One might think that with 1 billion users, Telegram and its TON cryptocurrency would take over the world. However, like many other cryptocurrencies, the winter winds of cryptocurrencies seem to be blowing strongly, and TON has not performed well over the past year.
Blockchain has lost nearly $700 million in TVL since its peak in 2024. So is TON dead or is the biggest comeback yet to come?
Tragedy of Toncoin
According to data aggregator CoinGecko, the price of TON has fallen by 67% over the past year. That’s quite a cooldown for TON.
Previously, Telegram-based meme coins such as Notcoin and Hamster Kombat drove Toncoin to an all-time high of over $8 in June 2024.
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Although the price of TON is not as good as the salad days of 2024, there is still progress in terms of developments within the Telegram ecosystem.
Due to the favorable environment in the United States, Telegram wallets became accessible to Americans in July 2025.
In November 2025, Coinbase finally listed TON on its exchange, perhaps a nod to the messaging app’s roughly 100 million users in the United States.
As 2026 begins, Telegram brings AI and TON to the future.
Massive DAT trends
A sign of TON’s maturity is that there are now several related digital asset treasuries (DATs) operating around the ecosystem. The best known is TON Strategy (NASDAQ: TONX), run by Manuel Stotts.
But there’s also AlphaTON (NASDAQ: ATON). We look forward to rebranding from Portage Biotech in September 2025 and spearheading the evolution of TON-AI.
At the heart of this is Cocoon AI, a decentralized protocol announced by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in late 2025.
AlphaTON is helping scale its decentralized AI network by securing a $46 million contract for NVIDIA GPUs to compete with centralized players such as OpenAI and xAI.
“From my perspective, if you look at the world’s biggest super apps, most of them have their own AI,” AlphaTON CEO Brittany Kaiser told BeInCrypto.
The key difference between many centralized AI players and decentralized AI players backed by cryptocurrencies is the self-sustaining economy they create.
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Organizations like AlphaTON provide computing services to developers who want to build Cocoon AI-based apps within Telegram.
However, in a new development, to access Cocoon AI, developers will have to pay a TON service fee. This is similar to Bittensor-style economics, where users have to pay for the service with Bittensor native TAO tokens, while miners provide decentralized AI computing power.
Decentralized AI economy
Building economic value for a cryptocurrency like TON by increasing demand can cause the price to rise. This is something AlphaTON and strategic advisor Anthony Scaramucci, founder of Skybridge Capital, told BeInCrypto that was appealing.
Scaramucci, who served as White House communications director for 10 days during the first Trump administration and, as he likes to say, “seconds, actually 954,000 seconds,” is enthusiastic about various crypto efforts and undeterred by the market downturn.
Bitcoin price performance over the past year. Source: CoinGecko
“Frankly, October 10th marked a dark winter for all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin,” Scaramucci told BeInCrypto.
His company Skybridge was a major backer of TON even before the recent turmoil in cryptocurrencies.
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“I believe in a multi-chain society and the role of multi-chains,” said Mooch, who believes he can strategically support AlphaTON’s efforts. “I signed on as a strategic advisor. I provide marketing support. I also provide networking.”
AlphaTON CEO Kaiser envisions a bright future for the TON-Telegram-AI synergy, stating that custodial Telegram wallets are a major driver of the next-generation economy and can all exist within the app.
“Telegram has over 1 billion monthly active users and Wallet has over 200 million users,” Kaiser noted.
Super app AI
When you think about real-world applications for consumer artificial intelligence products, most of them exist within existing services, with the exception of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Google’s Gemini is already embedded within the company’s search products, XAI powers X’s Grok, and MetaAI works within Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
“The way I look at it, if you look at the world’s biggest super apps, most of them have their own AI,” Kaiser said.
Telegram’s Cocoon AI started with minimal buzz, but is likely to grow over time within Telegram’s “super app” platform. This term is now commonly used for multifunctional apps. Like Telegram.
According to Kiger, that’s AlphaTON’s game.
“We raised our first PIPE to buy TON of treasury. TON of treasury is staking and validating and earning TON of returns,” she said.
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AI as an industry is expected to grow to more than $900 billion in 2026, according to data collection firm AI Statistics.
“Now being able to earn TON by providing GPUs to run AI is another way to earn TON. And you can also stake that revenue and earn TON in return.” So AlphaTON is essentially TON-on-TON-on-TON.
Keep everything rosy with AI
Cryptocurrency clearly demands companies that can generate revenue in parallel with the emergence of AI. As a public entity, DAT must make money to survive. As a result, many DATs are diversifying their holdings into other business areas, like AlphaTON’s AI efforts.
The boom in AI and “agents” who can perform tasks on behalf of people while using cryptocurrencies like TON is attracting some investors who are looking beyond the currency market downturn and toward a brighter future.
“I think this is a huge opportunity. There are certainly a lot of third-party app developers on Telegram who are developing new DeFi products, where AI agents make and execute financial transactions within the app,” Kaiser added.
Scaramucci also believes he can contribute to this diversification.
“Hopefully there will be some investments made here that will eventually be reflected in the AlphaTON vehicle that we will be responsible for,” he told BeInCrypto.
It’s all cyclical for many investors who take a longer-term view than many others. Mr. Scaramucci sees AlphaTON as a diversified investor in Telegram and the TON ecosystem, and believes that it can ultimately return TON to its glory days in 2024.
“My sense is that we’re going to start off with a plan and then over the next 24 to 36 months we’ll have a pretty solid company with strong net operating income and significant growth,” Scaramucci added.
