TON Currency: The future of digital currencies in integration with Telegram
History of establishment and development
The TON (The Open Network) project started as an initiative by Telegram in 2018 under the name "Telegram Open Network" with the aim of creating a scalable blockchain network to serve the massive user base of the app. After a legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020, Telegram abandoned the project, which was taken over by the developer community under the name "The Open Network" and its currency "Toncoin". In December 2021, Pavel Durov (founder of Telegram) reaffirmed support for the project, and TON became the official infrastructure for Web3 in Telegram starting September 2023.
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Unique technical features
- Dynamic sharding: The network supports infinite sharding that allows processing millions of transactions per second across parallel sub-chains.
- Ultra-fast routing: "Hypercube Routing" technology ensures that transactions are completed in less than 5 seconds.
- Consensus mechanism: It relies on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model with Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT), ensuring high security and energy efficiency.
- Virtual machine (TVM): Supports multiple programming languages like FunC and Tact, designed to execute smart contracts efficiently.
• Uses of Toncoin
- Network operations: Pay transaction fees and smart contracts.
- Security and governance: Users can "stake" coins to participate in securing the network and vote on decisions.
- Decentralized services: Purchase domain names (TON DNS), decentralized data storage (TON Storage), and use anonymous proxy services (TON Proxy).
- Integration with Telegram: Pay for advertisements, premium subscriptions, and transfer money directly within the app via the @wallet bot.
• Recent performance and growth
The network saw accelerated growth in 2024-2025:
- Total Value Locked (TVL) increased from $14 million (2023) to $386 million (2024).
- Daily transactions increased from 100,000 to 1.2 million transactions.
- Launch of the "Open League" incentive program worth $124 million to attract Web3 projects.
- Partnership with "Tether" to enable USDT transfers across the network.
• Challenges and the future
- Regulatory risks: Due to its history with the SEC.
- Reliance on Telegram: This may limit independent adoption outside the app's ecosystem.
- Ambitious goals: Aims to attract 500 million users by 2028, with expectations for the price of TON to rise to $10-20.
• Conclusion
TON represents a unique model that combines advanced blockchain technology with a massive user base through Telegram. Despite regulatory challenges, its recent growth shows the potential for achieving the dream of "mass adoption" of digital currencies, especially with improved services like decentralized storage and the integrated self-custody wallet in Telegram. Its future hinges on its ability to expand its services beyond the app and enhance sectors like decentralized finance (DeFi).