TON Jumps 10% as UAE Offers Golden Visas to Holders
The Open Network (TON) has announced a major new partnership with the United Arab Emirates, grabbing the attention of the crypto community. Thanks to this development, cryptocurrency TON has surged 10% as news came out that it would have a key role to play in the new, groundbreaking Golden Visa Program for the United Arab Emirates.
TON’s Golden Visa Program for the UAE
This program offers a big opportunity for UAE residency applicants to receive a visa at a drastically low entry cost. While it usually requires an investment of around $545,000, thanks to the collaboration with TON, applicants can now only stake $100,000 worth of TON for a minimum period of three years, which represents a discount of approximately 80%. Besides, they also need to pay a one-time $35,000 processing fee.
This important development is much more than just a marketing gimmick. This is part of a bigger strategy implemented by the UAE authorities to turn the country into a global blockchain hub and a leader in this innovative industry.
By striking a partnership with The Open Network and integrating Toncoin (TON) into its residency scheme, the UAE authorities are letting the world know about its high trust in blockchain-powered finance. Besides, it is actively attracting high-profile crypto investors, developers, and entrepreneurs to move to the region permanently and start their businesses in it. Now, rather than just wait for their TON holdings to rise in value, they can stake their coins to ensure a long-term residency in this progressive and tax-friendly country.
This strategic partnership was reported by a co-founder of Coingecko, Bobby Ong, on his official X handle. The announcement got the attention and massive interest from investors, influencers, venture capitalists, as well as crypto-related businesses.
One the reasons behind the UAE choosing TON for this partnership among other blockchains is TON’s unique background – it was originally developed by the Telegram team before it was dropped by Durov and his developers and picked up by an enthusiastic community of devs who continued to work on the blockchain, expanding and scaling it. Later, it was integrated with the popular messaging platform Telegram, which promises privacy and data security to the millions of its users worldwide.
TON price soars on the news
The market reacted very quickly. Merely a few hours after the news was announced, TON’s market capitalization value jumped, along with trading volumes. The TON’s price also rocketed, printing two massive candles on an hourly chart and going up by roughly 10% in total on Sunday.
This news brought not only a massive TON price surge but also a major shift in the market sentiment for this previously undervalued coin. Many investors and enthusiasts who earlier viewed this coin just as a small-cap altcoin began to take a different, more bullish view of its potential in real-world finance and international migration. The fact that a global financial hub, the UAE, has chosen nothing but TON, speaks volumes for investors about the prospects of this asset that may be unveiled in the coming years. The fact that now TON coins can magically turn into a ten-year UAE residence visa seems to be just the beginning. Besides, this is a great sign for the crypto space in general, since governments of large countries are finally beginning to acknowledge the power of crypto. While the US plans to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the UAE is using TON to attract crypto entrepreneurs and developers to build a local blockchain hub.
Telegram integrates Grok AI, pushing TON price up
At the end of May, TON also experienced a major price jump on the news of integration. This time, it was the messaging app Telegram and Elon Musk’s xAI’s major product – Grok AI chatbot. This was great news for the TON ecosystem and the Telegram app.
Grok was created by Musk’s xAI startup in response to the fast-growing product of its rival, OpenAI, ChatGPT AI bot. Grok was created and soon integrated into Musk’s social media behemoth X (formerly Twitter). Now, Grok has been integrated on Telegram for premium users, allowing its one billion active users to access its vast resources. Telegram will now bring together not only messaging and social media, but also crypto (TON) and artificial intelligence, combining it all for the benefit of users.
In an interview with CNBC, the founder of Telegram and TON, Pavel Durov, said that he and Elon Musk have inked a year-long partnership, which will improve Telegram’s financial state as it will bring Telegram a $300 million payment and 50% of the revenue from xAI subscriptions sold to Telegram users. Durov referred to Grok as
“the best AI technology on the market,”
saying that it will soon be at Telegram users’ services. This news pushed TON 18% upwards.
Telegram remains one of the most popular platforms with a huge and actively growing user base. Now that it has integrated Grok and is about to add big new utility cases for TON, both the platform and the cryptocurrency seem to have a lot more prospects ahead.
