Messari: TON's revenue from Telegram products in the first quarter reached 88.5 million USD, with cross-chain NFT market share rising to 35.5%

Messari released the "TON Q1 2026 Report," which shows that despite a 26.4% drop in the price of TON during the quarter, the overall TON ecosystem remains resilient, supported by Telegram's large user base. Among them, revenue from Telegram products settled through Fragment decreased by 20.3% quarter-on-quarter to $88.5 million, while recurring revenues such as Premium subscriptions and advertising only fell by 10.5%, performing better than non-recurring businesses like Stars.

Data shows that driven by the demand for on-chain products such as Telegram usernames, numbers, and Gifts, the market share of TON NFTs in the cross-chain market increased by 130.4% quarter-on-quarter, reaching 35.5%. In terms of DeFi, the total value locked (TVL) in USD terms decreased by 34.9% quarter-on-quarter, but in TON terms, it only fell by 11.6%. The average daily transfer amount of USDT dropped by 32.5% to $7.7 million, although the average daily number of transfers remained around 73,600, indicating that peer-to-peer Telegram transfers and Mini App payments are replacing large DeFi transactions.

In terms of user activity, the number of daily active addresses on TON decreased by 8.8% quarter-on-quarter to 90,800, indicating no significant new user growth in the first quarter. However, the number of transactions per address increased from 19.2 to 21, reflecting enhanced engagement among existing users.

After the end of the first quarter, the "Make TON Great Again (MTONGA)" initiative launched by TON has completed four out of seven measures, including the launch of Catchain 2 for sub-second finality, reducing transaction fees by about six times, and making Telegram the largest validator of TON, with a current staking size of 2.2 million TON. Messari states that the second quarter will be a key observation period to test whether infrastructure upgrades can drive a large-scale conversion of Telegram's broader user base into active users on the TON chain.