TON Foundation Taps Former Visa Crypto Executive Nikola Plecas to Lead Global Payments Strategy
The TON Foundation, the organization behind The Open Network, has appointed former Visa crypto executive Nikola Plecas as its new Vice President of Payments, signaling a major push toward expanding its global payment infrastructure.
Plecas brings a strong track record from his time at Visa, where he led the company’s crypto business in Europe and managed the commercialization of new digital asset products. At TON, he’ll be tasked with defining and executing the foundation’s global payments roadmap, enhancing user experiences, and advancing TON’s compliance and partnership strategies.
“As payments become a more central part of TON’s ecosystem, it made sense to have dedicated leadership focused on this area,” Plecas has told. “This role is about aligning resources with our growing priorities and accelerating the development of payment capabilities across TON.”
His initial focus will be shaping a clear payments vision for the TON ecosystem, which is closely tied to the Telegram messaging app. A key objective in the early stages, he said, is to improve the ease with which users move between fiat and crypto — simplifying both on-ramp and off-ramp processes.
The hire reflects TON Foundation’s commitment to making decentralized services accessible to mainstream users. CEO Max Crown, who joined the foundation in April after co-founding the crypto payments platform MoonPay, emphasized the strategic nature of the role.
“Payments are central to TON’s mission of delivering decentralized services to mainstream users,” Crown said. “With deep industry expertise and a clear vision for scaling payment infrastructure, Nikola brings the experience and leadership we need to accelerate TON’s global growth.”
Built as a Layer 1 blockchain to integrate seamlessly with Telegram, TON is designed to support fast, scalable, and user-friendly crypto applications. Its native token, Toncoin, currently boasts a market capitalization of $7.5 billion, reinforcing its role as a major player in the blockchain space.