Telegram's mini-app ecosystem takes on WeChat

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Telegram's mini-app ecosystem takes on WeChat

The messaging app Telegram, which has 800 million monthly users globally, is inching closer to adopting an ecosystem strategy that is reminiscent of WeChat's super app approach. Telegram's digital partner, TON Foundation, and WeChat's owner Tencent, will be decentralized with help from two powerful figures: Telegram's crypto partner TON Foundation and WeChat's owner Tencent.

Telegram has a network of infrastructure partners from both the tech world and the crypto world, which is crucial in enabling the creation of this super app platform. Telegram's blockchain foundation, the Open Network Foundation, is part of the platform, but operates as an independent organization.

TON Foundation has announced it's forged a partnership with Tencent Cloud, which has already successfully supported TON validators and plans to expand its services further to help meet TON's high compute intensity and network bandwidth needs. Validators, in web3 lingo, are participants that assist in verifying transactions in a blockchain network.

The tech sector is still slowing, and Tencent has been adding to its overseas expansion efforts, despite the slowdown in China's tech industry. Crypto conferences, among other tech events, have seen a surge in cloud computing businesses, which have been booming in recent times. Tencent may be able to reap substantial benefits from the partnership if Telegram's mini-app marketplace succeeds as its Chinese equivalent.

WeChat has revolutionized the mini app industry in China and now powers millions of them, providing services such as payments, food delivery, e-commerce, and ride-hailing, among others. With a decentralized payments network, Telegram's mini-app ecosystem has the capacity to reach a wider range of users across the globe.

's cloud service will begin to build on TON,' said Justin Hyun, head of growth at TON Foundation.

In fact, it's uncertain how many developers building for WeChat's China users are able to catch the various needs of Telegram's international community. Mobile game creators might have the most transferrable skills, given that many of them are already marketing in overseas markets. If Telegram is banned in China, many developers will need to familiarize themselves with the app before they can develop meaningful applications for the platform.

The developers also need to learn the programming languages of blockchain apps, which may actually be an easier barrier to overcome than the process of understanding the economic incentives that facilitate decentralized applications.

However, a cooperation with Tencent could offer insights into enticeping people to use a messenger for a variety of other purposes. The payment feature played a big role in WeChat's early rise, as it instilled a habit among users to make daily transactions through the chat app.

Telegram has integrated with 20 payment solutions and takes no commission through its Bot Payments API, which WeChat makes its in-house payments system the default option and transformed it into a cash cow for Tencent. Telegram has recently welcomed a self-custodial wallet that is independently developed by The Open Platform using the TON blockchain, which is similar to Google Pay and Apple Pay. Crypto wallets can bring a variety of transaction options to regions where centralized online payments are not available.

It will be fascinating to witness what lessons Telegram and TON take from WeChat and how a mini-app platform with a decentralized twist unfolds.