Forgage

TON (Telegram's blockchain, token GRAM) is a bigger value extractor from crypto than Pumpfun. Why? Imagine a $5.8 billion L1 with 364 validators whose only meaningful application is Fragment, an NFT marketplace. In October, the entire network generated just $71K in fees. Half was burned, and the other half went to validators. That's less than $100 per validator for the whole month. Meanwhile, TON prints 17.5 million new tokens every month, worth $20 million at today's price ($142 million at ATH). $20M printed. $71K earned. Every month. Why does this blockchain even need to exist? Years ago, the Durov brothers launched it, farmed a massive pile of tokens, switched to PoS, locked up a huge chunk of supply through the TON Believers Fund, and started pumping the Telegram integration narrative. They sold people the dream of 1 billion onchain users. But reality looks very different. The ecosystem is practically dead. Barely any meaningful activity, very few integrations. And TON isn't neutral infrastructure. It's Durov's chain and always will be. Everything rests on one hope: Durov will eventually make TON the native token of Telegram. That's basically its only shot at success. They could have simply launched a stablecoin and a frontend giving Telegram users access to crypto. Instead, they chose the easier path: launch an L1 and print 4% more tokens every year. That's 2.5x the supply by 2050. So why is this value extraction? Durov builds social networks. First VK, now Telegram. He has nothing to do with building crypto infrastructure. He simply launched an L1 and now the network prints tokens out of thin air, unloading inflation onto investors at a multibillion-dollar valuation. And many of those investors aren't even crypto natives. They just blindly believe in Pavel Durov. Has any of this actually created value for the crypto industry? You decide.