Pavel Durov's Return Boosts TON Ecosystem

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested at a French airport on August 25, 2024. TG, as the cornerstone of the TON ecosystem, subsequently experienced a sharp drop

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested at a French airport on August 25, 2024. TG, as the cornerstone of the TON ecosystem, subsequently experienced a sharp drop in the TON ecosystem and coin price, from $6.7 to $5. Then, as the market cooled again, the ecological coin price dropped to $3.4. Ecological indicators also experienced a 50% drop compared to August 2024.

Yesterday, March 15, Pavel Durov was allowed to leave France and is returning to Dubai. The TON Foundation, developers, and community are all excited about this. For example, @CatizenAI launched a carnival celebration to celebrate his return.

Let me now look at the specific impact of Pavel Durov’s return on the TON ecosystem from three dimensions:

1. TVL Changes

2. On-chain activity

3. Ecocoin price

Before the analysis, let’s review the important events:

- August 25, 2024 Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested at a French airport

- August 28, 2024 Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been taken to the Paris court by car

- On August 29, 2024, Telegram founder Durov was prosecuted and released under judicial supervision, and was prohibited from leaving French territory; TON Society's open letter in support of Pavel Durov has received over 3.2 million signatures

- September 6, 2024 Pavel Durov: Telegram is ready to exit markets that are incompatible with the platform

- On December 7, 2024, Telegram founder Pavel Durov appeared in a Paris court for trial and said he trusted the French judicial system.

- January 8, 2025: Telegram founder Pavel Durov reiterated that the core value of the platform is not affected by the US election cycle

- February 6, 2025 French prosecutors say Pavel Durov case will not go to trial for at least a year, settlement talks are premature

- March 15, 2025 Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been allowed to leave France and is returning to Dubai

The following formal analysis

1/TVL

It can be clearly seen that TON's TVL increased by 18m yesterday, which is also the largest increase this month. Compared with other chains, this increase is obviously above average.

In addition, from the perspective of TON's main protocols, the ones with the highest increase are STON.fi and EVAA Protocol, which increased by about 5m.

2/On-chain Metrics

In terms of Daily Transactions, yesterday’s trading volume roughly returned to the level of early March, and the increased trading volume mainly came from DEX interactions.

In terms of active addresses, the number of DEX addresses increased by 3,000 yesterday. *Note that one address can participate in multiple projects

On the meme launchapd side, transactions & users are up to where they were about a week ago, mostly from Blum's transactions & users.

3.1/Ecosystem Tokens

There are 52 tokens whose price has increased by more than 10% in the last 24 hours. Among them, the outstanding tokens are resistance-dog, paper-plane, mittens-2, and gentleman.

3.2/By Market Cap

The prices of 24hr and 7d are both rising recently. The tokens with a value less than 1m have seen the highest increase. In addition, for tokens with a value less than 1m and greater than 100m, this increase has almost offset the decline of nearly a month.

3.3/By Category

DeFi and Meme have performed the best among the four groups, with recent 24hr and 7d increases reaching 15-30%.

4/Summary

The return of Durov Pavel is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for the ecosystem, which is most obvious from the perspective of TVL. However, from the perspective of on-chain activity indicators, this impact is not particularly obvious. It has only returned to a relatively stable state before, without a sharp increase, which may also be related to the recent market of BSC.

From the perspective of ecological tokens, although yesterday's increase almost offset the decline in the past month, it is still lower than the coin price three months ago, and the boosting effect is relatively limited.