TON, Telegram, and the Stablecoin That Wouldn’t Sit Still: Billionaire Bytes & Bites

by

You know what they say: if you can’t bring the magic internet money to the people, embed it where they’re already busy sending memes and confusion. Ethena, never one to ignore a stampede, has decided to pop its sUSDe stablecoin right inside the TON blockchain, rebranding it as tsUSDe (the ‘t’ is for Telegram, presumably; it’s never for ‘tedium’).

That means one billion Telegram users—give or take a few billion bots and your uncle who still thinks it’s for bird-watching fanatics—can play with this shiny toy without leaving their digital sanctuary!

During Token2049 (which sounded suspiciously like a password my computer would come up with), Ethena Labs’ Guy Young and The Open Platform’s Halil Mirakhmed pulled a rabbit (and several stablecoins) out of the proverbial blockchain hat, announcing that USDe and sUSDe will soon live rent-free in Telegram, thanks to a partnership with the TON Foundation.

Introducing the product for a billion people:

Today we announce our partnership with @ton_blockchain to power finance’s most powerful use case:

To send, save and pay with a globally accessible dollar

Internet money, now available for @Telegram’s billion users

Details below:

— Ethena Labs (@ethena_labs) May 1, 2025

Telegram users will soon be able to mint, burn, transfer, and, for the truly adventurous, stake Ethena’s stablecoins without ever leaving the comfort of their open chat windows. Frankly, this may just save civilization, or at least stop people from forgetting their seed phrases every 48 hours. 🧙‍♂️

The plan is unfolding in three dramatic acts (Shakespearean level, with fewer daggers):

  • First, Ethena tokens sneak into all major non-custodial TON wallets, like TON Space, Tonkeeper, and MyTonWallet—the holy trinity for digital hoarders.
  • Next, Ethena will wriggle its way into Telegram’s built-in custodial crypto wallet, a.k.a the place where people realize they’ve sent money to the wrong cousin.
  • Finally, Ethena slides into all the big-name TON DeFi apps, supporting such financial joys as trading, saving, and lending, or—as most call it—procrastinating with intent.

Ethena Labs, never shy with a keyboard, wrote, “Starting in May, we will go live on TON with USDe and TON-native sUSDe (tsUSDe) on TON Space, alongside other major TON wallets.” Somewhere, a telegram bot just learned to celebrate.

But wait—there’s more! Holders of Ton Staked USDe or tsUSDe may find themselves on the receiving end of a mysterious additional 10% annual percentage yield, paid weekly in TON. That’s right, passive income for just holding on and trying not to panic when the squiggly lines on the charts move. 📈 Each user can gather up to 10,000 tsUSDe, unless they mistake the app for a sandwich menu.

In the contest of Who’s Got the Biggest (Stablecoin), Ethena’s USDe ranks fourth by market cap, playing polite behind Tether’s USDT, Circle’s USDC, and Dai’s USDS, with a tidy market cap of $4.6 billion. TON itself stands at $7.9 billion, with $145 million changing hands daily—some of which always, mysteriously, ends up behind your virtual sofa. TON, at last check, is trading at $3.18, which means you can buy a virtual coffee, just not in this universe.

Read More

2025-05-01 15:45