Has Telegram Started to Hype "QQ Show"?

Author: Cookie, Rhythm BlockBeats

After the wave of "TON mini-games" subsided, the TON ecosystem gradually faded from the main focus of the market. Unexpectedly, the TON ecosystem has once again become the center of attention, this time due to another concept that has long been out of favor in the market—NFTs.

On January 1 of this year, Telegram released its first update of the year. In this update, the "gifts" previously received on Telegram were officially upgraded to "collectibles." Collectibles are NFTs, which not only possess traditional NFT characteristics such as randomness and rarity but can also be transferred to other Telegram users or traded on NFT markets.

In terms of transaction volume, Telegram's "gifts" began to gain momentum around mid-May and recently experienced explosive growth. An increasing number of related discussion tweets on Twitter reflect the breakout effect of Telegram's "gifts" in recent days.

From June 7 to June 9, the daily transaction volume of Telegram's "gifts" nearly doubled, rising from nearly $3 million to over $9 million.

Comparing the NFT transaction volumes across various chains, since mid-May, TON has firmly suppressed Solana, maintaining a solid second place in NFT transaction volume across chains.

In the past few days, TON even surpassed Ethereum, achieving a daily transaction volume close to $10 million, approximately three times that of Ethereum.

On June 9, Telegram founder Pavel Durov personally tweeted to promote Telegram's "gifts," mentioning several series of Telegram "gifts" that had significantly increased in the past month, stating that the TON chain had thus achieved a daily trading volume surpassing Ethereum.

In the competition of NFT trading markets, the largest TON NFT trading market, TONNEL, has surpassed OpenSea in daily transaction volume over the past two days. Other TON NFT trading markets like Portals and Getgems have also matched the transaction volumes of Blur and Magic Eden in the past two days. Considering that the TON NFT market only supports the TON chain while OpenSea and others support multiple chains, it can be said that TON stands out in the NFT market.

From the trading data of the on-chain market Getgems, currently, Telegram's "gifts" have only one absolute top item, Plush Pepes, which maintains a floor price of 5100 TON (approximately $16,800) and ranks first in weekly trading volume among all Telegram "gift" series, proving that "the more expensive, the more sought after."

All Telegram "gift" series that made it to the weekly leaderboard have shown an upward trend. The second position is hard to determine; based on transaction volume and floor price, it is currently Durov's Caps, but it cannot be ruled out that there will be latecomers.

The TON NFT market is essentially the Telegram "gift" market. So how did this develop? How is it different from the NFTs we are familiar with? What do NFT whales like @BitCloutCat think?

Development of TON NFTs

On January 24, Telegram officially supported sending "gifts" to the TON chain, allowing users to send "gifts" on Telegram for trading, marking the official integration of "gifts" into the TON ecosystem.

Telegram also updated the upgraded "gifts" to give them social attributes. In this update, "gifts" can be worn like a badge to display in the name bar of Telegram users' profiles.

On February 14, Telegram launched 9 new limited "gift" series, which sold out within hours, generating over $5 million in sales.

On March 7, Telegram further enhanced the social functionality of "gifts." After this update, users could not only wear a "gift" after their name but could also display 6 "gifts" on their profile cover.

On May 8, Telegram updated its built-in "gift" trading function, allowing users to trade "gifts" using "stars" within Telegram.

On June 9, Telegram founder Pavel Durov personally tweeted to promote Telegram's "gifts," mentioning several series of Telegram "gifts" that had significantly increased in the past month, stating that the TON chain had thus achieved a daily trading volume surpassing Ethereum.

Differences Between TON NFTs and Traditional NFTs

1. Different Main Project Types

The NFT projects we are familiar with mainly include PFPs, token airdrop certificates, Pass cards, and in-game items. In the current wave of TON NFTs, the absolute main line is Telegram's "gifts." In Web2, "gifts" find a more suitable positioning—QQ Show.

From Getgems' weekly transaction volume leaderboard, besides Telegram's "gifts," the first place "Anonymous Telegram Number" and the third place "Telegram Usernames," while not Telegram "gifts," still follow the "QQ logic"—the former is a Telegram account that does not require a phone number, and the latter is a unique username similar to a Twitter handle. A nice number, a nice name.

Whether it's Telegram's "gifts" or nice numbers and names, they all come from Telegram's official sources and can serve practical purposes within Telegram. Meanwhile, community-driven PFPs on the TON chain have not yet shown any progress.

2. Different Trading Models

In the primary market for new releases, Telegram's "gifts" are officially issued, with new series released sporadically in a surprise manner, using "stars" purchased within Telegram as the currency for new releases, which is quite different from the minting process we are familiar with on-chain.

It is also worth mentioning that the opening mode for new "gift" series is quite unique and has a long lock-up period. First, if a new "gift" series is successfully released, the "gift" is in a "non-NFT blind box" state. Only when Telegram officially opens the upgrade function can holders choose to upgrade, which is equivalent to the process of turning the opened item into an NFT. After the upgrade is completed, holders must wait 21 days before they can trade (to prevent…

In the secondary market for buying and selling, the trading market itself is divided into on-chain and off-chain. The off-chain representative is TONNEL, which operates with trading intermediary bots to send and receive Telegram "gifts," with the market embedded in Telegram as a Mini App. The on-chain representative is Getgems, where any NFT on the TON chain can be found, possibly aligning more with the operational habits of veteran NFT players.

Currently, the transaction volume of off-chain trading markets far exceeds that of on-chain markets. This may partially reflect that the Telegram "gift" craze has significant support from native Telegram users.

For a long time, off-chain transaction volumes have overwhelmingly dominated over on-chain, often approaching 10 times. However, in recent days, the transaction volume of on-chain markets has also begun to grow, narrowing the gap, which may be a sign that crypto users are starting to enter more.

3. Different Usage Methods

If you use the on-chain trading market, the "gifts" you receive are in NFT (on-chain) status and need to be brought into Telegram to be worn. This is another reason why off-chain trading markets are more popular; trading bots can directly transfer them to your account in an off-chain state for immediate wearing, saving a step.

Views of NFT Whales

Laser Cat @BitCloutCat was interviewed by us at Rhythm BlockBeats. He mentioned that he first noticed Telegram's "gifts" in March, when the price of Plush Pepe (currently the highest floor price for Telegram "gifts") was about 1000 U. However, he missed out because he didn't realize that "gifts" could already be worn and had social attributes.

After the hype built up, he conducted further research—there are social scenarios and the ability to show off, isn't that just "QQ Show"? The primary market's new releases using "stars" and Q coins are quite similar. Moreover, this time, celebrities from both inside and outside the industry, including Snoop Dogg's official Telegram account, Telegram founder Pavel Durov, and Luca Netz, the founder of Fat Penguin, have all participated, indicating a broad potential audience.

Due to the cooling-off period, there are some price differences between on-chain and off-chain trading markets; on-chain can be bought and sold at any time but tends to be a bit more expensive, while off-chain can be used but will be locked for a period before trading can resume.

According to Laser Cat's observations, the main players currently seem to be Russians and some NFT enthusiasts, with many discussion groups in Russian. Although there have been some discussions in the Chinese-speaking community, they are still relatively few, making it hard to say whether this is early or late in the game. However, he believes that if done well, there is significant potential, with opportunities to break into the mainstream and attract Web2 users, as "gifts" can be directly given to friends on Telegram without requiring them to have a crypto wallet from the start. Currently, in the secondary market, series that are relatively scarce and visually appealing have generally seen price increases. If the creator ecosystem can be opened up in the future, the hype may rise even higher.

Conclusion

This time, Telegram's "gifts," along with the recently launched MapleStory blockchain game, have both brought NFT back into the market's attention through practical applications. It has been nearly four years since that hot summer of NFTs, and the term is no longer just a buzzword for speculation, but has quietly taken on more practical applications, showcasing its role on larger platforms. We hope that more NFT applications like Telegram's "gifts" will emerge, injecting more vitality into the market.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。