Toncoin (TON) has fallen greater than 75% from its 2024 peak and over 65% from its 2025 excessive. Traders are blaming Telegram for promoting an quantity equal to roughly 10% of TON’s circulating market capitalization.
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Critics Blame Telegram for Toncoin’s Weak Value Efficiency
A latest Monetary Instances report acknowledged that Telegram offered greater than $450 million price of Toncoin in 2025. This disclosure sparked intense debate amongst analysts and the crypto neighborhood.
Issues shortly emerged concerning the motivation behind the sale. Critics argue that the first aim was to fund Telegram’s company operations moderately than straight assist the TON ecosystem. This has raised questions on long-term worth accrual for TON holders.
Toncoin (TON) worth efficiency over the previous 12 months. Supply: BeInCrypto
Some buyers declare that this promoting exercise has contributed to TON’s stagnant worth efficiency.
“Holy schmolly, no wonder TON is down 66%,” investor 0xGeeGee stated.
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Investor Mike Dudas in contrast the state of affairs to Pump.enjoyable, which spent $225 million shopping for again its personal token, to spotlight the distinction in technique.
The FT report additionally famous that round $500 million price of Telegram’s Russian bonds have been frozen beneath Western sanctions. This element means that Telegram nonetheless faces monetary publicity to Russia. The data has fueled investor doubts about Telegram’s financial independence.
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What Do Telegram’s Defenders Say?
In response to those considerations, Manuel Stotz, Govt Chairman of TON Technique Co (NASDAQ: TONX), pushed again towards the criticism.
He emphasised that Telegram stays dedicated to the TON blockchain. He clarified that each one TON offered is topic to a four-year vesting interval. The most important purchaser is TON Technique Co itself, a everlasting capital car designed to build up, maintain, and stake TON moderately than promote it available on the market.
In the meantime, CoinGecko reported that TON Technique is at the moment sitting on losses. The agency holds greater than 4% of TON’s whole provide, now valued at over $406 million, whereas it spent $713 million to build up the place.
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Supporting the protection, contributor DamX argued that Telegram’s gross sales don’t signify an exit however an effort to stability the ecosystem. He claimed that extreme TON accumulation by Telegram would hinder decentralization. Managed gross sales to long-term patrons with lockups and vesting are introduced as a more healthy different.
“Telegram sells TON because it has to, not because it wants out. Ads, revenue sharing, minting and upgrading usernames, gifts, Premium, Stars, and other in-app payments all settle through TON in one way or another. As Telegram scales, it naturally accumulates TON from these flows,” DamX stated.
Concerning the alleged monetary publicity to Russia, Pavel Durov denied the declare, stating that the knowledge was inaccurate.
Regardless of some FUD, Telegram has no dependance on Russian capital. Our latest $1.7B bond providing included precisely zero Russian buyers. Outdated bonds issued in 2021 have largely been repaid and pose no situation.
In any case, bondholders ≠ shareholders — and I’m the only shareholder.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) January 6, 2026
In the end, the credibility of those defenses could also be examined by whether or not TON’s worth recovers in 2026 and whether or not investor confidence returns to the altcoin.
