The Open Network (TON) is a fully decentralized layer-1 blockchain originally designed by Telegram. It is scalable, shardable, and facilitates fast, low-cost, and energy-efficient transactions. A key feature is its user-centric design, allowing Telegram's massive user base to buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly within the app.
Despite broader market volatility, TON has captured significant attention and demonstrated remarkable resilience and growth, even remaining vibrant through industry shake-ups like the FTX collapse.
The History of TON: From Telegram to Community Governance
To understand TON's intrinsic value, one must look back at its unique origin story and evolution.
The Original Telegram Open Network (TON)
In 2017, Telegram developed the Telegram Open Network blockchain and its native asset, Gram. The following year, it conducted a private initial coin offering (ICO) that raised a staggering $1.7 billion, making it one of the largest ICOs in history at the time.
However, in October 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Telegram with conducting an unregistered securities offering. By May 2020, Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, publicly announced the abandonment of the TON project and agreed to an $18.5 million SEC settlement.
The Community Takes Over
After Telegram stepped away, the project was taken over by a dedicated community of developers, initially called newTON (renamed the TON Foundation in May 2021). They rebranded the project to The Open Network and renamed the asset from Gram to TON.
In a significant show of support, Durov stated in December 2021, "I am proud that the technology we created is alive and evolving... TON is still ahead of its time."
The ecosystem gained further legitimacy in April 2022 when the TON Foundation announced a $250 million ecosystem fund, the TONcoin Fund, backed by major exchanges and investment firms like Huobi, KuCoin, and MEXC.
What is the Goal of The Open Network?
A TON Foundation representative summarized the mission: "TON is designed for millions of users. One of our key goals is to make using blockchain no more complicated than using the applications people are already familiar with."
While Bitcoin and Ethereum pioneered the space, they face challenges like high fees, slow transaction speeds, and a steep learning curve that hinder everyday use. TON was built to solve these problems.
In a short time, a complete ecosystem of products and services has been built on TON, including tokens, NFTs, staking, domain names, marketplaces, multi-functional wallets, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and other DeFi services.
Its architecture supports dynamic sharding and workchains, allowing it to process millions of transactions per second. This adaptive design means TON can scale limitlessly without sacrificing performance.
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TON and Telegram: A Powerful Synergy
Although Telegram is no longer actively developing TON, the two remain deeply interconnected. The Telegram Wallet bot allows users to buy TON and send cryptocurrency to any chat contact with no fees. Users can also purchase crypto with a credit card and conduct peer-to-peer trades directly within the app.
TON is uniquely designed to support billions of concurrent users through blockchain sharding. This involves using multiple sub-networks, or shards, within the same blockchain to efficiently distribute the workload, preventing a backlog of unverified blocks.
As a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network, TON coins are used to validate transactions and reward validators. Nominators can also earn rewards by staking their tokens to validators. The TON coin serves as the primary medium for paying for services and applications on the blockchain.
TON's Updated Circulating Supply and Market Ranking
In a significant update, CoinMarketCap revised TON's circulating supply to over 3.43 billion coins in June, catapulting its market cap to over $4.9 billion and its rank to as high as #14 among all cryptocurrencies. This reflects a more accurate picture of the network's economic size, though other trackers like CoinGecko have sometimes reported different figures.
What Makes TON Special? A Comparison with Ethereum and Solana
TON's architecture makes it a highly efficient, fast, and scalable blockchain. A combination of a masterchain, workchains, and up to 2^60 possible shards allows it to handle a massive transaction throughput.
- Masterchain: Stores general information about validators, workchains, and their shards.
- Workchains: Contain the information for events like smart contract transactions and value transfers. Each workchain can be split into numerous shards.
This sharding approach horizontally splits the database, drastically reducing network load. With transaction speeds potentially reaching over one million transactions per second, TON is positioned to be one of the fastest blockchains.
Its PoS mechanism ensures efficient payment of transaction fees, settlement of payments, and validation of transactions. The current annual inflation rate for TON is approximately 0.6%.
TON vs. Ethereum vs. Solana
While Ethereum relies on layer-2 solutions for scaling and Solana prioritizes raw speed, TON's native sharding architecture aims to provide scalability at the base layer. This fundamental difference in design gives TON a distinct advantage in handling mass adoption from the ground up.
The TON Ecosystem: More Than Just a Coin
The TON ecosystem is built with utility and efficiency at its core, aiming to make token utility simple for end-users.
Core Network Services
- TON Storage: A decentralized file-storage service similar to Dropbox, using private keys for encryption to add a layer of security for both private and public online storage.
- TON Proxy: A network anonymizer layer that allows users to connect to the TON network and access dApps while avoiding censorship, similar to TOR or I2P.
- TON DNS: A domain name service that provides human-readable names for cryptocurrency wallets, accounts, smart contracts, and websites (e.g.,
wallet.ton), vastly improving usability. - TON Services: A platform for developers to create and deploy user-friendly blockchain applications with a searchable registry for all dApps.
Popular dApps and Projects
- StickerFace: Allows users to create NFT avatars for use across various TON games and applications.
- TON Diamonds: A decentralized marketplace for buying digital art NFTs from artists.
- TON CATS & TON Hamsters: Popular NFT art projects on the blockchain.
- Wallets: TON offers both custodial options (like the built-in Telegram Wallet) and non-custodial wallets like Tonkeeper, giving users flexibility and control.
TON Tokenomics: Supply and the Recent Burn
The initial total supply of TON was 5 billion coins. Unlike typical distribution models, 98.55% of the supply was allocated to be mined via a Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism starting in June 2020, with the final coin mined in June 2022.
- Advantage: There are no venture capital unlocks or investor cliffs that could lead to significant sell pressure.
- Disadvantage: A large portion of the supply was concentrated in the hands of early miners.
A major deflationary proposal was recently passed by the community. The measure, approved with over 98% of the vote, will see 50% of all transaction fees on the network burned, with the remaining 50% going to validators as rewards. This burning mechanism is expected to slowly reduce the total supply over time, especially as network activity increases.
Use Cases for the TON Coin
The TON token is the lifeblood of its network, with several key utilities:
- Paying commissions for blockchain transactions and cross-chain fees.
- Payment for decentralized data storage (TON Storage).
- Payment for using TON Proxy and TON DNS services.
- In-app payments for dApps on the blockchain.
- Rewards for validators who maintain the network's security.
TON's Path Forward: Key Growth Drivers
The future of TON looks bright, powered by several compelling factors:
- Massive User Base Potential: Telegram has over 900 million monthly active users. This is a built-in audience that can be onboarded into the TON ecosystem seamlessly, a advantage no other blockchain possesses. The ease of sending crypto like TON or BTC within a chat lowers the barrier to entry dramatically.
- Institutional Backing: Partnerships, like a $10 million commitment from DWF Labs to fund seed investments in the ecosystem over 12 months, provide crucial financial and strategic support.
- Telegram's Full-Throated Support: Key initiatives like dedicating 50% of ad revenue payments to channel owners in TON and launching the self-custodial TON Space wallet directly in the Telegram app demonstrate a deep commitment to the network's success.
- Exchange Listings: TON's absence from the world's largest exchange, Binance, represents a significant potential catalyst for future growth and liquidity should a listing occur.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: What is the relationship between TON and Telegram?
A: While they are separate entities, they are strategically aligned. Telegram provides the user base and platform integration, while the TON Foundation and community develop the independent, decentralized blockchain. Telegram features built-in TON wallets and supports transactions using the network.
Q: How can I buy TON?
A: You can purchase TON on several major cryptocurrency exchanges. Additionally, users can buy TON directly within the Telegram app using the built-in Wallet bot with a credit card.
Q: Is TON a good long-term investment?
A: Like any cryptocurrency, TON carries risk. However, its unique advantages include a massive potential user base via Telegram, strong technical fundamentals with high scalability, and growing ecosystem development. Long-term prospects are often tied to the success of its adoption within the Telegram platform.
Q: How does TON's scalability compare to Ethereum?
A: TON uses a native sharding architecture designed to process millions of transactions per second at the base layer. Ethereum currently relies on layer-2 rollups to achieve high throughput, as its mainnet has lower inherent scalability.
Q: What is the total supply of TON?
A: The initial total supply was 5 billion TON. All coins have been minted. A new tokenomics proposal will burn 50% of transaction fees, making the supply deflationary over time.
Q: Can I stake TON to earn rewards?
A: Yes, as a Proof-of-Stake network, you can stake TON either by becoming a validator or by nominating your tokens to an existing validator to earn staking rewards.
2025 Price Outlook and Future Predictions
Looking ahead to 2025, TON's price will be influenced by overall crypto market momentum and the continued progression of its integration with Telegram.
If bullish trends persist, TON could challenge resistance levels around $8, with the potential to push toward $11. On the downside, the $5.70 level could serve as a key support level.
Critical to this growth will be:
- Continued Developer Activity: Developer engagement on TON grew 102% last year. A proactive developer community introduces innovative dApps, expanding the network's utility and demand.
- The ETH-TON Bridge: The successful implementation and expansion of a bridge between Ethereum and TON could attract a larger user base from the Ethereum ecosystem, stimulating new demand for the TON coin.
- Telegram's Growth: As Telegram continues to grow toward one billion users and moves closer to profitability and a potential IPO, it reflects positively on the entire TON ecosystem.
However, it's crucial to remember that investor sentiment and broader macroeconomic factors can greatly influence price, making any prediction inherently uncertain.
Conclusion
The Open Network (TON) is a high-performance, scalable layer-1 blockchain with a unique history and a profoundly powerful partnership with Telegram. Its design prioritizes user experience, aiming to make blockchain technology as easy to use as any common messaging app.
With the potential to onboard Telegram's nearly one billion users, continued ecosystem development, and deflationary tokenomics, TON has carved out a unique and promising position in the cryptocurrency landscape. While its price has seen significant growth, its long-term story appears to be just beginning, making it a project worthy of close attention.