Toncoin (TON) is currently outperforming all other cryptocurrencies in the top 100 by market capitalization on a weekly basis. With a price increase of around 50% within the last seven days, the token is the undisputed leader, followed by Stacks (+16%) and Bitcoin SV (+14%).
Over the last 24 hours, Toncoin is writing a whopping 21% gain. While it was trading at $1.86 on Sunday, the cryptocurrency was trading for $2.86 at press time.
In the last 24 hours alone, the trading volume has skyrocketed 83%, to $95.4 million. On the daily chart, TON is thus approaching its all-time high of $3.26.
A Reason For The Skyrocketing Price Of Toncoin
The reason for the recent pump of the Toncoin could be a feature of Telegram, which was announced last week.
Pavel Durov himself, the founder and head of the popular messenger, introduced a feature for Telegram that allows users to buy an anonymous phone number with the token and create an account with it.
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On December 07, the Telegram Messenger team launched the sale of virtual numbers with the +888 prefix, which exist as collectible on the The Open Network blockchain.
Users can log in to the Fragment platform with the TON blockchain-backed anonymous numbers and enjoy “ultimate privacy.”
Fragment is a decentralized auction platform founded by Durov. It sells the anonymous numbers compatible only with Telegram. Purchases are transacted on the platform using The Open Network Telegram token.
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These numbers can then be used to chat completely anonymously, but not to call or register with third-party services.
In addition, purchased numbers can be stored in a regular Toncoin wallet, transferred to other users, and offered for sale on marketplaces, just like any other NFT on the The Open Network blockchain.
+888 8 888 Is The Most Popular Telegram NumberSome numbers are so popular that they are auctioned on Fragment for over $100,000. The most popular number is +888 8 888, for which 38,290 TON, the equivalent of about $103,000, are currently being bid.
The auction runs for a little more than six days.
The Open Network is the brainchild of the Telegram development team, which was forced to abandon the blockchain solution due to pressure from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June 2020.
The SEC forced Telegram to pay $1.2 billion in raised funds back to investors and pay an $18.5 million fine to settle the SEC charges.
Since then, the TON ecosystem has evolved as a standalone ecosystem and regularly integrates innovations into the Telegram messenger.