TON Network Expects Outages Amid Airdrops for Telegram Users

The Open Network (TON) blockchain network, a layer-1 integrated with Telegram, is bracing for potential service disruptions during the distribution of airdrops to “hundreds of millions” of eligible users this month.

In a statement on September 10, TON warned that airdrops of popular Telegram games Hamster Kombat and Catizen could cause network instability. Hamster Kombat claims to have over 300 million users. Meanwhile, Catizen claims to have 25 million players. However, critics have raised the possibility that these numbers are inflated by bot activity, particularly airdrop hunters.

The network has faced issues in recent times. During the DOGS airdrop, TON suffered outages lasting seven hours. An estimated 17 million of the 53 million DOGS users redeemed tokens during the two-week distribution period. This caused the number of daily transactions and users on the network to increase significantly, reaching peaks of 1.1 million users and 14.4 million transactions.

TON warns of possible network disruptions

As TON reported, the Catizen and Hamster Kombat airdrops in September are expected to be even bigger. These events could attract tens or even hundreds of millions of new users to the blockchain. The network predicts that this increased activity could bring more technical pressures and other unforeseen issues.

In 2024, TON has emerged as one of the fastest-growing blockchains, driven by the mass adoption of Telegram’s web3 applets, which boasts over 900 million monthly active users.

Since the start of the year, the total value locked (TVL) in TON has grown by 817.5% to reach $695.2 million, according to data from DeFi Llama. However, this is down from its peak of $1.13 billion in July.

Meanwhile, the price of Toncoin, the network’s native cryptocurrency, has seen a 3.9% increase in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.

The popularity of Telegram gadgets has also attracted the attention of other projects in the web3 ecosystem. On September 11, the team behind PancakeSwap, the largest decentralized exchange on the BNB Chain, launched the Prediction Telegram Bot gadget in beta.

This app allows Telegram users to make predictions about BNB price movements in five-minute intervals.

PancakeSwap had already launched the web version of Prediction in June, generating weekly volume between $3.1 million and $5.3 million since then. However, last week, volume hit an all-time low of $3.16 million.