Dialogue with the new CEO of TON Foundation: How can TON tear off the niche label of blockchain?
Author: jk, Odaily Planet Daily
Where is the future of blockchain towards mass adoption? TON+Telegram provides the most realistic answer.
Odaily Planet Daily recently conducted an exclusive interview with Max Crown, the new CEO of TON Foundation. As a veteran in the financial technology and regulatory fields, the CEO who just took office in April opened up his heart this time, not only sharing TON's core blueprint for challenging the large-scale application of Web3, but also for the first time deeply analyzing its integration strategy and future vision with the super ecosystem of Telegram.
1. Personal Journey and Leadership
Odaily: What made you join TON, and what excites you most about this role?
Max Crown: What attracted me to join TON is that it can really bring the next billion users into the crypto world - not just talk, but can actually do it. I have been working in the field of financial technology and regulation for many years, and I have increasingly found a problem: many blockchain platforms are very powerful, but they are not suitable for ordinary people. TON is different. It is combined with Telegram, which means that we can bring blockchain technology into people's daily lives on a large scale. This is really disruptive - being able to lead this kind of change and solve real problems is what excites me the most.
Odaily: What is the long-term vision of TON under your leadership?
Max Crown: My idea is actually very simple: let everyone use blockchain every day, but they don’t even know they are using it. Whether it’s transferring money, using various digital services, or playing games, it should be natural. Our ultimate goal is to make TON the underlying infrastructure for the next generation of Internet applications - secure, decentralized, and accessible to everyone.
Odaily: What do you think is the most difficult challenge the foundation has faced since you joined?
Max Crown: The biggest challenge is how to coordinate the two sides: on one side is the decentralized open source developer community, and on the other side is a more centralized and faster-paced platform like Telegram. But this conflict actually brings opportunities - it forces us to improve the way we coordinate, make tools like TON Connect more useful, and make the experience smoother for developers and users.
2. Product and Ecosystem Vision
Odaily: What excites you most about TON/Telegram now and in the future?
Max Crown: Scale. It’s not often that you get the opportunity to work on an infrastructure that’s natively integrated with billion-user applications. Telegram gives TON the ability to reach users instantly, which is a complete game changer. I’m particularly excited about how seamless blockchain applications have become — from Mini Apps to Toncoin payments — it’s now much easier to bring ordinary users who don’t understand cryptocurrency into the Web3 world.
Odaily: What do you think the "super app" version of Telegram + TON will look like in a few years?
Max Crown: Imagine a world where you don't need to download 10 apps to manage your finances, buy digital assets, or access decentralized services. It's all in Telegram. You can book services, tip creators, trade assets, play games, and transfer money in a single chat thread. That's the vision, and I think we're closer to this reality than people realize.
Odaily: What are some of the most important upcoming milestones?
Max Crown: Some key focus areas include expanding the Mini Apps ecosystem, increasing developer incentives, improving the user experience of TON Connect, and launching new work chains to improve scalability. Of course, we are preparing for a major push in the United States.
3. Strategic positioning and growth
Odaily: Standing in June 2025, how do you answer the question: "What is the difference between TON and other layer 1 blockchains?"
Max Crown: TON isn’t just competing to be the best blockchain for crypto-native users; we’re building it to serve everyday users on a global scale. It’s a fundamentally different approach. Most blockchains focus on capturing the existing Web3 audience. We focus on creating a new audience by embedding the blockchain directly into Telegram, which is already used by over a billion people. It’s not just about scale: it’s a combination of distribution, onboarding, and user experience.
Odaily: What are the foundation’s main strategic priorities at the moment?
Max Crown: Three things: scale, simplify, and support. We are scaling infrastructure to match our growth, simplifying onboarding with TON Connect and Telegram Wallet, and expanding developer support through grants, documentation, and ecosystem projects. We want to make it easier for people to build and easier for users to adopt.
Odaily: Are there any plans to retain the wave of popularity brought by Mini-app last year?
Max Crown: Motivation comes from results. We have grown from 4 million users to over 40 million users. Now it’s time to turn this excitement into sustainable engagement. This means deepening Telegram integrations, bringing real-world use cases to market, and maintaining the pace of innovation — not only in technology but also in user experience.
4. Telegram Mini-App Ecosystem
Odaily: What have you learned from the Telegram mini-app craze?
Max Crown: The biggest realization is that distribution channels are more important than complex functions. Mini Apps show us that when developers can directly reach a large number of users - and users can get started without having to deal with various complex operations - the speed of popularization will be very fast. This is why many TON-based applications have developed faster than traditional Web3 applications.
Odaily: How will Toncoin’s deep integration with Telegram promote its popularity?
Max Crown: The impact will be huge. When users can earn and spend Toncoin as easily as other digital currencies - and in applications they already trust - all barriers will be gone. Whether it is tipping creators or paying for services, Toncoin will become part of daily interactions rather than an independent financial tool.
5. Regulation and Compliance
Odaily: How do you deal with regulation and compliance globally?
Max Crown: The ideas I had when I was at MoonPay are still applicable now - don't wait for regulation to catch up, take the initiative. This means being transparent, supporting compliance tools, and maintaining open communication with regulators. Especially in the United States, the new government has a friendlier attitude towards cryptocurrencies, and we are preparing to cooperate with any framework that may be introduced.
6. Community and Culture
Odaily: Do you have anything to say to developers and speculators?
Max Crown: To developers: keep building. You are the core force of this ecosystem. We will support you with better tools, better documentation, and wider distribution channels through Telegram. To friends who trade in cryptocurrencies: keep having fun. But remember one thing - we are building something that we want to exist for a long time.
Odaily: Is there anything else you want to talk about that we haven’t covered today?
Max Crown: I think what people often overlook is that we are not just a blockchain. We are building infrastructure for the next stage of the Internet - a decentralized, user-owned, and accessible to everyone. And we do it in a way that does not require anyone to change their current application habits. No need to learn new things, no need to adapt, no need to make things complicated. We are building a cryptocurrency that is truly easy to use. This is the charm of TON.
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