Steve Yun, representing TON Basis as a board member, met with BeInCrypto through the 2025 Web3 Pageant Hong Kong. On this unique interview, he mentioned TON’s current developments and their distinctive place within the blockchain panorama as a mini-app centered infrastructure constructed for Telegram’s ecosystem.
The dialog coated TON’s $400 million secondary market funding, technical upgrades to their asynchronous structure, and strategic initiatives throughout DeFi and gaming sectors. Yun additionally shared his views on enlargement into US markets and leveraging the Asia-Pacific area’s familiarity with super-app ecosystems.
TVL on TON has dropped by 72%. Why, and what’s your response?
The lower in Complete Worth Locked primarily stems from our strategic choice to discontinue liquidity pool incentives. Our evaluation confirms that incentives are efficient—with their impression being important in bear markets and exponentially higher throughout bull markets—however the basic problem is guaranteeing that liquidity stays sustainable after incentives finish.
What we found is {that a} complete DeFi ecosystem is important for sustainable liquidity. Our preliminary infrastructure consisted primarily of primary Automated Market Makers, which wasn’t enough. Now we’re constructing an entire suite of DeFi primitives: lending protocols, derivatives, perpetual futures, concentrated liquidity DEXs with restrict orders, steady swap mechanisms like Curve, and dynamic liquidity options just like Maverick.
These capital-efficient instruments create an ecosystem the place liquidity naturally desires to stay. We’re busy creating this complete infrastructure, and as soon as it’s in place, we’ll contemplate reintroducing incentives. The important thing perception was that incentives alone create non permanent exercise, however a strong ecosystem creates lasting worth and sustainable development.
How will you utilize the current $400M funding with Telegram for Web3 initiatives?
The $400 million funding occurred over a number of years within the secondary market, not on to the muse. The inspiration doesn’t straight obtain these funds—the beneficiaries are Toncoin holders and miners who decide the allocation of those proceeds independently. We function solely on donations from miners as our reserve. Whereas we hope these funds profit the ecosystem, it’s in the end as much as the person holders. It’s necessary to make clear that once we introduced this funding, we have been consolidating and reporting secondary market gross sales that we have been conscious of, not saying a direct funding into the muse itself.
What key options will your 2025 Layer-2 community and “Accelerator” mainnet improve ship?
We’ve carried out substantial enhancements to TON’s asynchronous structure, which is essentially totally different from synchronous blockchains like Ethereum. In TON, transactions don’t want to attend for earlier ones to verify—they will all be confirmed concurrently, making it a lot sooner and extra scalable. Beforehand, congestion in a single shard may have an effect on the complete community, however our replace ensures issues stay remoted to particular shards, enormously enhancing community robustness.
We’re additionally creating a brand new programming language to switch FunC, which presents important complexity for builders attributable to its low-level nature. Moreover, we’re engaged on workchains—just like Polkadot’s parachains however extra tightly coupled with the principle chain. These specialised chains will allow use circumstances the present infrastructure can’t help effectively, like high-frequency buying and selling that requires hyper-liquid decentralized exchanges. These enhancements collectively make TON extra developer-friendly and able to supporting various functions.
How will the TON BTC bridging mechanism impression your ecosystem?
tgBTC represents a big addition to our collateral ecosystem, considerably boosting liquidity in TON’s DeFi surroundings. What makes it distinctive is our implementation method. Most wrapped Bitcoin options on different chains use token requirements like ERC-20, which embody compliance options permitting the issuer to freeze or confiscate property. This centralization is problematic for Bitcoin holders who worth decentralization.
TON addresses this problem by our proprietary “further currencies” know-how, which capabilities like Toncoin itself—managed solely by the validator community, not by any single entity. This implies tgBTC can’t be frozen or confiscated by the token creator, making it uniquely interesting to Bitcoin holders who need to generate yield by DeFi actions however have been reluctant to make use of different wrapped options attributable to custody issues. They’ll now make the most of their Bitcoin in DeFi with out compromising on the core worth of censorship resistance that attracted them to Bitcoin initially.
What benefits does TON have in DeFi and GameFi?
Talking personally, I keep measured expectations relating to the long run trajectory of crypto gaming. Once we’ve seen high-quality video games launch on Telegram, customers’ main concern tends to deal with tokenization timelines reasonably than appreciating gameplay. Folks need hypothesis, not video games—crypto gaming typically served as a substitute car for speculative exercise. Even profitable examples like Axie Infinity noticed value outpace actuality, and few nonetheless play these video games.
The inspiration continues supporting gaming initiatives attributable to Telegram’s social elements, however I consider the crypto gaming paradigm as initially conceived might have reached its conclusion. It could actually exist as one monetization technique amongst many, however isn’t important.
DeFi, nonetheless, can not exist with out crypto. We’re centered on funds and DeFi options, together with the tokenization of Telegram bonds, which generate 8-15% annual returns and will supply low cost entry to potential Telegram IPOs—highly effective property for the ecosystem.
What are your US enlargement plans beneath chairman Manuel Stotz‘s management?
On account of previous SEC points with Gram, we maintained a coverage of non-engagement with US entities. Once they reached out, we merely declined engagement alternatives. Nonetheless, the regulatory panorama has advanced, prompting a recalibration of our technique.
We’re now actively participating with US firms and exchanges about itemizing Toncoin and TON-based property, together with stablecoins. We’re encouraging stablecoin issuers to natively mint on TON. The neighborhood has already begun holding occasions within the US, and the muse plans to determine bodily illustration there.
A major improvement is making the non-custodial portion of TON House pockets obtainable to US individuals, which was beforehand restricted. This strategic shift acknowledges the significance of the US market whereas sustaining compliance with regulatory necessities.
What’s your message at Hong Kong Web3 Pageant and Asia-Pacific technique?
Our strategic positioning distinguishes us from typical blockchain tasks—we goal mini-app builders reasonably than good contract builders. Whereas different chains attend Ethereum conferences to compete for good contract builders, we deal with areas with established super-app ecosystems. The APAC area is especially necessary as a result of individuals right here perceive and use super-apps like WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk.
We entry this market by Hong Kong, constructing relationships with key gamers like Hashkey, who’ve supported us by offering most important stage entry for TON Ecosystem Day two years operating. This partnership is strategic as a result of APAC customers possess subtle familiarity with built-in digital ecosystems, making them ideally suited early adopters for TON’s mini-app ecosystem inside Telegram. The area’s familiarity with built-in digital experiences makes it fertile floor for our method to Web3 adoption.
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