Telegram, the popular messenger with 800 million monthly active users worldwide, is moving closer to adopting an ecosystem strategy reminiscent of WeChat’s super-app approach. Certain aspects of the ecosystem will be decentralized with the help of two heavyweights: Telegram’s crypto partner TON Foundation and WeChat’s owner Tencent.
Telegram has been working on a platform where third-party developers, from games to restaurants, can build mini-apps to communicate with users. In the words of Telegram itself: “Developers can use JavaScript to create infinitely flexible interfaces that can be launched directly in Telegram – and completely replace any website.”
To build out this super app platform, Telegram relies on a network of infrastructure partners from both the established tech world and the crypto space. Among them is The Open Network (TON) Foundation, which lays the blockchain foundation for Telegram but operates as an independent organization.
This week, TON Foundation announced that it has entered into a partnership with Tencent Cloud, which “has already successfully supported TON validators and plans to further expand its services to help meet TON’s high compute intensity and network bandwidth needs.” Validators are, in web3 jargon, participants who help authenticate transactions in a blockchain network.
“For example, Telegram games built on TON can benefit from Tencent Cloud’s enriched gaming solution and reference cases,” the announcement said. “For all projects built on TON, Tencent Cloud will offer, subject to approval, a special number of cloud credits and product discounts, made available through the Tencent Cloud Startup Program.”
Amid slowing growth in China’s technology industry, Tencent has stepped up its overseas expansion efforts. In recent months, cloud computing activity has surfaced at tech conventions, including crypto conferences. Tencent could potentially reap big rewards from the partnership if Telegram’s mini-app marketplace takes off like its Chinese counterpart.
WeChat pioneered the mini-app model in China and now powers millions of them with functions from payments, food delivery, e-commerce, ride-hailing to driver’s license renewal, to name a few. With a decentralized payment network, Telegram’s mini app ecosystem has the potential to reach an even broader spectrum of users around the world.
Learning from WeChat’s playbook
Even though Tencent Cloud won’t be TON’s exclusive cloud provider, according to TechCrunch’s knowledge, it appears the partners will benefit from their synergies.
“Given the similarities between WeChat mini-apps and Telegram mini-apps, we believe WeChat mini-app developers currently using Tencent’s cloud service will begin to build on TON,” Justin Hyun, head of growth at TON, told IPS Foundation, to TechCrunch.
It’s unclear how many developers building for WeChat’s Chinese users will be able to meet the diverse needs of Telegram’s international community. Mobile game creators may have the most transferable skills, as many of them already operate in foreign markets. Because Telegram is blocked in China, many developers will need to familiarize themselves with the app before they can come up with meaningful applications for the platform.
The developers would also have to learn the programming languages of blockchain apps, which could actually be an easier barrier to overcome than the process of understanding the economic incentives that make decentralized applications possible.
However, a partnership with Tencent could offer insights into enticing people to use a messenger for a whole host of other purposes. Importantly, payment functionality played a crucial role in WeChat’s early rise, as it fueled users’ habit of conducting daily transactions through the chat app.
While WeChat makes its internal payment system the default option and turns it into a cash cow for Tencent, Telegram has integrated with twenty payment solutions and charges no commission through the Bot Payments API. In addition to mature solutions such as Google Pay or Apple Pay, Telegram also recently welcomed a self-custodial wallet independently developed by The Open Platform (TOP) using the TON blockchain. Having a crypto wallet can potentially open up a wide range of transaction scenarios to regions where centralized online payments are not available.
It will be fascinating to see what lessons Telegram and TON learn from WeChat and how a mini-app platform with a decentralized twist unfolds.