Mass adoption through Telegram: TON Japan, supporting expansion in Japan - Interview with Aru Sasaki

First, please tell us your thoughts on the outlook for the Web 3.0 field in 2025.

Aru Sasaki (hereinafter, Sasaki): I think the integration of AI and blockchain technology will progress considerably. I think AI agents will manage smart contracts and optimize transactions. In fact, Telegram is also quite proactive about AI, and it is already being used for bot countermeasures and sticker searches.

I feel that this field is often covered in terms of scams and other damage, and I think that concerns about safety are a major part of what is preventing expansion. I think that if AI works well in this area, it will come closer to the "mass adoption" that people in the industry are talking about.

With the growth of "Telegram Mini Apps," I think last year was a breakthrough year for TON. What are TON's strengths and what is the reason for its support? Please tell us your thoughts, Mr. Sasaki.

Sasaki: TON's strength is, of course, its user base in Telegram. Until now, there has never been a chain that could directly approach approximately 1 billion users.

The Telegram Mini App that saw the most user growth last year was "Hamster Kombat". This app reached 300 million users in about half a year, and 99% of them joined by user invitation. This is largely due to the ease of invitations being made by the fact that it is deployed on the messaging app Telegram.