NFT vs Tokens
You, like me, have probably noticed this trend for a while but didn’t pay much attention to it.
Almost every NFT asset on TON — whether it’s beautiful Telegram usernames, Telegram gifts, or even stickers — tends to explode in popularity and hold attention.
Meanwhile, new tokens mostly share the same fate: a quick pump on listing followed by a sharp price crash. Why does this happen?
Let’s talk about earnings, volatility, capitalization, liquidity, virality, psychology, and status.
We’ll compare NFTs and tokens on TON. It will be subjective, lively, and hopefully insightful.
Earnings Potential and Volatility
NFTs on TON often bring enormous ROI to their early holders.
Recall the anonymous Telegram numbers: initially sold for a fixed price (~9 TON or about $16 per number), then quickly soared to hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the secondary market.
In early 2023, weekly sales volume for just usernames and anonymous numbers exceeded $1 million.
The numbers speak for themselves: early minters easily made multiple returns.
What about tokens? You can also catch tokens at launch and sometimes hit the jackpot on a pump, but holding profits is much harder…
Right after listing, extreme volatility kicks in: crowds of tapers start locking in “profits” by dumping coins. Look at any TMA token chart for examples.
Thus, token pumps are almost always followed by dumps (if there was a pump at all).
Difficulty in Assessing Capitalization
One reason is the evaluation and perception of capitalization.
When a new token appears on TON, people immediately see circulating supply, market cap, FDV…
They quickly realize that a conditionally high valuation can’t hold and start selling or vice versa.
Tokens have a concept of fair value (at least approximately), and when price flies too far ahead, it is inevitably pulled back by reality.
With NFTs, it’s murkier. How do you calculate an NFT collection’s capitalization?
Formally, you can multiply the floor price by the entire supply, but that’s a crude mistake.
Each NFT is unique, and the market values them subjectively. For example, Pepe prices for rare models differ from common ones by tens of times.
A better approach is to calculate capitalization by median price, but even this method doesn’t provide absolute objectivity.
No one can say exactly how much a unique short username on Telegram should cost — it’s whatever fans and collectors are willing to pay.
So there is no obvious figure shouting “too expensive, time to dump!”
Even if NFT prices soar, it doesn’t cause automatic mass selling because there’s no single metric to assess market overheating.
Moreover, many NFTs can be obtained not through sales but as random gifts or similar. For example, someone gave a Pepe to a friend six months ago, and only later did the friend realize their luck.
If this person doesn’t know about the gift market, they might happily sell the Pepe to anyone for 5–10k rubles and be happy.
If they learn, though, they don’t feel like an investor who bought at X price — they feel like a lucky winner of a cool lottery.
When you get something “almost for free,” it’s psychologically easier to immediately sell it for guaranteed profit.
Liquidity and Difficulty of Selling
Liquidity is a double-edged sword.
Selling a token is easy. You deposit tokens on an exchange, click sell at market price, the order fills instantly, and you go order sushi.
Selling an NFT is more complicated: you need to find a buyer, agree on a price or list the lot and wait.
There’s no order book where one click can crash the price by percentages. This means even if part of the community is disappointed, they can’t synchronously dump NFTs all at once because it’s simply impossible.
NFTs sell in small amounts — price moves gradually. Others either don’t rush or don’t monitor the price daily.
Paradoxically, low liquidity softens volatility: the NFT market is more inert, with fewer panic sales in real time.
Another point: the difficulty of selling often filters out speculators and flippers.
Buying NFTs is a more conscious choice — “Will I be able to sell this picture/number later, will anyone need it?”
Thus, a significant part of holders are those who genuinely like or need the NFT (for collections or profile use).
They are ready to hold longer. With tokens, the entry/exit barrier is minimal: buy on the exchange in two clicks, and sell just as fast once you decide the peak is past.
Token liquidity becomes a curse, while the relative illiquidity of NFTs is a blessing for their value.
Virality and Emotional Attachment
Virality drives all memes and trends.
Why? Because NFTs are visual content, easy to love, show friends, and brag about.
A beautiful three-digit number +888, a gypsy golden Pepe, or a funny NFT sticker pack — all evoke emotions.
People emotionally attach to such things: “What a cool number, I want it!” “Look at my rare sticker — only 999 in the world.”
This is collector’s excitement, close to how people collect rare watches or sneakers, only digitally.
Even if practical use is zero, the emotion of owning a unique item keeps them holding on.
Tokens have a hard time with emotional attachment. Fundamentally, it’s hard to be a fan of numbers in an account (though it’s possible).
Yes, communities try to build around meme coins — mascots, legends.
DOGS token is the image of Spotty the dog, personally drawn by Pavel Durov for charity.
Sounds cool! But let’s be honest: DOGS token holders hardly feel warm feelings looking at their balances.
They care about price growth, not “what a nice dog, I’ll hold coins for him.” Today they shout “DOGS to the moon!” tomorrow — “devs dumped liquidity, scam!”
We saw this: the moment the graph goes down, all love for the meme coin instantly turns to hate.
Conclusion
While other sectors in TON are barely surviving, NFTs are growing and setting the tone (did you catch the pun?).
Not because of technology, but due to a simple human factor — emotions, visuals, status, rarity.
This is TON’s real strength in 2025.
Users don’t need charts; they need a sense of exclusivity and status.
NFTs are easy to show off, pleasant to own, and integrated into Telegram itself.
When we talk about the TON blockchain, we are really talking about Telegram.
Telegram is about visuals and sociality. So if TON can survive and become mainstream — I see it happening only through NFTs now. Everything else, unfortunately, either didn’t catch on (like tapals) or hasn’t yet found its form (like DeFi)
Author t.me/kuznetsovton