Internet Enjoyer @telegram @ton_blockchain
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Joined December 2021
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How to build on Telegram and TON successfully / Vol. II
For 5 years I've been a builder on Telegram and TON. For 10 years I've been a Telegram power user, and for longer a user of Pavel Durov's products. I've learned a lot of lessons while building big and small projects, interacting with different people and anchoring myself to a system of beliefs that was shaped by my own path.
tl;dr:
- Now is the best time to build more or less venture projects on Telegram and TON
- There is no 'walled garden' on Telegram, no gateway to people's or builders' hearts
- Telegram is a more predictable environment for entrepreneurs than back in 2023
- The single way to build big on Telegram and get sincere exponential growth — forge your best beliefs and follow them.
- Projects and people fail on Telegram because they're doing the opposite of the point above — you can't start speaking with people in beliefs language and continue with some fantasy business model that you think is gonna work because of industry references
This is the next part of my article from 2023: xitter.cf/metaverserk/status/167….
1. The best (yet) time to build on TON
The vacuum of responsibility is closed — TON Foundation has been reorganized, and Telegram publicly replaced them as the pushing power behind TON. This was a flaw for a few years in communication with stakeholders (partners, investors, communities).
Now Pavel @Durov publicly supports TON, announced the MTONGA concept, and this creates a time-bound opportunity to find a new intersection for the next >50-100-150M user projects.
The previous intersection was during my work at @notcoin in 2024 — unique circumstances: a market not yet overwhelmed with AI development, no easy monetisation stack on Telegram, accumulated critical mass of power users and ideas on Telegram since 2013. At that moment, the curtains slowly started opening for builders to make Telegram sound loudly all over the Internet — and we've done it — Notcoin (35M), Hamster Kombat (150M) and etc., with less cool iterations later because of the reason in the tl;dr section above.
Now the next intersection of multiple factors forms up. The next wave of opportunities to build fair and get a lot of money. Thank me later.
2. No walled garden
You need no company that's selling you exclusive access on Telegram. This is the motto, moat and philosophy. Like really, that's the point why builders come to Telegram — it's the simplest way to start building, get your product used, evaluated and etc. Another best place is the Internet itself. Drop any contacts that impress upon you that you can't do something without them.
Telegram Bot API is free, stickers are free, emoji are free, DMs of other builders are sometimes free, a lot of TON infrastructure services can be used to start for free.
You can do perfect things personally. For sure, Telegram itself is an autonomous team and you can't easily get a Durov mention, a repost on Telegram or some other thing. But that approach is the point why this messenger exists and why such specific builders with that specific DNA come here and make magic.
Definitely, there are people who have been building on Telegram for a long time, who know the culture and workarounds to accelerate. They are everywhere and they are easy to find. Probably, they won't look for you until you declare your project values through communication or just let your products speak for themselves.
3. 2023 vs 2026
Now Telegram has a monetisation stack, now you can benchmark your business models against competitors' metrics, get rich onchain data and understand your addressable and obtainable markets. This was missing 3 years ago.
Then were missing products making millions just on having good gameplay or people having fun. Then were missing products that could make a few dozen million by overpromising incentives to users or abusing Telegram's reputation (read again the 2nd point — there is no walled garden). Then was missing a $3B crypto runner (Notcoin), that became listed on Binance before TON. Now you can launch your product and expect to break even with your burn rate in the near future without running Ponzi schemes.
The paradigm has shifted: you can open Telegram, study failures of projects from 2024 to 2026, and reshape your GTM strategy with them to enter the market successfully. Again, a quick digest on how not to fail: don't follow false authorities, remember your own unique path and will, value users' attention and experience.
4. On the product side — why it's the best time to build
Telegram Bot API evolved like daaamn — 10? 20? 50? or more updates. Fullscreen mode, payment gateways, TON integration exclusivity, stream inside messages, guest mode, homescreen shortcut creation, generation of stories, suggestion of emoji status, access to some on-device API thing: accelerator, location etc. A lot of products added a Telegram auth module, and recently Telegram allowed authentication not only for web apps, but also for native mobile apps.
Not to mention the growth of the job market on Telegram, expertise and scaled community. I mean, CPM to attract users in 2022 was ridiculous — dozens of dollars, now it's a few or cents.
Building on Telegram and TON with this sum of things became x10 easier. More people perceive this environment as wider than just a messenger, AI tools allow teams to iterate faster when developing on Telegram and TON (try Acton). The AI narrative plays in favor of Telegram — this is really a convenient and mature place to interact with agents and AI products, to collect and analyze data, to monetize and scale your products to millions of users.
I urge you to believe in yourself, don't look for false authorities, start fair on Telegram, and the right people, opportunities and money will stick to you. Stay hungry, stay foolish :)
How you can use Toncoin today / Vol. I
tl;dr:
- Engage & appreciate your audience
- Explore use cases of TON blockchain technologies
- Pay for a wide range of services with $TON
- The easiest way to transfer and exchange crypto to your grandma
- Tokenize and make fundraising for your business
- All other benefits of the popular blockchain
1. Engage & appreciate your audience
With the @donate bot, you can connect with your users through channels offering exclusive content accessible via Toncoin payments.
Using cheques via @wallet, @CryptoBot, or @tonRocketBot, you can easily distribute Toncoin or other tokens on the TON blockchain to your audience. Whether it's for individuals or a larger group of users (even up to 10k or 100k users), multi-use cheques make it simple.
Furthermore, you have the option to specify additional conditions. For instance, a cheque can be activated solely by the channel's subscribers, chat participants, or Telegram Premium users. You can add a password and require a code word, quiz, or any other method you prefer to ensure that only relevant users receive tokens.
2. Use all benefits of TON blockchain
Enjoy the incredibly low fees, supersonic transaction processing speed, and, as @durov once stated, the enhanced security provided by bulletproof smart contracts.
So I believe that you can get on TON blockchain the slightest experience of crypto transferring, minting NFT, use cases of smart contract technology, and just full use of the blockchain technologies.
It's still early, and you can be among the first to take advantage of it
3. Evolution of services in Telegram bots
The number of projects integrating TON is rapidly increasing. Not long ago, @open_builders published an ecosystem landscape illustration featuring only a fraction of the most popular projects on TON. Today, you can pay to store files (as a cloud drive), host sites via TON Proxy on .ton domains, send bills with services like @TheTonpay, explore gambling services, pay for eSim through @mobile bot, and much more.
4. Probably, one of the easiest ways to use crypto
For example, the @wallet bot allows you to send or receive crypto directly within Telegram without the need to create wallets, remember seed phrases, or deal with other obstacles. Send crypto to your real-life friends, contacts, and colleagues hassle-free.
Only a few projects offer a similar experience, and none of them provide access to an audience of 700M users.
5. Adoption #1
By the way, $TON remains among the top cryptocurrencies, with listings on numerous exchanges, cross-chain bridges, and ecosystem projects with diverse use cases, similar to other mainstream cryptocurrencies.
Today a lot of platforms and funds are ready to help projects in their start, such as a @ton_starter launchpad, or the @FirstStageLabs, @toncoinfund, and @DWFLabs funds.
Expect Vol. 2 to arrive soon with an extensive list of new features 😃
Noah retweeted
The video of the first ever Flame talk is released. Berlin, Oct 2, 2026. youtu.be/4g2M_WghD4s?is=POc_…
good to see that sometimes full commitment actually pays off
In 2018 I tried to cut my Revolut salary to £0.
I’d just been promoted to VP. We’d just closed Series C. 3 years in, I had full conviction Revolut would become a $1T company. I didn’t want cash. I wanted shares.
My general counsel wouldn’t let me go below minimum wage. It was against the law. So I took minimum wage and the rest in equity.
I had ~£20k in the bank from university side hustles. I built a simple runway model and I had about two years before I went broke. LFG.
So I rented a 300 sq ft studio five minutes from the office and ate free company food to keep costs down.
Today those shares are worth $10M+.
networking on ton shifted from «oh wow a new bro/sis here» to «a lot in my contacts but much more to know»
Noah retweeted
We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with intelligence, so we created Dessa, the most authentic full-duplex speech model ever built. Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence.
block.xyz/dessa
Noah retweeted
BREAKING: Actor Noah Wyle emerges as the clear favorite to be People's 2026 Sexiest Man Alive, edging Clavicular & more.
79% chance.
🔗 polymarket.com/r/People2026
Noah retweeted
HOLY SHIT FORBES REALLY DON’T MISS 😭
LUCA NETZ WAS TEACHING PEOPLE HOW TO MANIPULATE CUSTOMERS AND MAKE MONEY IN HIS $1,700 COURSE
Footage from a training program previously sold for $1,700 by Luca Netz, the owner of Pudgy Penguins, reveals highly questionable marketing practices and raises serious concerns about the methods he was teaching.
Throughout the course, Luca explains how ordinary products can be sold at inflated prices by exploiting human psychology, creating artificial perceptions of trust, and influencing consumers' purchasing decisions.
1. SELLING PRODUCTS UNDER THE PRETEXT OF SAVING KOALAS
One of the strategies Luca discusses in his course involves purchasing bracelets and necklaces from Chinese suppliers at extremely low prices and reselling them for approximately five times their original cost.
However, the most concerning aspect is not the profit margin itself, but the marketing strategy used to sell these products.
The accessories were marketed as products that would help rescue and protect endangered koalas affected by wildfires in Australia.
Customers were told that a portion of the profits from every purchase would be donated toward rescuing and protecting these animals.
In other words, people's compassion for animals and their genuine desire to help were placed at the center of a commercial sales strategy.
This raises several important questions. How much revenue did this campaign generate? How much of that money was actually donated? Which organizations received those donations, and where is the documentation proving that the donations took place?
2. CREATING AN ARTIFICIAL PERCEPTION OF LUXURY AROUND ORDINARY PRODUCTS
In another section of the course, Luca explains how he made an ordinary product sourced from China appear significantly more valuable than it actually was.
To accomplish this, he added expensive products from internationally recognized luxury brands to his website.
He then marked those products as sold out, leaving only his own product available for purchase.
This strategy was designed to make visitors believe they were shopping from a prestigious luxury brand.
A product that was relatively inexpensive to source was presented alongside high end brands to artificially increase its perceived value.
The objective was not simply to promote a product, but to deliberately influence how consumers perceived its worth.
3. CREATING FAKE TRUST THROUGH PURCHASED FOLLOWERS, LIKES, AND COMMENTS
One of the most revealing parts of Luca's course involves his explanations of how to manufacture social media popularity.
Luca discusses how his friends attempted similar sales strategies but failed to achieve the same results.
When explaining why they were unsuccessful, he suggests that they had not put enough effort into developing their Instagram accounts, purchasing likes, and faking various aspects of their online presence.
The course also demonstrates where students can purchase fake followers, likes, and comments.
The purpose of these methods is to create an artificial impression of popularity and credibility among potential customers who encounter the brand for the first time.
Consumers may naturally assume that a brand with thousands of followers and numerous positive comments is trustworthy.
However, when those interactions are purchased rather than earned organically, the trust influencing their purchasing decisions is based on manufactured social proof rather than genuine customer experiences.
4. TEACHING THESE METHODS TO THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE
Perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of this situation is that Luca was not merely discussing these strategies in relation to his own businesses.
He was teaching them to students as part of a $1,700 training program.
The methods described in the course included exploiting people's desire to support charitable causes, manufacturing an artificial perception of luxury around ordinary products, and creating credibility through purchased social media engagement.
Teaching these practices to a large audience raises concerns that extend far beyond a single brand or business.
It potentially encourages the widespread use of deceptive marketing techniques that could influence purchasing decisions across numerous online stores.
5. THE LINE BETWEEN MARKETING AND DECEIVING CONSUMERS
Purchasing inexpensive products from China and reselling them at a substantial profit is not inherently fraudulent.
However, manufacturing popularity through purchased followers, creating artificial prestige around products, and leveraging people's compassion to drive sales raise serious ethical concerns.
When charitable causes are involved, transparency becomes even more important.
Customers deserve to know whether the donations promised to them were actually made and whether the charitable claims used to influence their purchasing decisions were legitimate.
The methods described in Luca Netz's course provide a striking example of how consumer trust can be turned into a commercial tool.
The fundamental question is simple:
If a brand's credibility is built not on genuine customer satisfaction, but on purchased followers, fake engagement, manufactured luxury perceptions, and marketing strategies that exploit people's compassion, can we really call that successful entrepreneurship?
The methods Luca discusses in his own training materials raise important questions about the marketing practices behind certain business success stories.
They also serve as a reminder that what is presented as entrepreneurial success may sometimes deserve much closer scrutiny.
So, let me ask you this: Do you still trust this guy? If your answer is yes, then it's time to take a hard look at yourself.
Source: docs.google.com/document/d/1…
Noah retweeted
Still haven't activated your Gram Wallet? 👀
In @gramnewsorg_bot people open wallets for each other — 1,000+ wallets activated in 3 days, by 100 strangers helping strangers.
Drop your Telegram @ below 👇 we'll get you in.
Noah retweeted
a closer look at the technology behind Gram Wallet by @telegram. happy to have contributed to building it
Noah retweeted
Do you have a new wallet on Telegram? We can help!
We've gathered together every possible way to get a wallet:
• Publish a request and another user will help you for free
• Help other users and earn points for free
• Get 0.1 GRAM from us for free to display your wallet on Telegram
There are only 7,000 users at the moment, and it's invite-only. Join us early. We just want to help develop Telegram.
