What lies behind the success of TON: a complete analysis of the technology that is rewriting the rules of blockchain

Why Is Everyone Talking About TON: From Idea to Revolution

In 2018, the Durov brothers launched an ambitious project — to create a blockchain capable of serving billions of users. After the SEC canceled the project in 2020, the idea did not die — in 2021, the TON Foundation took on the mission, and now, after several years, The Open Network has become a reality, working directly with 900 million Telegram users.

What is TON essentially? It’s not just another fifth-generation blockchain. It’s a solution to a problem that neither Bitcoin, Ethereum, nor even Solana could solve: how to achieve scalability, security, and decentralization simultaneously without compromises.

Problems of the Old Cryptocurrency World

Bitcoin processes 7 transactions per second. Ethereum — from 15 to 30. Solana, although claiming 65,000 TPS, regularly experiences outages and suffers from centralization. Meanwhile, Visa processes 24,000 transactions per second on a typical day, and systems for emerging markets require the ability to process microtransactions almost instantly.

But this is just the beginning of the problems. On Ethereum, gas fees during network congestion can reach hundreds of dollars. Ordinary users need to remember long cryptographic addresses instead of names. Interfaces are complex, and the learning curve is steep.

TON solves all this simultaneously thanks to revolutionary architecture.

How TON Turns Technology Upside Down: Infinite Sharding

The main difference of TON is its approach to scalability. Instead of one blockchain trying to process all transactions, TON uses dynamic sharding: each account essentially exists in its own mini-blockchain, which are then grouped into shards. These shards can be further divided — up to 2^60 chains on a single work chain.

Result? Theoretically, TON can process millions of transactions per second.

But scalability without security is just rapid failure. TON uses a modified PoS consensus with Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT). Validators stake significant amounts of tokens and are penalized (slashed) for malicious behavior. This creates an economic barrier to attacks: the cost of an attack is much higher than the potential gain.

Instant hypercube routing is another feature. Messages between shards pass through optimal paths via hypercube topology, delivering almost instantly (about 5 seconds) even between distant parts of the network.

Toncoin: Incentives of the System

What is Toncoin — it’s not just a token. It’s the engine oil of the entire TON machine.

By 2026, about 2.4 billion tokens will be in circulation from the maximum supply. The system is carefully balanced:

• Validators stake TON and earn about 20% annual yield if they honestly participate in consensus
• Annual inflation is about 2% — controlled and predictable
• Storage fees on the blockchain — tokens are burned, creating deflation
• Validator penalties (slashed) are also burned — counteracting inflation

Nominees can delegate their tokens to validators and earn a share of rewards, spreading risk. This creates a reliable economic security model.

But Toncoin is not just a consensus mechanism. It’s a currency for paying for gas, registering TON DNS domains, renting storage, and even subscriptions to Telegram Premium can now be paid with TON.

TON Inside Telegram: Invisible but Obvious

This is where the magic becomes apparent. Since September 2023, TON is Telegram’s official Web3 infrastructure. This means:

Fragment.com — an auction platform for names, where people trade premium usernames using cryptocurrency. Over 50,000 .ton domains are already registered.

Telegram Premium can be paid with crypto via the built-in wallet.

Telegram advertising — companies can pay in cryptocurrency.

Simple payments — sending funds in Telegram is now as easy as sending a message. Instead of an address, a user-friendly name via TON DNS is used.

No other blockchain has such built-in, natural access to an audience of 900 million users. This solves the main Web3 problem: the distribution problem.

An Ecosystem That Grows

Beyond payments, TON supports a full ecosystem:

• DeFi: STON.fi handles hundreds of millions in volume, maintaining low fees and fast finality
• Games: high TPS allows creating games with real ownership via NFTs, impossible on slow chains
• Storage and Privacy: TON Storage for decentralized data storage, TON Proxy for anonymity
• Domain Names: over 50,000 .ton domains with direct integration into Telegram payments

Over 1 million transactions are processed daily on the blockchain.

TON vs. the Rest of the World: Honest Comparison

Ethereum processes 15-30 TPS with high fees. TON processes millions of TPS with micro-cent fees.

Solana reaches 65,000 TPS, but the network periodically crashes, and it is more centralized. TON remains decentralized.

Near Protocol, Polkadot, Cosmos implement various sharding approaches, but none have direct access to a huge user base.

Aptos and Sui have money and ambitions but need to build an audience from scratch. TON already has one.

TON’s competitive advantage is not in individual technologies — competitors can copy parts. The advantage lies in the combination: cutting-edge architecture + huge user base + intuitive experience where cryptocurrency becomes invisible, like electricity.

Tokenomics Under the Microscope

The maximum supply of 5 billion tokens may seem large, but the system is designed for long-term sustainability:

• Emission: new tokens are issued as rewards to validators, about 2% annual inflation
• Deflation: storage fees, validator penalties, and other mechanisms burn tokens
• Distribution: rewards depend on stake size, validator performance, and participation in consensus
• Security through incentives: validators earn from honesty, and penalties for false blocks create an economic barrier to attacks

Storage fees for smart contract state — a unique feature of TON. Unlike Ethereum, where storage is almost free, TON charges ongoing fees for maintaining data on-chain. This prevents blockchain clutter from abandoned contracts and provides additional income for validators.

Practical Use of Toncoin

1. Paying for transactions: each operation requires gas in TON, but fees are microscopic and predictable
2. Validation: validators stake large amounts to produce blocks
3. Smart contracts: each computation consumes gas
4. Inter-chain messages: routing between shards requires payment in TON
5. Ecosystem services: .ton domains, storage, proxy — all paid in Toncoin
6. Governance: token holders participate in voting on protocol upgrades

Where TON Is Heading: Vision for the Future

The TON Foundation aims to attract 500 million Web3 users by 2028. Ambitions are backed by concrete plans:

• Scalability: optimizing sharding for millions of TPS
• Programming languages: new smart contract languages (inspired by Java, Haskell, ML) to attract developers
• Cross-chain: bridges to major blockchains (Ethereum, Bitcoin)
• Global expansion: focus on emerging markets where Telegram is already popular
• Real utility: fiat ramps, educational programs, local partnerships

The true test is mass adoption. TON has the technology and access. The question is whether it can keep its promise: to become a blockchain that even an ordinary person can use without special knowledge.

Why Is This Important Right Now

Bitcoin and Ethereum revolutionized the concept of money. But they were tools for enthusiasts. TON is designed for the other 8 billion people.

When Ethereum launched, the average person couldn’t use it to send money to their mother — too complicated, too expensive, too slow. TON changes that. Sending money to grandma in another country via Telegram is now as easy as sending a message.

This is not theory. Payment apps, games, DeFi protocols are already working on the chain. Every day, throughput grows, fees remain negligible, and user experience improves.

What is TON? An attempt to finally answer the question that cryptocurrency has been asking for 16 years: how to make money work the way Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned? Fast, cheap, without intermediaries, for everyone.