If you’re not American, you may be allowed to take part in presidential and parliamentary elections giving preference to one coffee variety or another, but the global financial system and cutting-edge technologies are under U.S. control. The American government can shut down virtually any bank or freeze anyone’s accounts anywhere in the world (well, except perhaps in the DPRK). Americans control Google and the App Store and can insert or remove any content there at their discretion. Although U.S. citizens make up no more than 4% of the world’s population, they dictate their rules to the other 96%.
The integration of the TON blockchain project into the Telegram messenger has been terminated – an American court decided so, and there’s nothing to be done about it. America first. I hope the next generation of programmers and entrepreneurs will learn from our mistakes and be able to change the course of history.
This was more or less how Pavel Durov put it on his Telegram channel when he announced the shutdown of TON. But if you believe the project truly came to an end, you’d be mistaken. In this article, we’ll look back at the history of the TON cryptocurrency, explore why its founder declared it finished, and see who stepped in to carry on its legacy – along with what the future may hold for TON Coin. Before that, let’s briefly revisit what this project actually is. Some readers may not remember it or never heard of it at all – especially if blockchain wasn’t on their radar back then. There was a time when the mere mention of TON and Libra launching sent chills down Wall Street’s spine.
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What is Toncoin
Not everyone agreed with Pavel Durov’s decision to give up the fight. Right after his announcement, members of the TON blockchain community – a group that includes thousands of companies and enthusiasts – launched their own independent network: TONCOIN.
According to the official website (https://ton.org) TON Coin is a next-generation blockchain ecosystem designed to link together existing crypto networks and the traditional web into a single global system. The project was initially developed by Telegram founders Pavel and Nikolai Durov, but later handed over to the open TON community, which continues to support and expand it today. The Russian-speaking community’s official Telegram channel is available at https://t.me/toncoin_rus/8
In September 2021, community developers published a public report detailing the progress of TON Coin’s blockchain infrastructure. Telegram’s team acknowledged their work and showed support by transferring the ton.org domain and the project’s GitHub repository (https://github.com/newton-blockchain to the open-source community. From that moment, the TON Foundation became the official core team behind TON’s development. As of May 24, 2024, the Toncoin ecosystem boasts nearly five million active users, according to data from https://society.ton.org/about
History of Pavel Durov’s Cryptocurrency
The first reports about Telegram’s blockchain, the Telegram Open Network (TON), appeared online several years ago. The goal was to create a decentralized digital network with its own token integrated directly into the Telegram messenger. In 2018, Pavel Durov decided to raise additional capital to push the idea forward. That same year, TechCrunch reported that TON would launch through an ICO and released the project’s white paper, which can still be read here: https://ton.org/whitepaper.pdf.
During its initial token sale, TON raised an impressive $1.7 billion from investors, including notable names like Roman Abramovich, Qiwi co-founder Sergey Solonin, and Wimm-Bill-Dann co-founder David Yakobashvili.
Over the course of a year, the concept went through several revisions. The TON cryptonetwork was supposed to process a million transactions per second, overcome blocking via TON Proxy, include a domain name system, file storage, a platform for integrating third-party services, and other components. Investors were supposed to receive their tokens by 10/31/2021, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission intervened.
How TON Was Shut Down
SEC representatives stated that Gram is not oranges or bananas (i.e., a real commodity) and not an ordinary cryptocurrency, but a security that must be issued in accordance with U.S. law. This implied that TON’s issuer had to provide data on its financial condition, lines of business, and the potential risks associated with purchasing Gram. And since Pavel Durov and the company had not done so before the ICO launch, they had to return the funds invested in the project and pay a hefty fine.
In May 2020, a U.S. court halted the execution of TON, and Pavel Durov officially announced the end of work on the project. Source: https://telegra.ph/What-Was-TON-And-Why-It-Is-Over-05-12.
Continued Development
The Durovs accepted the court’s ruling, but as a parting shot they released the source code to the public. Blockchain network developers were given a carte blanche to refine and develop the TON idea. As a result, the distributed TONCOIN network was launched. There was no preliminary token sale; the project is self-funded. TON Coin is not a fork of the base network. Its blockchain is based on the Telegram Open Network, which is available to anyone.
Roadmap and Progress
The TONCOIN Declaration outlines the project’s multi-stage development plan. The first stage, called “Mad Bull,” allows any blockchain engineer to modify network parameters manually, while SMV contracts are calculated by hand. A “decentralization bomb” built into the code limits the duration of this flexible phase. In parallel, smart contracts for decentralized pools are prepared so that users can participate in governance. Every participant has a vote – regardless of the size of their stake.
The second stage is codenamed “Fighting Fish.” It begins immediately after the decentralization bomb goes off. From then on, all anarchy ends and full control over the ecosystem is handed to independent validators.
The third stage is called “Fight Club.” It will begin only when a sufficient number of validators and decentralized pools are operating in the TON Coin network and the blockchain becomes fully decentralized. Voting is automated, and “giver” contracts will distribute coins to newcomers. Detailed information on the project roadmap is available at https://ton.org/en/roadmap.
The project operates without raising funds via an ICO or any other pre-sale. Five billion TON Crystal were immediately transferred to three “givers” controlled by developer multisigs. The distribution across nodes looks like this:
- 85% for community participants for their contribution to network development;
- 5% for validators supporting the network;
- 10% for developers making real contributions to TON.
In 2025, the developers plan to add a number of innovations; details can be found in the “Development Plan” section on the official site: https://ton.org/en/roadmap.
Toncoin Mining
Mining TON with GPUs has ended. All coins allocated for mining have moved into miners’ wallets. Official source: https://telegra.ph/Majning-TON-zavershen-06-13.
The mining history is available in the corresponding section of the developers’ site: https://ton.org/ru/mining
TON Staking
Transaction processing is handled by trusted nodes. In principle, any network user can become a validator if they have a powerful server connected to a stable, high-speed internet connection. Bandwidth must be at least 1 Gb/s, and a static IP address is required. Hardware requirements:
- 16-core CPU
- 128 GB RAM
- 1 TB NVMe drive (or a prepared IOPS storage of 64k+)
You need a machine with a static IP address and broadband connectivity to run a full TON blockchain node. If you want to run a full node without an authentication tool (e.g., a liteserver), you can use a less powerful machine.
A TONCOIN validator node runs on LINUX using MyTonCtrl, a convenient open-source tool. Instructions for setting up a trusted node are on the official project site: https://ton.org/validator.
Note that validators are penalized for misbehavior. If you run a trusted node on underpowered hardware, this may disrupt the network and you’ll lose your stake. That’s a lot of money – the current stake for a trusted node is 600,000 TON (about $622,000). But if you have the hardware and want to run a TONCOIN validator node, you can stake as little as 10,000 TON and obtain the remaining funds from nominators. Of course, you’ll have to share the proceeds with them.
The TON ecosystem operates with around 1,000 validators. Other network participants can act as “fishermen” – independent auditors who verify completed blocks. If they find an error, they publish a detailed report. Validators that add invalid blocks are fined, while the fishermen are rewarded. As the network grows and user numbers expand, additional node groups known as “collators” may assist validators by performing preliminary checks of shardchain blocks. Collators don’t sign or add blocks themselves; they prepare them with Merkle proofs and pass them along for final approval. For now, validators manage fine on their own, but this could change as the ecosystem scales.
If, for whatever reason, you cannot run a full node to support the TON blockchain, become a nominator to earn by staking. You can send funds from a TonHub wallet (minimum 50 coins) to the decentralized nominator pool https://tonwhales.com/staking/stats#apy and earn without worrying about operations. By established rules, a validator receives 40% of the commissions due for servicing the network. The remaining 60% is distributed among that validator’s nominators.
A detailed guide to activating TON Coin staking is available in a separate review on our site.
Official GitHub Repository
Go to https://github.com/newton-blockchain and select the materials you need. All project data is published across 17 repositories in six programming languages. In the mining section you can find recommendations, a list of top miners, and the amount of coins mined.
Explorer Statistics
Statistics can be viewed at https://tonmon.xyz/?orgId=1&refresh=5m. This dashboard is designed to help users understand the state of TON. If you have ideas to improve it or want to leave feedback, feel free to submit a request. You may receive a bounty for helping development.
Transactions with the wrapped token Wrapped TONCOIN are available on the Ethereum network explorer: https://etherscan.io/token/0x582d872a1b094fc48f5de31d3b73f2d9be47def1. There is also a Wrapped TONCOIN version for Binance Smart Chain: https://bscscan.com/token/0x76a797a59ba2c17726896976b7b3747bfd1d220f. Wrapped tokens are used for trading on decentralized exchanges. Which platforms currently support The Open Network (TON) cryptocurrency – we’ll tell you now.
Exchanges Where The Coin is Traded
Toncoin is traded on the well-known crypto exchange Bitget – one of the market leaders in liquidity and trading volumes. The trading pair TONCOIN/USDT is available. The base trading fee on this platform does not exceed 0.1% per trade. Supported order types include limit, market, OCO, trigger, TP/SL, and trailing stop.
Fans of automated trading will find everything they need on Bitget – you can configure and run your own strategy or subscribe to an experienced trader and copy their trades.
Dozens of other platforms support Toncoin, including HTX, OKX, Gate.io, and Uniswap. The full list of exchanges and trading pairs, as well as the current Toncoin price, is always available on the crypto industry monitoring site CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/toncoin.
Telegram Bot
You can buy the TON digital asset with a bank card or other crypto right inside the Telegram messenger via the @CryptoBot trading bot: https://t.me/CryptoBot.
In 2024, many web services began supporting exchanges between TON Coin and e-fiat or other cryptocurrencies. This means you can buy TON with a bank card or e-wallet without registering on an exchange.
The full list of platforms working with the TONCOIN digital asset can be found at https://coinmarketcap.com/ru/currencies/toncoin/markets.
Available Wallets
You can download a wallet for the TONCOIN digital coin from the official project site: https://ton.org/wallets. There are seven wallets posted for different platforms. You can download a full node for Windows, use a Chrome plugin, or the web interface. There are also wallets for Linux and macOS, and mobile apps for iOS and Android.
You can download TON Coin Wallet for Apple from J&B Investments Group Inc here: https://apps.apple.com/by/app/toncoin-wallet/id1560210939. It has a friendly, no-frills interface. Creating a wallet is intuitive and fast (you need to save a 24-word seed). The usage flow targets clients with minimal blockchain experience. As mobile apps, you can use the decentralized wallets Tonhub and Tonkeeper, and the custodial @wallet platform. The OpenMask browser extension is available. The Toncoin cryptocurrency is supported by the multi-currency Trust Wallet and the hardware vaults Ledger and Safepal. See the full list of available wallets at https://ton.app/wallets.
The custodial @wallet is integrated into almost every account. It supports buying crypto with a card, as well as swap and P2P exchange. In addition to Toncoin, it supports the USDT stablecoin (TRC-20/TON) and the recently listed Notcoin. This wallet also works with Bitcoin and Ether and supports cross-chain exchange. You can go directly from its interface to the decentralized Ton Spase Beta wallet.
USDT Stablecoin
In April of this year, Tether announced the launch of USDT and XAUT stablecoins in the TON ecosystem. This is a fairly significant event for the global finance industry, as Telegram users can now easily settle transactions in a stable currency. The fee for sending any amount of USDT on the TON blockchain is currently about 0.0145 Toncoin. Even if the price of the base cryptocurrency increases 100×, the overhead will remain quite acceptable.
Prospects
Supporters believe a platform with such advanced technical foundations has a strong chance of thriving. Critics, however, argue that without deeper integration into the Telegram messenger and listings on major exchanges, growth will be slow. Some progress has already been made: TON is available for trading, and the number of supported exchanges continues to increase. A bridge between the TON and Ethereum networks was recently launched https://ton.org/bridge allowing cross-chain transactions. Wrapped TON tokens can now be staked in liquidity pools to earn passive income.
The TON platform is designed for launching decentralized applications. Their developers can accept TONCOIN as payment for using their utilities or buying goods within such programs.
TON services support two types of applications:
- TON Sites, which are application-level analogs of classic websites with hyperlink support. Such sites cannot be blocked by external regulators, since TON apps are distributed on client devices.
- “Apps in the fog.” These are akin to mobile service apps that are out of reach of regulators because updates are distributed within the TON network. The Telegram messenger is the first example of such an application.
To avoid various restrictions, the TON network (formerly the Telegram Open Network) includes a proxy mechanism that can be improved by third-party developers. TON Proxy can give users real anonymizer functions, hiding their real IP addresses when they interact with platform resources. TON Proxy can work P2P, essentially mirroring Tor’s architecture. TON can become a browser for its own Global Network, and TON Storage an alternative to classic hosting. By combining the TON browser, TON Storage, and TON DNS, we get an analog of modern internet infrastructure with an internal payment system. More detailed information is available at https://ton.org/en/dev.
Conclusion
To conclude, we echo Pavel Durov’s stance on the importance of fighting for decentralization in the global financial system. If projects like TON, Ripple, and others were ever to be shut down entirely, we could find ourselves in a new kind of financial slavery – one even more restrictive than in ancient or medieval times. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) should not become the only form of money. While a complete ban on digital assets seems unlikely, the world still needs open blockchain projects like TONCOIN. Of course, no one invests without expecting returns – investors want their holdings to generate income. If you’re considering buying Toncoin, make sure to do your own research first.
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