One year after the arrest of the Telegram founder: the market capitalization of the TON ecosystem has evaporated by 40%, user activity has fallen by 88%, and the game of privacy versus regulation has reached a stalemate.

A year has passed since the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France, and the case he called "a dual absurdity of law and logic" remains unresolved. The ripple effect continues to impact the TON Blockchain ecosystem: the native Token Toncoin has fallen by 40%, the Lock-up Position value has decreased by 71%, and daily active users have dropped by 88%. Although the underlying infrastructure remains stable, excessive reliance on a pass-the-parcel game model and regulatory uncertainty are constraining the ecosystem's sustainable development.

Incident Review: Airport Arrest Sparks Legal Controversy

On August 24, 2024, Durov was detained at a Paris airport under a Telegram-related arrest warrant. The 40-year-old billionaire faces multiple charges, including inadequate content moderation, conspiracy to traffic drugs, distribution of child pornography, and illegal provision of cryptocurrency services. After paying a bail of 5 million euros, Durov remains under judicial supervision and must report to the police every 14 days. This week, he publicly criticized for the first time: "Arresting platform CEOs for user behavior is not only unprecedented but also absurd on both legal and logical levels."

The TON ecosystem is facing a series of impacts.

The arrest of Durov immediately triggered a shock in the TON ecosystem. Analyst Sean Yang pointed out: "Toncoin fell by 20% within days of the arrest news breaking, with a total decline of over 40% in the past year, resulting in a market value evaporation of $2.4 billion." The TVL of decentralized exchanges like Ston.fi and Dedust dropped by 60% in August 2024. According to Defillama data, the total TVL across the network has shrunk by 71% from its peak of $770 million to $144 million.

User base shows vulnerability

Although there was a short-term surge in user activity due to "click-to-earn" games (such as Hamster Kombat and Catizen) following the arrest incident, analyst Ilya Otishenko pointed out: "When the rewards do not meet expectations, the main drivers of the 2024 TON ecosystem collapse quickly." Data shows: daily transaction volume on the work chain fell by 76%, daily active users decreased by 88%, and monthly application revenue dropped by 80%. The proportion of new users fell from 50% to 20-25%, indicating a significant deterioration in the ecosystem's customer acquisition capability.

The contrast between the stability of the main chain and the cooling of the development ecosystem.

The TON main chain, serving as the core of verification and governance, remains relatively stable, with daily trading volume rising from 80,000 to 100,000, while active users slightly decreased from 900 to 800. Otyshchenko believes: "This mild decline indicates a cooling of developer enthusiasm, but does not constitute a structural risk." However, for a network aiming to become a global-level blockchain, development momentum is clearly hindered. Institutional investors are taking a wait-and-see approach, and retail participants are also remaining cautious.

The Global Game of Privacy and Regulation

The arrest of Durov has triggered a huge shock in the tech world: Elon Musk condemned the move as an infringement on free speech, and Mark Zuckerberg wrote to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee reflecting on content moderation policies. This incident highlights the deep contradictions between privacy protection and law enforcement regulation. The global distribution of Telegram's servers allows it to resist intervention from any single government, but its lenient content moderation policies have repeatedly made it a target for regulation, leading to conflicts from the Russian crypto key controversy to the recent neo-Nazi data disclosure incident in Brazil.

The ecological recovery faces three challenges.

Analysts point out that TON needs to break through three major bottlenecks: 1) Legal uncertainty continues to suppress market sentiment; 2) Over-reliance on speculative game models lacks sustainable use cases; 3) Institutional capital entry is hindered, restricting ecological expansion. Although TON's core advantages still exist—Telegram's integration capability and privacy-first philosophy, the ecological development and token price may continue to be under pressure until the Durov case becomes clear.

Conclusion: The Difficult Balance Between Principles and Reality

The Durov case has transcended the realm of personal freedom, becoming a landmark event in the game between tech giants and sovereign state regulation. The short-term pain of the TON ecosystem reveals the risks of blockchain projects' dependence on centralized figures, while long-term development still needs to return to the essence of value creation. As the global regulatory framework continues to evolve, the balance between privacy protection and compliant operations will become the ultimate proposition that all Web3 projects must face.