This post provides an in-depth review of TON (The Open Network), covering its objective, ecosystem and potential.
TON has garnered significant attention from developers and investors due to its rapid growth in a short time.
Originally developed by Telegram, the TON network boasts a high transaction processing speed (over 100k TPS) and leverages Telegram’s massive user base.
Additionally, the TON coin has surged in value in the past month, climbing from #15 to #9 in market capitalization.
With this impressive growth, how high could the price of TON coin climb in the future?
And is TON’s technology robust enough to be a major player in the blockchain industry? All these are discussed in this post.
Post Summary
The following subheadings is discussed in this post:
- What Is TON Network? – The History
- The Technology Behind TON Network
- TON Coin Details
- Where To Buy And Store TON Coin
- Exploring the TON Ecosystem
- What The Future Holds For TON
- Conclusion
Click on any of the subheadings to jump to that specific section, or keep reading for the full picture.
What Is TON Network? – The History
The Open Network or TON is a Layer 1 blockchain, originally developed by Nikolai Durov, co-founder of Telegram, in 2018.
The aim is to integrate a blockchain-based payment system within the messaging app.
Initially, TON was called Telegram Open Network and the token was named Gram.
Gram’s token sale, conducted until 2020, raked in a record-breaking $1.7 billion, second only to EOS at the time.
However, this success attracted scrutiny from the SEC, leading to a legal battle.
Ultimately, Telegram lost the case in May 2020, forcing Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO to halt TON development and issue refunds to investors.
Despite the SEC hurdle, TON persevered as an open-source project on GitHub. This enabled a dedicated developer community to keep it alive.
In 2021, a new entity, the TON Foundation (independent of Telegram), took over stewardship and rebranded it as The Open Network.
Today, TON thrives as a platform for various decentralized applications, including the payment system Telegram initially envisioned.
It has even emerged as one of the more successful blockchains in the market.
The Technology Behind TON Network
TON is designed as a highly scalable Layer 1 blockchain, built from the ground up to operate independently and validate transactions without relying on another network.
In addition, It seeks to tackle the scalability trilemma that has been a challenge to older blockchains.
Here, we look at TON’s architecture, consensus mechanism and TON’s smart contracts.
i. TON’s Architecture
TON relies on a three-layered architecture: Masterchain, Shardchains and Workchains.
- Masterchain:
The Masterchain is the primary blockchain in the TON network.
It is responsible for handling consensus and maintaining the network’s state.
- Shardchains:
Shardchains are sub-chains within the TON network designed to improve scalability by distributing transaction load across multiple chains.
Each Shardchain handles a chunk of the total transactions, allowing the network to process millions of transactions per second.
- Workchains
The Workchains enable the TON blockchain to support various types of blockchains, catering to different applications and use cases
The aim is to make the TON ecosystem interoperable with other blockchains.
ii. TON’s Consensus Mechanism
- Catchain Consensus
TON uses a consensus mechanism called the “Catchain Consensus”.
It is a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocol tailored to handle high-throughput and low-latency requirements.
Catchain Consensus achieves fast and reliable agreement among nodes, ensuring that transactions are confirmed quickly.
In addition to this, TON also integrates Proof-of-Stake, where validators stake coins to confirm transactions.
Validators are a network of computers that confirm transactions on the blockchain.
These underlying technologies behind TON help it to achieve high transaction throughput, robust security, all while maintaining decentralization.
iii. Smart Contract
TON supports the development and execution of smart contracts, enabling decentralized applications (dApps) to run on the network.
TON Virtual Machine (TVM) handles the execution of smart contracts written for the TON network.
Another core component of this network is the coin that powers it. Let’s dive into the next section where it shall be discussed.
TON Coin Details
Similar to most popular blockchains,TON uses a coin for its operation.
This coin, originally called Gram, was rebranded as TON after the TON Foundation assumed control of operations.
The total supply of TON is capped at 5.1 billion tokens, making it a deflationary token.
Use-cases of TON coin include:
- Transaction Fees: All fees associated with the TON network are paid for using the TON coin.
- Staking: Validators stake at least 300,000 TON to secure the network and earn rewards while Delegators can contribute any amount to support validators and share their rewards.
- Payments: Real life payments for goods and services can be made and received in TON coin.
- Governance: TON coin is used in participating in governance to have a say in how the network is run through voting.
As of May, 2024, more than 3 billion of TON coin supply is already in circulation, with a trading price above $6.
With that said, lets talk about where you can buy and store coin, especially if you are considering investing.
Where To Buy And Store TON Coin
Where to Buy TON Coin
Bybit
Bybit, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges.
Founded in 2018, it has grown to a user base of over 10 million, making it a major player in the crypto market.
On Bybit, you can trade TON not only against the stablecoin USDT but also through perpetual contracts.
Gate.io
Gate.io is an advanced crypto exchange founded in 2013, making it one of the earliest crypto players in the space.
The exchange is well-known for its extensive coin support, offering over 1,000 cryptocurrency pairs available for trading.
You can trade TON against USDT, TON, and TRY, as well as its perpetual futures contracts on Gate.io.
OKX
Founded in 2017, OKX has become one of the world’s leading exchanges, attracting millions of users and boasting high daily trading volume.
It stands out for its user-friendly interface, vast selection of coins, advanced trading tools, and competitive fees.
OKX offers TON trading on spot markets, futures, margin (5x leverage), and their Earn program.
While the exchanges mentioned here offer built-in wallets for storing TON, these wallets are not your private wallets and are control by the exchanges.
For full ownership, consider the private wallets mentioned below.
Where to Store TON Coin
You will need a TON-compatible wallet to store them safely. Here are some of the options available:
(i) Hardware wallets: These offline devices store your TON coins away from online vulnerabilities, making them ideal for long-term investors.
- SafePal
- Ledger Nano
- Trezor
(ii) Software Wallets: These wallets keep your TON coins online for easy access, but they can be susceptible to online threats.
- Tonkeeper
- Bitget wallet
- Trust wallet
- Telegram wallet
All five of these software wallets are available for both mobile and desktop.
In addition, you can easily connect these wallets to TON’s ecosystem, unlocking a world of DApps, NFT marketplaces, and other exciting opportunities.
Let’s dive into TON’s ecosystem.
Exploring the TON Ecosystem
TON’s TVL (Total Value Locked) has skyrocketed over 2,600%, surging from $11 million to over $300 million since the start of the year 2024.
This rapid increase indicates that the network has caught the interest of wider investors seeking opportunities in the DeFi space.
Not only that, but the projects on TON have surpassed 600 and the number steadily increasing.
Interestingly, these projects are integrated into the Telegram, a messaging app boasting over 900 million users.
This integration could drive significant user adoption for TON projects in the future.
The most popular project on TON right now is Notcoin, known for its unique tap-to-earn Gamefi mechanic integrated with Telegram and attracting over 35 million players within six months through an airdrop.
Today, Notcoin’s success has paved the way for similar projects, collectively attracting millions of users to explore the TON ecosystem.
Suggested Read: Top 5 TON Blockchain Projects to Watch
With such an impressive feat, so far, what does the future hold for TON? Let’s find out below.
What The Future Holds For TON
There are two important questions discussed here:
- Is TON’s technology robust enough to be a major player in the blockchain industry?
- How high could the price of the TON coin climb?
Let’s start with the first: TON’s Technology…
TON is designed as a highly scalable blockchain.
Scalability has long been a hurdle for blockchain technology, with earlier networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum struggling to handle large volumes of transactions.
Well, this limitation restricts mainstream adoption.
TON boasts an architecture and consensus mechanism designed for high scalability, aiming to handle millions of transactions per second.
This attracts projects seeking faster transaction speeds to build on it.
Additionally, the integration with Telegram’s over 900 million users, positions TON for mass adoption if users leverage Telegram for payments.
With its efficient scaling technology, TON has the potential to become a major player in the future.
The second question revolves around the future of the TON coin itself.
TON has seen an upward trajectory this year, surging from $2 to its all-time high (ATH) of $7.
This momentum is likely fueled by the increased adoption of the TON network. As you know, every transaction on TON uses the TON coin for fees.
More network adoption translates to higher demand for the coin, potentially leading to price increases.
Additionally, some investors are likely acquiring TON for the long term due to its impressive performance.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that over 20,000 addresses hold TON coin.
However, whales (large token holders) still hold a significant portion (68%) of the circulating supply.
This suggests the coin is still in its early stages and needs broader adoption from retail investors.
In other words, as more people adopt TON, the coin will become more decentralized, potentially leading to more stable price growth in the future.
Let’s conclude!
Conclusion
TON has garnered the attention of developers and investors alike for its great success.
Developers can take advantage of TON’s fast scaling solution to build DApps that can handle a high volume of transactions.
While the network is in its young stages, it offers good opportunities to explore the world of crypto, Defi, NFTs, Gamefi and airdrops through its ecosystem.
Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
What is your thought about TON? Do you think the growth momentum is sustainable?
What do you perceive could be a major hurdle for the TON blockchain.
Also, share the post to a wider audience by clicking on the ‘SM’ buttons below.
0 Comments