Tonkeeper Drops “Ton” to Challenge MetaMask and Trust Wallet

Keeper, formerly known as Tonkeeper, is dropping its network-specific identity as it moves beyond the Telegram-aligned Open Network (TON) ecosystem. The dominant self-custodial wallet in TON announced the rebrand on Tuesday alongside immediate support for six external blockchains: Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, BNB Smart Chain, and the Ethereum Layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Base.

Chief Marketing Officer Nikita Monastyrskiy said the decision came from direct user feedback and observed behavior. “The signal came from our own users. The people who trusted Tonkeeper stopped living on a single chain,” Monastyrskiy said.

Many users were holding Tether (USDT) on TRON, still the most popular network for global USDT transfers, as well as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and several Layer-2 networks. Managing those portfolios required four or five different mobile applications, with Tonkeeper reserved for TON-based transactions. Removing “Ton” from the name reflects Keeper’s move toward a unified, multi-chain home.

Self-custodial wallets differ from centralized exchanges because private keys and asset control remain entirely with individual users. That makes onboarding and transaction ease critical factors in retaining users. Keeper’s expansion comes as Web3 users increasingly operate across multiple networks rather than remaining on one isolated chain.

Andrew Rogozov, founder and CEO of The Open Platform (TOP), the venture builder behind Keeper, described the change as a natural evolution. Rogozov previously served as CEO of VK, Russia’s largest social network, before moving into Web3. He said the wallet had established itself as the premier hub for TON assets. “Keeper is the next chapter: taking the simplicity we’re known for beyond TON and into the broader crypto economy,” Rogozov said in a statement.

A key feature for the multi-chain transition is the “Keeper Battery.” Traditional self-custodial wallets require users to hold a blockchain’s native token, such as Ether on Ethereum or BNB on BNB Chain, to pay transaction fees. Keeper’s Battery allows fees to be paid without holding native gas assets.

The Battery can instead be charged with stablecoins or other major assets. Keeper plans to extend the feature to every supported network within the next year, although the team has not publicly specified which of the seven networks will support it at launch.

The shift is part of a wider expansion among TON financial applications seeking liquidity from competing networks. In June, MyTonWallet rebranded as “My Wallet” after adding support for 11 external networks. In July, STON.fi, one of the largest decentralized exchanges (DEX) built on TON, introduced cross-chain swaps connecting TON and TRON with several Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks.

TOP also backs “Wallet,” the custodial and self-custodial wallet solution integrated directly into Telegram’s settings menu. In 2025, the company raised $28.5 million in a funding round that valued it at $1 billion.

Telegram’s relationship with TON became more formal in January 2025, when the messaging app designated TON as the exclusive blockchain network for its crypto-enabled “mini-apps.” These lightweight applications run inside Telegram and helped trigger a massive viral wave of tap-to-earn games. By 2026, Telegram had taken a more active role in the network’s development and strategic orientation.

The arrangement reversed Telegram’s earlier position. Telegram’s founders, Nikolai and Pavel Durov, originally designed the Telegram Open Network in 2018. After a high-profile legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over a $1.7 billion token offering, Telegram abandoned the project in May 2020. The SEC settlement required the company to pay an $18.5 million civil penalty and return remaining funds to investors.

Independent developers later rescued the open-source code, renamed it “The Open Network” (TON), and built the independent ecosystem that Telegram eventually embraced again.

Financial expansion has extended beyond wallets. In April, Libre, an institutional Web3 protocol, partnered with the TON Foundation to launch a $500 million tokenized Telegram bond fund, bringing real-world assets (RWA) into the ecosystem. In June 2025, a TON-native service introduced lower-barrier staking through Telegram for retail users seeking yields on their assets.

Keeper’s roadmap includes cross-chain swaps, decentralized finance (DeFi) integrations, spending and merchant tools, an in-app decentralized application (dApp) browser, a loyalty program, and perpetual futures trading. The company has not disclosed specific release dates for those features.

Monastyrskiy said Keeper would remain connected to TON while competing with multi-chain Web3 giants. “We are expanding beyond the TON ecosystem while staying closely connected to it,” he said. “This way, users finally get one app for everything. Everyone else gets to find out why we are the number one self-custodial wallet on TON.”