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The Open Network Foundation has launched Ton Pay, a payments SDK designed to enable native cryptocurrency transactions across Telegram’s 1.1 billion monthly active users, as competition intensifies among messaging platforms racing to become all-in-one financial apps.
The toolkit allows merchants to accept Toncoin and stablecoins directly within Telegram Mini Apps with sub-second settlement and fees below one cent, the foundation said Monday, positioning TON to compete with similar initiatives from X and Coinbase’s Base network.
At its core, Ton Pay is built as a wallet-agnostic payment layer designed specifically for Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem. According to the TON Foundation, the SDK allows merchants to integrate crypto payments with a single software kit, avoiding the need to manage separate wallet infrastructure, settlement processes, or custom checkout logic.
Nikola Plecas, vice president of payments at the TON Foundation, said the SDK was created to make crypto feel native inside Telegram rather than an external add-on.
“It allows merchants to accept payments seamlessly and natively on TON through a simple SDK integration,” — Nikola Plecas, Vice President of Payments, TON Foundation.
The SDK supports multiple wallets and tokens, including Toncoin and Tether’s USDt, and is designed to abstract away much of the technical complexity typically associated with onchain payments. By focusing first on Telegram Mini Apps, Ton Pay is targeting use cases such as digital goods, in-app services, and community-based commerce.
A central promise of Ton Pay is performance at scale. Plecas said the system is engineered for sub-second transaction times, with average fees below one cent — a key consideration for consumer payments where cost sensitivity is high.
According to Plecas, the broader vision extends beyond developer convenience to network-wide adoption. The goal, he said, is to “power transactions for Telegram’s global audience of over 1.1 billion monthly active users.”
By reducing friction points like multi-step checkouts, upfront gas fees, and confusing wallet prompts, Ton Pay aims to compete not only with other crypto payment tools but also with traditional fiat-based systems.
The Foundation argues that embedding payments directly into an app people already use daily could significantly narrow the usability gap between crypto and conventional digital payments.
Future updates to Ton Pay are expected to introduce subscriptions, gasless transactions, and region-specific fiat off-ramps. The Foundation also plans to work with third-party providers to handle custody, compliance, and fiat conversions, an approach intended to balance decentralization with regulatory realities in different markets.
The rollout of Ton Pay comes amid intensifying competition among major platforms to become all-in-one “everything apps” that combine messaging, commerce, and financial services. Elon Musk’s X has announced plans for X Money, while Coinbase is repositioning its Coinbase Wallet as the Base app, integrating payments, trading, social features, and onchain mini apps on its Base network.
Within this crowded landscape, Ton Pay is leveraging Telegram’s scale as its primary differentiator. However, TON’s close association with Telegram has also drawn criticism in the past, including concerns over decentralization, governance clarity, and scams linked to unofficial projects.
The TON Foundation has repeatedly stated that the network remains open and permissionless, emphasizing that developers are free to build independently of Telegram.
Still, merchants using Ton Pay must comply with Telegram’s platform-specific terms and policies, with additional requirements expected as the SDK expands beyond Mini Apps to web and other environments.
Plecas acknowledged these challenges, framing Ton Pay as a response to long-standing usability issues in crypto payments rather than a departure from regulatory or platform constraints.
“We are designing a system that addresses key challenges in crypto payments,” — Nikola Plecas, Vice President of Payments, TON Foundation.
As Ton Pay expands beyond Telegram Mini Apps, its success will likely depend on whether it can maintain low costs, regulatory flexibility, and developer adoption while operating within one of the world’s largest messaging platforms.
