What is TON (Toncoin) — Complete Guide to Telegram Cryptocurrency

TON (The Open Network) is a modern decentralized blockchain platform originally developed by the Telegram team under Pavel Durov's leadership. After legal complications with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020, the project was handed over to an independent developer community TON Foundation and continued active development.

In simple terms: TON is next-generation digital money that works faster, cheaper, and more conveniently than Bitcoin or Ethereum. The main advantage is that TON is tightly integrated with Telegram, used by over 900 million people worldwide.

The network's native cryptocurrency is called Toncoin (ticker: TON). It is used for paying fees, staking, voting, and running decentralized applications.

Key Facts About TON:

• Year of creation: 2018 (initial development), 2021 (community relaunch)
• Creators: Nikolai and Pavel Durov, later TON Foundation
• Consensus: Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
• Maximum supply: ~5 billion TON
• Transaction speed: up to 100,000 TPS
• Average confirmation time: 1-5 seconds

TON's history began in 2018 when the Telegram team announced the development of their own blockchain called Telegram Open Network. The project raised $1.7 billion in investments — one of the largest ICOs in cryptocurrency history.

However, in October 2019, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Telegram, claiming that Gram tokens (as TON was originally called) were unregistered securities. In May 2020, Telegram agreed to return $1.2 billion to investors and cease work on the project.

But the story didn't end there. TON's code was open-sourced, and in 2021, a group of independent developers led by TON Foundation resumed network development. The cryptocurrency was renamed to Toncoin, and the network to The Open Network.

Since then, TON has shown impressive growth:

• 2021: Network relaunch, ecosystem development begins
• 2022: @wallet integration in Telegram, first dApps launch
• 2023: TON Space, Fragment, ecosystem grows to 500+ projects
• 2024: Telegram Stars, mass adoption, Top-10 by market cap
• 2025-2026: Full Telegram integration, millions of active users

TON uses a unique multi-level architecture that provides incredible performance:

🚀 Speed and Scalability

TON can process up to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) thanks to dynamic sharding technology. For comparison: Bitcoin — 7 TPS, Ethereum — 30 TPS, Solana — 65,000 TPS. Actual confirmation time is 1-5 seconds.

💰 Minimal Fees

Average transaction fee on TON is less than $0.01, making micropayments economically viable. Unlike Ethereum, where fees can reach $50-100 during peak loads.

🔧 Smart Contracts and dApps

TON supports full-fledged smart contracts in FunC and Tact languages. Thousands of decentralized applications already run on the platform: DEX exchanges, NFT marketplaces, games, DeFi protocols.

🌐 TON Ecosystem

• TON DNS — human-readable addresses instead of long hashes
• TON Storage — decentralized file storage
• TON Proxy — anonymous network access
• TON Sites — decentralized websites
• TON Payments — payment channels for instant microtransactions

TON's main competitive advantage is deep integration with Telegram, a messenger with 900+ million active users. This gives TON a potential audience unavailable to any other cryptocurrency.

@wallet — Wallet Right in Telegram

Every Telegram user can create a crypto wallet in seconds without leaving the app. You can send TON by username — no need to remember long addresses.

Telegram Stars

In 2024, Telegram launched internal currency Stars, which converts to TON. Content creators and bot developers receive payment in Stars and can withdraw them to TON.

Fragment

Official marketplace for buying premium Telegram usernames and anonymous numbers. All payments are in TON.

TON Space

Non-custodial wallet built into Telegram with DeFi, NFT, and dApps support.

There are several ways to earn with TON cryptocurrency:

1. Investing (Holding)

Buying TON expecting price growth. Over 2024-2025, TON grew more than 5x. However, remember: cryptocurrencies are volatile, past results don't guarantee future returns.

2. Staking

Delegating TON to validators to support network operation. Yield is 3-5% annually in TON. Staking is available directly in Tonkeeper and @wallet.

3. DeFi and Liquidity

Providing liquidity on DEX exchanges (STON.fi, DeDust) or participating in DeFi protocols. Higher returns, but also higher risks.

4. NFT and Collecting

Trading NFTs on TON marketplaces: Getgems, TON Diamonds. Some collections have shown multiple growth.

5. Play-to-Earn Games

Games on TON like Notcoin, Catizen and others allow earning tokens while playing in Telegram.