Should The Open Network’s cryptocurrency token the Toncoin (TON) be considered only as a means of gambling, or investing, or day trading, on exchanges, that is, buying low and selling high, to make a profit?
Or can we consider it as something more valuable, as a currency in which payments can be made and received?
Generally the value of TON and any other currency is measured against what we are already familiar with, at an international level this is usually the USD (USA Dollar) and whatever national currency.
We could measure any currency against what it can actually purchase us, for example, what portion of a cow, or how many cows, or how many liters of milk. These are practical use cases of circulating currency for daily use.
Daily products and services required generally must be paid for in a currency that is accepted by both the buyer and the seller. Normally this will be your national currency, as widely accepted by everyone within the nation.
Therefore even if one can receive payments in TON these are usually converted back into a currency which can then be used for such purchases. This is generally done on exchanges, of which there are two types:
Centralized exchanges, where you surrender your coin or money until the exchange has been completed and is back in your hands, or decentralized exchanges. The latter are however still not simple and easy for novices.
The former, centralized exchanges are still much more popular while decentralized exchanges (DEX) continue development, but as we’ve frequently reported, often hold their customers hostage.
OKX, for example, which had last year stopped all withdrawals from its platform for more than a month, holding billions of dollars without letting go, in the past month has prevented TON withdrawals twice, for a week or so each time. During such times, without transparency, there is nothing a customer can do except wait.
Imagine if your bank were to just freeze all your money and stop you from withdrawing it for a week or month for “technical reasons” or “upgrades”? This is actually what happens frequently on these cryptocurrency exchanges.
Fortunately for TON users there is a more reliable centralized exchange available right within Telegram, that has not let down its customers in over a year of operation: Cryptobot.
However, there it is still limited to a few currencies, and does not include as yet, for example, the popular USDT TRC20 network: yes, some cryptocurrencies, such as the popular USDT which is tethered to the US Dollar, have multiple networks that aren’t compatible.
Also the popular P2P networks of the large exchanges such as OKX offer many popular national currencies around the world, making it easy to buy and sell USDT (TRC20) against the national currencies, immediately and with ease, across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
This will therefore certainly make things much easier when Cryptobot either introduces such P2P markets into its Market Place, and caters for the popular TRC20 network for USDT deposits and withdrawals.
Meanwhile, on an almost daily basis, the TON Foundation’s official TON Community channels announce and promote the listing of TON on an every increasing number of centralized exchanges, but not in a very honest manner.
Yesterday they wasted many excited users time with an announcement about bit.com, and today about Matrixport, without disclosing that the latter is owned by the former, and so on, and don’t offer services in various countries.
We have yet to find any exchange other than Cryptobot which a) provides clear upfront transparency b) provides great customer service c) is reliable while also having low fees, all 3 in combination, are just missing.
These exchanges can be great when they work for you without a hitch, but your losses when things go wrong can be substantial. While your assets are frozen, due to new KYC steps or any other reason, you can make big losses.
Cryptobot on the other hand doesn’t even bother us with KYC, and you can freely trade with consenting partners, just as would be expected from a cryptocurrency.
We may ask: what is the point of cryptocurrencies, if there is the KYC obstacle? Why is it even necessary?
Do we provide identification and other personal information when making a cash exchange? No. So why with cryptocurrency?
In general, any cryptocurrency payment from one person’s wallet to another, is free consent, requiring no third party approval. This allows anyone almost anywhere in the world to make and receive payments freely without borders.
However, this can only become more practical in its use and benefit, if we no longer need to exchange via such services but can instead simply use TON, or any other agreed currency, on a much wider scale.
This is precisely what is now occurring in parts of Africa and elsewhere, where all manner of products and services are exchanged and paid for in cryptocurrency or some other digital currency, between mobile devices, on the spot, with ease, and without any bank accounts, KYC or other red tape.
It keeps people out of poverty, in productivity, and boosts local economies. Almost everyone has a mobile phone, but few have bank accounts, business licenses, and other expensive, obstructive or prohibitive obstacles which would prevent them from being able to transact business.
You can have your hair cut on the side of the road, pay in cryptocurrency, go to the market and pay for the food in cryptocurrency, and, many people don’t ever need to convert those currencies to the local or national currency.
They have sufficient numbers of people using those currencies, so they can be paid and also spend that currency, without the need of national currency, while at the same time the national currency is still good for cash.
They can also exchange the cryptocurrency to and from the local currency for cash with almost anyone who wants to do so, right there, directly, phone to phone, hand to hand. Governments may not like it, but it’s freedom.
This is the vision we have for TON as a decentralized cryptocurrency which allows fast transactions, and the hopes we have for TON Payments as an off-chain direct and micropayments solution.
Of course, TON is in competition with other well known such currencies, as BTC, or even any popular digital token. What is required is not just TON becoming more widely known, a task of this news service, but also the non-technical being able to use it easily with easy-to-use and safe wallets.
Again, the leaders in providing such service are all Telegram bot custodial wallets such as Cryptobot, whilst the non-custodial wallets that currently exist for TON, with the possible exception of Toncoin Wallet, all lack in safe, simple usability. Even the core Foundation wallets pop up geek language code when something goes wrong, and are thus not fully developed for mass use.
There is a group working on such a wallet, but lack the required funding and developers, we may conduct an interview with the team in the near future.
With a functional and advanced blockchain technology, the battle is now to make good, easy-to-use products that allow people everywhere, to make use of TON to solve their problems from payments to markets and more.
Only then can the “mass adoption” actually launch in a viral manner.
A recent post here on Telegram sums up the situation quite well regarding the current state of the “TON Ecosystem”.
Conclusion
For all our benefit it is in our interest to promote the use of TON not just at the level of exchange to and from other currencies or as a means of speculation but as a much larger investment.
We should consider making and taking payments for products and services in TON as a priority, and also spreading awareness of TON to larger audiences.
Instead of participating only in the groups and networks that are already familiar with TON, encourage sign ups to TON NEWS which is easily available via Email or browser, which everyone has. Here is a good article to share:
You can also support TON NEWS and Cryptobot as well as receiving exclusive articles regarding The Open Network, by subscribing to our TON Analysis subscription service for 1 TON/month or 10 TON/year here.
That is also where we can publish the more controversial and critical articles in front of a smaller audience with more vested interests, rather than exposing dirty laundry to the public and unecessarily putting them off TON.
If you are involved in any product, service or project around TON, you can benefit from our Community Promotion Offer from as little as 10 TON, and promote such articles across your channels.
This results in cross promotion of projects via TON NEWS Email, website, mobile Substack App, RSS feeds as well as the TON Relay channel on Telegram which all are encouraged to also join and share widely.
Finally, donations are always helpful, you can donate small amounts here.
If you are considering a larger donation (above 10 TON), you could even take the “risk” of getting a 100% ROI by investing in a project which we endorse, to create safe great UX for TON Payments and Wallet, instead of donating to us.
It is a very interesting model for investments, at least among trusted or known groups, and could be considered by other groups for adoption of similar models: since it promotes the use of TON and leveraging it.
In this way the donation is also good will on our part, and at worst, if you do not trust the destination, is still a donation, but as we expect, will result in a great return and then you’ll be free to donate to us again!
I have never been interested in crypto currency but I got interested in Ton so maybe there’s others out there like that and will start to use it too.
Thank you for the article. It reminds me our yesterday comment's conversation :)