Toncoin price has done well this year as it jumped by over 140%, outperforming other large cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Solana, and Ethereum, which have risen by less than 60%.
It has also risen by almost 1,300% since its inception in 2021, bringing its market cap to over $14 billion.
TON’s surge has made it the 10th biggest cryptocurrency, overtaking other top coins like Cardano, Tron, Avalanche, Chainlink, and Polkadot.
Recently, however, TON has underperformed the market as it dropped by 30% from its highest point this year. This decline is likely because of the recent arrest of Pavel Durov, its founder, in France.
TON is one of the fastest-growing blockchains
TON Blockchain is a large network that was launched by Telegram to provide an alternative to other popular networks like Avalanche, Ethereum, and Cardano.
It uses the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that makes it possible to process millions of transactions per second.
According to its white paper, the other notable features are its Turing-complete smart contracts, multi-currency value transfer, and support for on-chain and off-chain payment networks.
TON’s technology can be used to run all types of decentralized applications (dApps) like those in finance, gaming, and non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Most importantly, its technology is notable because it can easily be integrated with Telegram, the social media platform used by millions of people globally.
In the past few months, the network has become highly popular among developers in the gaming and finance industries.
The most notable growth area has been in the tap-to-earn and play-to-earn industries. In tap-to-earn, users earn tokens by doing simple tasks like following the developer’s social media networks and just tapping a button.
Hamster Kombat, the most popular tap-to-earn game in the network, has over 300 million users. It’s YouTube page broke records when it accumulated 37 million subscribers in less than five months.
In gaming, users play simple games, accumulate tokens, and then convert them into fiat currencies when an airdrop is launched. In some instances, networks like Hamster Kombat, Catizen, and Pixelverse have created millionaires.
TON has also become a big name in the decentralized finance industry, where its dApps have a total value locked (TVL) of over $431 million and stablecoins worth $668 million.
Further data shows that TON is one of the biggest players in the decentralized exchange (DEX). According to DeFi Llama, the network handled transactions worth over $168 million in the seven days to Sep. 29.
All these metrics have pushed its on-chain activity to a record high. For example, the number of on-chain activated wallets has risen to over 20.6 million while the number of active monthly wallets has soared to 10.8 million.
Could TON flip Solana?
Some analysts believe that by harnessing social media – in terms of Telegram, fast speeds, and low transaction costs, TON may pass Solana in the long term.
Doing this will not be easy because of Solana’s size and its ecosystem. For one, Toncoin has a market cap of over $14.7 billion while Solana is valued at $73 billion. This means that it needs to rise by almost 400% to close the gap.
Solana also has more developers building in its ecosystem. It has 164 dApps in the DeFi industry while TON has 35. Its DeFi ecosystem has a total value locked (TVL) of over $5.4 billion compared to TON’s $430 million, meaning that its assets need to rise by over 1,155%.
Solana has also become a dominant player in other areas that TON is not presently in like Decentralized Public Infrastructure Network (DePIN) and meme coins. Its meme coins like Dogwifhat, Popcat, Bonk and Cat in a dogs world have a market cap of over $8 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Therefore, the odds of TON flipping Solana are a bit limited. However, what is clear, is that the network will continue growing its market share in both crypto rankings and in other industries like gaming and DeFi.
Toncoin price prediction in October
TON token jumped and peaked at $8.25 and then retreated to the key support at $4.44 in September.
On the daily chart, the token has found support at $4.68, where it failed to drop below in May, August, and September. This was a notable level since it was along the 50% Fibonacci Retracement point.
Toncoin has bounced back and flipped the 50-day and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMA). It has also avoided forming the death cross pattern that would have led to a big drop.
TON has also formed a small bullish flag candlestick pattern. Therefore, the token will likely have a bullish breakout in October, which is historically a good month in the crypto industry. If this happens, the next point to watch will be at $7.28, its highest point on August 13.
Summary
TON Blockchain has become one of the fastest-growing networks in the crypto industry and is seeing robust performance in areas like DeFi and gaming. In particular, it has become the most active blockchain for the gaming industry.
The token will likely bounce back in October since it has formed a bullish flag candlestick pattern and moved above the 200-day and 50-day moving averages. Therefore, the token may bounce back by 25% from the current level.
However, the odds of TON passing Solana in the near term are relatively limited because of the latter’s size.
Nevertheless, Ton coin remains an excellent crypto to watch in 2024.
