TON-Based Protocol Affluent Wants to Make Telegram a Financial Super App

A TON-based money market protocol wants to make messaging platform Telegram a super app for decentralized finance (DeFi).

Affluent, which will be accessed as a mini app within Telegram, has debuted as a kind of “smart bank for crypto,” serving as a one-stop hub, providing lending pools and yield strategies, according to an emailed announcement on Monday.

One of Affluent’s co-founders is Justin Hyun, former director of the TON Foundation, which was formed to continue the development of the network when it was abandoned by Telegram in 2020.

Along with his colleague Hyung Lee, co-founder of DeFi research and development project B-Harvest, Hyun said in the announcement that Affluent aims to make Telegram a “financial super app, using crypto to provide everyday savings to retail users and sticky liquidity for institutions.”

A super app is a mobile or web application that offers multiple services on one platform, such as Grab or Uber. In the financial world, Tencent’s WeChat is a notable example of an app that offers instant messaging, a digital wallet, mobile payments, loans, credit scoring and more.

One of the most commonly cited impediments to wider DeFi adoption is the oft-uneven user experience. Developers may, therefore, attempt to tackle this by centering products within apps that they know users can already easily navigate, like Telegram.

During its development, overseen by the Foundation, Telegram kept TON at arm’s length, stressing that it was a separate entity. However, in September 2023, Telegram formally endorsed TON as its blockchain of choice for Web3 infrastructure.