Telegram Bond Fund to Tokenize $500 Million of Debt on TON Blockchain

Real-world assets (RWA) are coming to The Open Network (TON) in the form of tokenized Telegram debt through the Telegram Bond Fund (TBF).

Libre Capital will launch the $500 million fund on TON, enabling accredited investors to access tokenized Telegram bonds and yield through the fund.

“This builds on Libre’s $200M+ RWA track record with firms like BlackRock, Brevan Howard, etc, and now brings regulatory-compliant DeFi-native access to Telegram's ~$2.35B in bond issuance for institutional and accredited investors,” said Max Crown, CEO of the TON Foundation.

The move will leapfrog TON above a majority of the smaller blockchain networks in the RWA space, making it the third-largest RWA blockchain by total value tokenized. Once live, TON will only trail ZKsync, which has $2.2 billion, and Ethereum’s $6.2 billion.

The RWA space has been one of the fastest-growing markets in DeFi this cycle, with a current onchain market capitalization of $19 billion, compared to just $8.6 billion in January 2024.

The activation may also bring a much-needed boost to the TON ecosystem, which has seen its total value locked (TVL) in DeFi plummet 81% from its all-time high of $750 million in 2024 to $137 million today.

The network’s native TON token is also down 61% to $3.18, from an all-time high of $8.2 in July 2024.