Ex-TON Foundation executive to bring trustless crypto asset management to Telegram
Affluent brings one-click DeFi to Telegram by facilitating yield on crypto assets including Bitcoin, tokenized gold, and tokenized real world assets
16th June 2025, Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Affluent, a money market protocol built on TON Blockchain, has today announced its full launch. The project will remove the complexity of DeFi and bring trustless yield strategies to Telegram. The protocol acts like a smart bank for crypto - it’s a trustless, one stop liquidity hub that provides access to isolated lending pools, overcollateralized loans, and delegated yield strategies.
Affluent is co-founded by ex-TON Foundation Director Justin Hyun, and Hyung Lee, former TradFi options trader and co-founder of DeFi R&D firm B-Harvest. Their aim is to transform Telegram into a financial super app, using crypto to provide everyday savings to retail users and sticky liquidity for institutions. Hyun and Lee will use their unique combination of TradFi and DeFi experience to create a new paradigm for blockchain based finance that makes DeFi yield as simple as depositing your assets with a single click via Telegram and earning interest.
At the heart of Affluent’s offering is its Strategy Vault and Vault Manager system. This first-of-its-kind framework automates asset allocation and yield strategies. By depositing assets into a vault, users let Affluent manage their assets via a combination of automated smart contracts and expert management. User deposits are automatically spread across different lending markets for optimised returns. This abstraction of market complexity creates a more accessible experience for both new and experienced users, while enabling composability for developers and partners looking to build on Affluent’s infrastructure.
The protocol balances automation with human judgment, retail use cases with institutional rigor, and complex infrastructure with a simple user experience. Users interact with a clean and simple interface, while expert-managed vaults work in the background to optimize for long-term performance and safety.
Affluent is set to become the central liquidity hub for the burgeoning Web3 ecosystem in Telegram, with upcoming hallmark assets in TON’s ecosystem set to be integrated. Affluent will be amongst the first protocols to accept TON-wrapped bitcoin (tgBTC) at launch. The protocol will also be a focal point for the impending influx of TON-based tokenised real world assets into Telegram, including Telegram bonds and gold (Tether’s XAUT0).
The Affluent Points (AP) system will be launching alongside the full rollout of the Affluent product offering. Users will accrue these points by engaging with the Affluent protocol. These points will be one of the factors considered when allocating Affluent’s most engaged users an airdrop during a future token generation event.
Justin Hyun, Co-CEO of Affluent said that “DeFi has gone too far in the name of innovation. Why should people need to understand the complexities of crypto when all they really want is to compound their savings? Our goal is to transform complex DeFi services into a simple and intuitive experience where users of all backgrounds and knowledge levels can easily invest and grow their wealth.”
Hyung Lee, Co-CEO of Affluent said that “We want to become a one-stop money market protocol for retail users and institutional players alike to gain access to world-leading yield. By engineering solutions from traditional finance and developing them into a fully modular blockchain-based infrastructure, we are building the next generation of DeFi protocols - one that has all the advantages of Web3, but with the security and risk-management of TradFi.”
About Affluent*
Affluent is a platform that brings professional, trustless yield strategies to everyday users through intuitive, Telegram-based experiences. By abstracting the complexity of DeFi, Affluent empowers users to access sustainable, risk-adjusted returns without requiring deep technical knowledge. Through expert-managed strategy vaults and seamless Telegram interfaces, Affluent delivers a trustless asset management experience designed for mass adoption. Innovation should be available to all, not just early adopters. With Affluent, anyone can manage their assets with confidence and ease.
*Affluent was formerly known as Factorial Finance during its initial alpha phase.
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