Telegram Debt Goes DeFi in $500 Million On-Chain Fund Launch on TON

Libre, a regulated real-world asset platform, and the TON Foundation have launched a $500 million tokenized fund on The Open Network, aiming to bring Telegram’s $2.4 billion in corporate debt onto the blockchain for the first time.

Dubbed the Telegram Bond Fund, the product allows institutional and accredited investors to gain exposure to Telegram’s outstanding bonds directly through the TON blockchain, according to a statement shared with Decrypt.

The fund will also participate in future Telegram bond offerings and serve as collateral for borrowing and yield-generating strategies within the TON ecosystem.

The TON Foundation says the launch is one of DeFi’s largest institutional RWA moves to date, in a sector projected to exceed $50 billion this year.

The fund will be issued and managed using Libre’s infrastructure, which supports fiat and stablecoin subscriptions, redemptions, and secondary transfers under regulatory oversight. 

Investors will manage assets directly through TON-native wallets, according to Libre and the TON Foundation.

TON, originally developed by Telegram, has operated independently since 2020 under the TON Foundation after regulatory pressure forced the company to abandon direct involvement. 

The Telegram app continues to integrate features that interact with the TON blockchain, including wallet access and username auctions.

Both parties have said further regulated asset offerings are in development, with plans to expand tokenized access to a broader range of global financial products in the coming months.

The Telegram Bond Fund has no connection to Libre, the Solana meme coin that briefly surged during the 2024 Argentine presidential campaign involving Javier Milei. 

Libre, the infrastructure provider in this offering, is a separate, regulated entity focused on institutional finance.

The firm has previously tokenized over $200 million in assets from major institutions, including asset managers such as BlackRock, Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane, and Nomura’s digital asset arm, Laser Digital. 

These tokenized funds will also become available on TON, providing access to a broader suite of institutional-grade financial products.

“This collaboration brings together omni-chain institutional-grade infrastructure and mass-market blockchain usability,” said Dr. Jez Mohideen, Chairman of Libre and CEO of Laser Digital.

Rising RWA popularity

The launch comes amid a period of rising activity in the RWA space. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, the largest tokenized U.S. Treasury product, has crossed over $2.5 billion in market capitalization, according to Dune Analytics data.

The fund, launched last March in partnership with Securitize, has expanded across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon.

Stablecoin issuer Circle recently acquired Hashnote, the manager of the $1.25 billion USYC fund, with plans to connect it to its USDC ecosystem. 

In the Middle East, Dubai-based developer DAMAC signed a $1 billion deal with Mantra, a Layer-1 blockchain for RWAs, to tokenize real estate, data centers, and other physical assets.

The total value locked in RWA protocols now exceeds $11.14 billion, more than doubling in the past year, according to DeFiLlama data.

This shows the growing interest in firms for bringing traditional financial products like U.S. Treasuries, corporate bonds, and real estate into blockchain ecosystems that historically focused on crypto-native assets.

The tokenized U.S. Treasury market has experienced significant growth, with a total value locked of approximately $6.16 billion, RWA.xyz data shows.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair