%Altcoin “The Open Network” (CRYPTO: $TON) has risen to become the tenth largest %Cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
The TON token has surged to a current price of $5.77 U.S., a 160% increase from $2.21 U.S. a year ago, according to data from %CoinDesk.
With $18.30 billion U.S. in circulation, TON is now the 10th biggest cryptocurrency after %Dogecoin (CRYPTO: $DOGE).
The price increase has accelerated in recent months on hopes that TON will soon be integrated with messenger service Telegram, bringing the cryptocurrency to the app’s 900 million users.
Telegram said last fall that TON would become its official Web3 infrastructure.
The prospect of an “everything app” that brings together payments and shopping with social media and messaging, similar to China’s WeChat, has long been highly coveted by analysts and investors.
TON currently has a crypto wallet within Telegram that counts more than six million monthly users, a number that is expected to grow in coming months.
Telegram Messenger created TON’s blockchain in 2018 and raised $1.70 billion U.S. by selling the associated cryptocurrency.
TON refers to itself as a decentralized open-source codebase, with no single controlling authority. There’s a non-profit foundation behind TON based in Zug, Switzerland.