The Open Network, also known as TON, is a scalable multi-blockchain network that can process millions of transactions per second. Toncoin (TON) is the name and ticker symbol of The Open Network’s native utility and governance token.
Existing blockchains sometimes lack scalability and user-friendly interfaces. Meanwhile, blockchains can’t communicate with each other directly. The Open Network aims to solve these problems using its multi-blockchain architecture.
The TON blockchain is a collection of blockchains that consists of a masterchain, up to 232 workchains, and up to 260 shardchains. TON’s masterchain is the principal blockchain with all the information about the protocol. On the other hand, workchains are blockchains that handle smart contract transactions. These workchains are further subdivided into shards.
Through these shards, TON transfers messages instantly between any two blockchains, regardless of the network size, achieving massive scalability at speed. What’s more, to combat security issues and maintain decentralization, TON uses Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus and allows validators to add new blocks while avoiding unnecessary forks.
The TON ecosystem consists of blockchain products such as decentralized storage, a blockchain naming system, a micropayment platform, and other decentralized services. TONCOIN has several use cases in this ecosystem, such as earning validator and liquidity farming rewards, voting for protocol proposals, and paying for TON products.
TON price and tokenomics
Toncoin (TON) has a total supply of 5 billion. Of the total supply, 1.45 percent was distributed between testers and developers. The remaining 98.55 percent was transferred to Proof of Work (PoW) Giver smart contracts.
New Toncoin tokens are generated during block validation. As a result, Toncoin is inflationary, impacting its price in the long run. The annual inflation rate is 0.6 percent, calculated according to payments made by the TON community to the validators.
TON reached an all-time high price of $8.28 on June 14, 2024, with a market cap of more than $16.5 million.
TON: how is it different from Toncoin?
It’s helpful to understand the difference between TON the token and the TON ecosystem, as each shares the same name.
Toncoin, with the ticker TON, is the cryptocurrency that powers the TON ecosystem, which is short for The Open Network. The Open Network — also abbreviated to TON, refers to the underlying blockchain infrastructure and network. Toncoin (TON) is the native currency for transactions, staking, and governance within the same ecosystem.
Toncoin’s recent developments
Year 2024 brought numerous milestones to Toncoin. In March, the project announced the launch of The Open League, a community rewards initiative that grants millions of TON tokens to projects and users in the TON ecosystem. The Open League and its token distribution program aims to support the community’s continued growth by “putting crypto in every pocket”, according to Toncoin.
Meanwhile, the TON token’s price spiked by 50% in the month to date during May 2024, partly fueled by anticipation for the launch of Notcoin, a play-to-earn game. Notcoin’s native token, NOT, is built on the TON blockchain.
Soon after, crypto commentators suggested TON prices could hit new highs as excitement grew towards a Token Generation Event for Hamster Kombat, a Telegram clicker game that’s also built on the Ton blockchain. Also contributing to the positive sentiment were suggestions that the Ton wallet would potentially be integrated with the game platform.
The continued growth of the Toncoin ecosystem has been reflected in noteworthy growth for the blockchain’s total value locked, which surpassed $300 million during May 2024.
About the founders
The Open Network (TON) was initially launched as Telegram Open Network by Telegram founders Pavel and Nikolai Durov in 2019. However, Telegram Open Network was closed during mid-2020 following a regulatory ruling in the U.S.
Independent developers Anatoliy Makosov and Kirill Emelyanenko created The Open Network after Telegram stepped away from the project.
The decentralized community now consists of over 40 independent developers who work on the project as a part of TON Foundation, a not-for-profit community funded by donations.
The project is currently independent of Telegram, and the Telegram team has transferred the ton.org domain and the Github repository to TON’s blockchain developers. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov previously endorsed The Open Network in an official Telegram post during December 2021.
