Octane Swap — Community before protocol

A Telegram Mini App built to grow a community around a DEX that didn't exist yet. The playbook: build the users first, then give them something real to use.

The goal: leverage Telegram's 900M+ user base as a frictionless on-ramp for an upcoming concentrated liquidity DEX on Fuel Network.

Telegram Bot · GitHub

Why This Exists

In early 2024, the Notcoin era was in full swing. A tap-to-earn game inside Telegram had quietly pulled in 40 million users — more than most crypto protocols see in their entire lifetime. It wasn't the mechanics. It was the distribution. Telegram was the most frictionless on-ramp to Web3 that had ever existed, and builders who understood that were moving fast.

I was building toward something bigger: a Uniswap v3 on Fuel Network. Fuel had everything that made it interesting — a UTXO-based architecture designed for parallel execution, 1-second block times, native assets without ERC-20 overhead, and the ability to build AMMs with spending conditions rather than traditional smart contracts. It was genuinely a different kind of execution environment, and the DEX design space on it was wide open.

But a DEX without users is just a smart contract.

Octane Swap TMA was that community layer.

What's Built

The TMA is a Next.js app running inside Telegram, connected to TON wallets via TON Connect. It serves as the entry point for the eventual Octane Swap protocol on Fuel — a place for early users to connect, earn, and be ready to be first when the DEX launches.

Features

Tech Stack

Architecture

The TMA is intentionally a thin frontend layer. The design principle was: build the product UX that the final DEX will actually use, just stub the on-chain calls for now. When the Fuel contracts land, the integration surface is minimal — swap calldata goes from the UI directly to the Fuel wallet.

Telegram Client
      │
      ▼
  Next.js TMA (this repo)
      │
      ├── TON Connect ──────────── wallet auth + user identity
      │
      ├── Swap UI ──────────────── token selector, price display,
      │                            confirm flow (Fuel-ready)
      │
      ├── Community Layer ──────── daily claims, leaderboard,
      │                            referrals, social tasks
      │
      ├── Backend (Prisma) ─────── user data, points tracking,
      │                            referral graph, task completion
      │
      └── Fuel Network (planned)
            ├── OctaneCore.sw  ─── pool factory + swap router
            ├── ConcentratedLP ─── Uniswap v3-style positions
            └── FuelPriceOracle ── price feed integration

Why TON Connect for wallet auth?

The TMA lives inside Telegram. TON Connect is the native wallet standard for that environment — it works with Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, and Telegram Wallet out of the box, with no installation required for users who already have a TON wallet. It's the right tool for the distribution channel, even though the eventual DEX targets Fuel.

When the Fuel DEX launches, the swap flow will use the Fuel TypeScript SDK and Fuelet or Fuel Wallet for transaction signing. The wallet layer swaps out; the rest of the UI stays.

The Fuel DEX — What's Planned

The TMA is the community layer. The actual protocol — a concentrated liquidity DEX on Fuel Network — is the next phase.

Why Fuel?

• Parallel transaction execution — Fuel's UTXO model allows transactions that touch different state to execute in parallel. On a busy DEX, swaps for different pools don't queue behind each other.
• Native assets — tokens are native at the protocol level, no ERC-20 wrappers. This removes approval transactions and reduces gas overhead per swap.
• Spending conditions — arbitrary predicates on UTXOs enable AMM-like mechanics without traditional smart contract loops, unlocking more capital-efficient pool designs.
• 1-second block times — self-explanatory for a trading application.

Why Uniswap v3?

Concentrated liquidity is the right AMM architecture for a chain early in its liquidity journey. Full-range AMMs waste capital — liquidity spreads across the entire price curve when trading happens in a narrow band. With v3, LPs concentrate capital where volume actually occurs, earning more fees per dollar. That capital efficiency matters more on a new chain where TVL is still growing.

Fuel's Mira Protocol already commands ~99% of DEX market share using a constant-product AMM. Octane's differentiation is concentrated liquidity — the design space is genuinely open.

Context: The Notcoin Era

Early 2024 was a very specific moment in crypto. Notcoin hit 40 million users inside Telegram in weeks. Hamster Kombat followed with 300 million. TON's TVL went from $14M in January to over $300M by September. The message was loud: Telegram is the best community distribution channel in Web3, and Mini Apps are how you use it.

Building community-first, protocol-second wasn't a pivot. It was a deliberate strategy adapted to the moment. You don't build a DEX and hope users show up. You build the users first, then give them something real to use.

Status

Built during the Notcoin era. Shipping toward Fuel.