thedefiant.io
The $TON Application Chain, also known as TAC, has officially launched its mainnet on Tuesday, July 15, enabling Ethereum-compatible decentralized finance applications to operate within Telegram’s user ecosystem.
With TAC’s mainnet now live, popular Ethereum-based DeFi protocols — including Curve, Morpho, and Euler — are now available on Telegram via the chain, according to a press release shared with The Defiant.
Following the launch, TAC’s native token spiked sharply by more than 50% to $0.0248, though it has retraced to near $0.022 by press time, according to price data from CoinGecko.
Built on CosmosEVM, TAC is a Layer 1 chain that connects Ethereum dApps and developers with Telegram’s over 1 billion monthly active users through what the protocol’s documentation calls a “$TON-specific CrossChain Layer.”
TAC is also integrated with infrastructure partners such as LayerZero, RedStone, Blockscout, and Babylon, offering cross-chain messaging and oracle data feeds, according to the press release.
Seeking DeFi
Backed by blockchain development firm The Open Platform (TOP) — which earlier this month reached a $1 billion valuation following a 28.5 million Series A round — TAC claims that it has completed a liquidity campaign that brought in over $800 million in total value locked in collaboration with Turtle Club, a liquidity distribution protocol.
“TAC’s mainnet launch is a major step toward bringing DeFi to the mainstream. By connecting Ethereum dApps with the Telegram ecosystem, TAC unlocks real utility for over a billion users,” said Andrew Klebanov, managing partner at TOP Labs.
TAC’s launch comes six months after Telegram officially restricted blockchain-based Mini Apps to $TON-based projects. Under an agreement with the $TON Foundation announced in January, all Telegram Mini Apps using blockchain features must run on $TON and use the $TON Connect protocol, excluding support for other chains or wallet standards.
Commenting on its collaboration with the $TON Foundation, Telegram said at the time that it planned to tokenize digital assets “exclusively on $TON Blockchain within the platform, including emojis and stickers, among other digital assets, while also tokenizing limited edition gifts as NFTs.”