Coinbase Ventures buys TON tokens 'directly from Telegram,' says TON Foundation exec

Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of crypto exchange Coinbase, now holds Toncoin (TON), the native token of The Open Network blockchain that powers Telegram’s web3 infrastructure.

"While we can’t disclose the size of their position, their support speaks volumes," the TON Foundation said in an X post Monday announcing Coinbase Ventures as a Toncoin holder.

Manuel Stotz, president of the TON Foundation, founder and CEO of Kingsway Capital, and incoming executive chairman of TON-focused digital asset treasury or DAT company Verb Technology, told The Block that Coinbase Ventures purchased the TON tokens "directly from Telegram," declining to disclose the investment amount.

A Coinbase Ventures spokesperson confirmed to The Block that the firm "made a long-term venture investment in TON," but declined to specify who sold the tokens, when the deal took place, or the purchase amount.

"Token investments are a common structure for onchain projects and align with how many venture firms participate in the onchain ecosystem, including the other VC funds listed," the spokesperson said. Early TON backers highlighted in the foundation’s X post include Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, and Ribbit Capital.

Other notable investors in TON include Pantera Capital, Ryze Labs (formerly Sino Global Capital), and Animoca Brands, as The Block previously reported. These firms have collectively invested hundreds of millions of dollars in TON, drawn largely by the blockchain’s exclusive integration with Telegram — a messaging app with more than 1 billion monthly active users.

"The TON token, to me, is a distribution play," Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu told The Block earlier, adding that while Telegram’s scale is its biggest advantage, it also creates dependency risk.

Coinbase Ventures’ investment follows a string of TON-related developments recently. Last week, Nasdaq-listed Verb Technology (ticker VERB) announced a $558 million private placement in partnership with Kingsway Capital to become the first publicly traded firm to hold Toncoin as its primary treasury reserve asset, with plans to rebrand as TON Strategy Co. Last month, TON developer The Open Platform raised $28.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Ribbit Capital at a $1 billion valuation.

Toncoin is currently the 26th-largest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of about $8.7 billion and a fully diluted valuation of roughly $17.4 billion, according to The Block’s TON price page.

The Funding newsletter:  Stay on top of the latest crypto VC funding and M&A deals, news, and trends with my free bi-monthly newsletter, The Funding. Sign up here!