystem.

Unlocking cross-chain liquidity with LayerZero

No more clunky bridges, no more insane fees.

TON has integrated with LayerZero to enable seamless USDT transfers between Ethereum, TRON, and Arbitrum—with 100+ chains coming soon.

Also, the upcoming launch of the OFT (Omnichain Fungible Token) standard will see Ethena (top-4 stablecoin by market cap, $5.6B TVL, 10–15% APY on stablecoin holdings) as the first adopter.

$100M for DeFi and PayFi on TON

TVM Ventures is betting big on TON—dropping $100M to fund the next wave of DeFi, PayFi, and infrastructure projects. Board member Steve Yun is steering the effort, and the team is already teaming up with top security experts to run thorough audits so you can trust your transactions. This fresh cash injection draws in new partners and sparks innovative DeFi projects, which means you'll soon enjoy a broader range of financial services right on TON.

Behind the scenes: infrastructure and dev upgrades

TON’s devs have been grinding behind the scenes to make the network faster, smoother, and more powerful. Here’s what’s new:

TON is getting faster, smoother, and more secure with TON Core’s upcoming upgrades. A Layer 2 payment network (beta) is enabling instant, low-fee transfers for DeFi and gaming. Tact smart contracts are now 5–10% more gas-efficient than FunC, and a Trail of Bits audit confirmed zero high-severity vulnerabilities. Lastly, Nansen and Pyth integrations bring deeper insights and real-time price feeds.

Growth across multiple sectors

TON is seeing major growth across DeFi, GameFi, and social applications.

EVAA’s TVL hit a record $84M, Storm Trade nearly doubled from $15M to $26M, and memecoins now drive 30–40% of trading volume on TON. Telegram’s NFT ecosystem is also thriving, with Durov Caps reaching 14.4M users and Duckygram pulling in 580K users and $1M in transactions. Meanwhile, Asian gaming studios are quickly gaining popularity, with popular WeChat IPs like Cattea and Bombie hitting 6 MAU and $13.7M in revenue, respectively.

Wrapping up

2025 came in hot—new leadership pushing US expansion, Telegram doubling down, DeFi and GameFi popping off, and major infra upgrades making everything smoother. With more liquidity, deeper integrations, and an expanding ecosystem, TON is shaping up to be one of the most exciting spaces in crypto.

Moving forward, TON remains focused on strengthening infrastructure, empowering developers, and building real-world applications that actually matter.