CoinVoice ：Please introduce yourself and your experience in Crypto.
Justin：My name is Justin Hyun and I am the Director of Growth at TON Foundation. Prior to my role as Director of Growth, I was the Head of Incubation at TON Foundation. My crypto experience started at BlockFi institutional strategy group.
CoinVoice ： Maybe many readers are not familiar with Ton Network, could you give a brief introduction?
Justin：TON is a layer1 initiated by Telegram founder-Pavel Durov, but its development was passed on to a independent developer team from its community. Beside its high-level pursuit of tech features like scalability and shards, it partners with Telegram messenger, whose product features are very similar to WeChat in China like Telegram bot(mini-program), Stories(Peng you quan), channels(gong zhong hao), crypto wallet(crypto version of WeChat pay), which will really adopt crypto tech to >800 million monthly active users, rather than any other layer 1. This year the embedded crypto wallet in Telegram is the main focus which may include a natively created non-custodial wallet for any Telegram users to connect decentralized mini-apps soon. No need for wallet app like “Metamask” anymore for new users of crypto. In one sentence for Chinese, “A crypto WeChat ecosystem”.
CoinVoice ：Ton ecosystem is very special, no matter in the technical route, ecological development, ecological application and other aspects, it seems to have been independent of other Crypto ecosystem, how do you think about this statement?
Justin：If you define what happened in the past of crypto as “web3”, TON is indeed like “web 2.5”-with more mature practice of web2 in mass adoption with convenient user experience, but avoiding the evil of web2-user privacy, ownership, profit sharing, etc. Imagine a decentralized version of a famous WeChat mini-app “Shui Di Chou”, it can be better for donators to use a decentralized crowdfunding platform in the social messenger.
The narrow sense of “Web3” is great but not perfect. If only <100 million people think it is good, it is not good enough. Typical web3 definition is too much related to “Finance”, only a small number of people in the world are some kind of “gamblers”. Today the way of most web3 practitioners looking down on TON is like the way traditional banks or financial institutions looking down on Alipay 20 years ago. The narrow sense of web3 is more about liquidity, about whales. But web2 is more about traffic, about many a little makes a mickle. So it is indeed a different ideology. But see how fearful that traditional financial institutions or governments look at Alipay & WeChat pay today?
TON is not afraid of being thought of as a very special layer 1, but we are a layer 1 which can bring millions of web2 users to the crypto world, then they may go to some layer 1s for niche demand. So don’t see TON as a freak or enemy, we are friends of any other blockchains.
CoinVoice ：Recently, Ton has suddenly exploded in popularity because of TG Bot, what do you think is the deep-rooted reason behind this?
Justin：I am not surprised to the popularity of TG bots. Today all popular bots only show a very very small potential of our ecosystem in the future-they are only attracting web3 traders and even at a very high level of centralization. Millions of web2 users who have never used any dapps before haven’t flowered into our ecosystem through bots. Chinese may understand our potential best in the world- you have witnessed what happened in WeChat ecosystem in the past 5 years-mini-apps, mini-games, WeChat pay, mini-ecommerce, viral marketing, etc. The power of social networks in the crypto world hasn’t been unleashed. Crypto wallet pay, stories, channels, groupchats, bots, TON blockchain have made a closed loop for a web3 project to go viral in the world.
CoinVoice ：Although TG Bot still has a lot of room for improvement, but it still continues to drive the rise of the whole plate, do you think in the long run this will bring what kind of impact to the Ton ecosystem, whether it is possible for Ton to build a decentralized financial layer?
Justin：Again, image a decentralized “Pin Duo Duo” or “Shui Di Chou” or “Yang Le Ge Yang”. The problems of WeChat pay or Alipay to users which haven’t really been solved by the government can be perfectly solved by TON blockchain. All kinds of assets from decentralized bot games, ecommerces, tools will be driven behind by the financial layer and its liquidity built on TON blockchain. We are the real game changer.
CoinVoice ：Do you think there are still some urgent problems that need to be solved in the development of Ton ecosystem?
Justin：Crypto wallet with non-custodial wallet in Telegram is our focus now. After its launch, how to let all users in Telegram get used to it successfully and creatively is critical. A potential killer dapp as a bot can be the key-like red envelope of WeChat in Chinese new year in 2015 to beat Alipay. I guess It can be a decentralized tool or game.
CoinVoice ：Could you share with us Ton's plans for the next development, ecological development, user growth, etc.?
Justin：Crypto wallet with non-custodial wallet in Telegram is our focus now. more and more killer bots in online or offline context can boost the crypto wallet and load more crypto new hands. Of course TON’s tech needs to advance with the explosion of users like scalability, speed and sharding, more token standards, bridges, and decentralized storage.
