March was all about steady progress and resilience. While the broader market took some hits, TON stayed on track, pushing forward with infrastructure upgrades and gaining momentum across DeFi, payments, gaming, and Telegram-native experiences.

Missed last month’s update? Catch up on what happened in January–February in our last Ecosystem Report.

TL;DR

• Pavel Durov’s return sparked confidence in TON’s growth.
• Top VCs now hold $400M+ in Toncoin.
• 90% validator upgrade adoption in under 48 hours.
• DeFi TVL surged, @wallet added new features and currencies, and RedotPay enabled USDt-TON payments at 130M+ merchants.
• Miomi Game drove 5% of TON transactions with its sustainable Play2Win model, while NFT marketplace Tonnel broke daily volume records.
• Elon Musk’s Grok AI joins Telegram.
• TON shared its 2024 Grants recap.

Ecosystem confidence deepens: Durov’s return, investor backing

Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s return signaled long-term alignment between TON and Telegram, centered on freedom, privacy, and ownership.

Durov is FREE! #DigitalResistance prevails. pic.twitter.com/WwBN69GBEm

— TON Society (@ton_society) March 17, 2025

At the same time, top VCs now collectively hold over $400 million in Toncoin, much of it US-based, reinforcing institutional support and positioning TON for broader expansion into America.

Infrastructure upgrades

TON Core rolled out multiple updates in March:

• The new Pending API lets users track blockchain operations pre-finalization.
• TON Wallet now supports the full tech stack – Jettons, NFTs, TON DNS, and more.
• TON Layer 2 Payment Network gained Jetton support and laid out its roadmap, including Atomic Swaps.
• 90% of validators upgraded to the latest version within two days, a clear signal of ecosystem cohesion.

DeFi picks up steam

Factorial, a lending protocol, nearly doubled its TVL to $29M and is exploring incentive models. TONCO surged to $7.9M TVL and added ZAP, a new feature that lets users add liquidity with just one token. FIVA, TON’s first yield tokenization protocol, launched and reached $1M within days.

On the trading side, bots are becoming a serious force. Blum activated 75,000 on-chain users through its bot and drove 13% of all TON on-chain transactions by early April.

“The next mass adoption from DeFi will come from community-driven copy trading.”

— Steve Yun, TON Foundation Board Member

Payments stepping up

@wallet added trading features and support for a broader range of tokens like ETH, DOGE, and XRP, making it a real alternative to centralized exchanges (CEXs). Wallet Earn is now permanent, and USDT rewards will be available soon.

TON Space also introduced fee payments using Telegram Stars, which can be purchased directly in TON Space or transferred from a user's Telegram account.

Meanwhile, RedotPay integrated USDt-TON for real-world spending through Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Alipay—usable at 130M+ merchants, including Amazon and Starbucks. A Telegram Mini App is next.

GameFi and NFTs hit new highs

Telegram mini games saw massive adoption in March: Dropee hit 3.2M MAU, DUCK × MY × DUCK reached 1.2M, and Miomi Game accounted for 5% of all TON transactions in early March.

Telegram’s asset economy also experienced a successful month: Username @cryptoholder was sold for 250K TON, and Tonnel broke volume and trader records with 217K TON in volume and 5,806 unique traders.

Unlocking AI on TON

The groundwork is being laid for AI apps inside Telegram. Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot is now live, and TON x ElizaOS’s AI bounty program is boosting developer contributions.

grok now available directly on @telegram

— Grok (@grok) March 26, 2025

Wrapping up

March was all about building with intent. Institutional trust is rising, Telegram integrations are deepening, and builders are shipping everything from DeFi to NFTs to AI.

More updates are coming next month, including a deeper dive into TON Foundation’s 2025 roadmap.