$BTC Toncoin (TON) is the native cryptocurrency of The Open Network, a decentralized, layer‑1 blockchain originally developed by Telegram founders Pavel and Nikolai Durov . After Telegram exited due to U.S. regulatory pressure in 2020, the project continued under the TON Foundation and open-source community . TON uses a proof-of-stake consensus with dynamic sharding and a TVM smart-contract engine, enabling fast, low-cost transactions and high throughput . Deeply integrated into Telegram, it powers in-chat payments, staking, governance, ads revenue, domain services, and decentralized apps . Currently trading around $3.50, it ranks among the top 15 crypto assets by market capitalization