Ethena Labs, the issuer of the USDe synthetic dollar, has announced a partnership with The Open Network (TON) blockchain to introduce USDe to Telegram. The move will allow users on the social messaging app to send, save, and spend USDe on the platform.
Ethena touts the integration as one of its biggest, as it allows millions of people to access the yield-bearing stablecoin. Telegram has around one billion users, and Ethena is hoping to leverage this to expand the distribution of its products.
It said:
“Telegram has truly global distribution across its billion users, with presence in emerging economies in regions like Asia, Africa, and Latin America Users within these countries can now all benefit from a globally accessible dollar savings vehicle via Ethena’s USDe right within their Telegram app.”
The partnership with TON will enable Ethena to integrate USDe into all the major TON non-custodial wallets and the in-built custodial Telegram Wallet. USDe will be usable on all decentralized finance protocols on TON, allowing it to save for multiple DeFi purposes.
Telegram users can also stake their USDe and get Ton Staked USDe (tsUSDe) to earn rewards. Beyond the yield on staked USDe, holders of tsUSDE may also get up to 10% APY on their holdings up to 10,000 tsUSDE. However, these extra rewards are only for eligible users, and the firm has not made the criteria public.
Ethena’s partnership is in line with its roadmap
Meanwhile, the integration with Telegram is in line with the roadmap that the stablecoin issuer published in January. In the roadmap, the protocol’s founder, Guy Young, said it will offer a neobank experience through Telegram, and this will enable it to compete with Tether as a key protocol in the DeFi ecosystem.
It reiterated this potential in its latest announcement, noting that saving accounts through messaging apps is not a new development. According to Ethena Labs, digital money market funds from Alibaba and Tencent had $265 billion in deposits from 850 million users at their peak.
USDe believes it can replicate this success on Telegram when users who are fleeing inflationary local currencies can easily onboard and earn yield on their dollar savings.
It said:
“Our integration within TON provides a similar user experience to these funds with the added benefits of the superior APY profile of sUSDe compared to risk free rates.”
Beyond the savings, Ethena is also planning to enable direct payments integration for USDe with Apple Pay and debit cards. However, it intends to launch a TON debit card that will allow users to spend their tsUSDe rewards by the summer.
Ethena integration could boost TON
Meanwhile, the news of the partnership represents a positive development for the TON blockchain, which has seen its activity decline since mid-2024. The network was one of the best performers in the early part of last year due to the success of click-to-earn games, which attracted millions of users hoping to cash out from airdrops.
However, activity has declined after interest in the mini-games waned due to disappointing airdrop rewards. With that, the TON network has seen limited activity, with decentralized exchange (DEX) volume plunging and transactions also taking a hit.
According to Defillama, metrics such as chain fees and app revenue have tanked significantly, while total value locked (TVL) fell to $133.5 million from a peak of $775 million in July 2024.
The poor network performance has affected the native TON token, which is trading at $3.175 after dropping 42.28% year-to-date and down 61.5% from its peak price in June 2024. Interestingly, not even the positive news of the Ethena partnership and the general uptrend in the price of cryptocurrencies has impacted TON’s performance today, as it fell 2% in the last 24 hours.
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