TON Core: Dec-Jan 2025 Updates
TON Core2024 overview and roadmap
Published an overview of TON Core major releases in 2024 and formed a TON Core roadmap for 2025 H1.
Kernel
Node Update TON 2024.12
The first update in the “Accelerator” update series has been rolled out to the mainnet.
In addition to fixes and improvements, the functionality of node monitoring only a part of the blockchain is launched. Partial liteservers and proxy liteserver are released.
Partial liteservers are also supported by the TON build system as well as MyTonCtrl.
Partial and proxy liteservers documentation
Node Update TON 2025.02
In addition to fixes and improvements, better discovery of updated nodes' (validators') IPs intoduced, which will allow a stable validator migration process. Made a number of improvements and fixes for extra-currencies. Also raised some limits for unlocking previously stuck community highload v2 wallets.
TVM 9
Added new TVM instruction PREVMCBLOCKS_100 and related global parameters, applicable to TVM sidechains crosschain communications and validation of blocks in a smart contracts.
New instruction SECP256K1_XONLY_PUBKEY_TWEAK_ADD simplifies the work with SECP256K1 curves, which can be applied in BTC Teleport and other dapps.
New instructions SETCONTCTRMANY and SETCONTCTRMANYX are the optimization that can be used by compilers.
Added support for extra currencies in the reserve instructions.
Build System Updates
- Introduced Ubuntu 22.04 ARM64 Github action.
- Add natively compiled TON binaries into PPA (Ubuntu repo).
- Improved Windows builds by removing precompiled libs.
- Fix WASM artifacts.
- Deprecated NixPkgs portable binaries in favor of AppImages.
Validator Tools and Relationship
Telemetry in overlays
Validators now share their version information by ADNL protocol even if MyTonCtrl is not used.
Now it is possible to understand more accurately and faster the process of updating network validators to a new software version.
Restore-from-Backup functionality
The validator owner can quickly bring up a validator on another server and switch to it. For example, in case of force majeure in the data center where the validator was located.
Support of Prometheus metrics
The validator administrator can collect metrics in Prometheus.
Remote node controller
MyTonCtrl can be installed on a separate server other than the server on which the vailadator is running.
MyTonCtrl v2.3.0, v2.3.1
In addition to the new functionality described above, MyTonCtrl has a number of fixes and improvements.
https://github.com/ton-blockchain/mytonctrl/releases
Dev Tools
TOLK 0.7
Type system inside the compiler has been redesigned, introduced generics and boolean type.
TOLK 0.8
Introduce tensorVar.0 and tupleVar.0 syntax, as preparation for structures.
TOLK VSCode Plugin 0.6.0, 0.7.0
Support of TOLK 0.7.
IntelliJ IDEA Plugin 2.5.0, 2.5.1
Support of TOLK 0.7 and TOLK 0.8.
Added Added TL-B schema inspections, TL-B constructor tag generator.
Security check-list
A checklist with typical errors and vulnerabilities of FunC smart contracts has been published.
https://gist.github.com/Trinketer22/676b98f5530ca71c0428c24576badd9c
MyLocalTon-Docker (Simple TVM Sidechain)
Created a tool to run standalone TON blockhcain in the Docker, which is essentially a simple TVM sidechain.
To give you an example, we launched a specialized sidechain “fastnet” with its own block explorer, HTTP API and the rest for the Telegram x TON Core contest.
https://github.com/neodix42/mylocalton-docker
FunC 0.4.6
Bugfixes.
ton4j SDK 0.8.2, 0.9.0
https://github.com/neodix42/ton4j/releases/
Kotlin SDK 0.3.0
https://github.com/ton-community/ton-kotlin/releases
Tonutils-go SDK 1.10.2
Added extra-currencies examples.
https://github.com/xssnick/tonutils-go
Pythoniq 0.1.40
Added extra-currencies examples.
https://github.com/yungwine/pytoniq
API
Extra-currencies support Mainnet
Support of extra-currencies in public V2 and public V3 API.
In API v3 the value_extra_currencies was added for messages and actions, the extra_currencies field with map of extra currency balances was added for account states.
Actions API Testnet
Automatically recognize and present transaction chains in a human-readable way. For example, instead of a set of raw data, data will be given to understandable descriptions: “Exchange 10 USDT for 10 DOGS on DeDust”.
https://testnet.toncenter.com/api/v3/index.html#/actions/api_v3_get_actions
Emulation API Testnet
API to emulate transactions before they are sent to the blockchain. This will allow developers and users to see the possible outcome of a transaction in advance.
https://testnet.toncenter.com/api/emulate/
Metadata API Testnet
For transactions, transfers, traces and actions was added "metadata" field with map of indexed smart contract offchain metadata for NFTs and Jettons.
https://testnet.toncenter.com/api/v3/index.html#/
Improved public Traces API
Faster trace handling and bugfixes.
https://toncenter.com/api/v3/index.html#/
testnet.tonscan.org uses Toncenter Actions API
Blockchain explorer https://testnet.tonscan.org uses Testnet Toncenter Actions API to display account history.
Misc
Adoption of extra currencies
In addition to the improvements to extra currencies in node, TVM, APIs and SDKs mentioned above TON Core has reached out to ecosystem members to ask them to support extra currencies.
Progress here: https://gist.github.com/Trinketer22/c0afef317c6ad19af600633a673d2700
CodeForces Contest
Recently, a contest with $51,000 prize fund was held to find the most efficient block compression algorithm that can be used to reduce traffic between TON blockchain nodes.
783 programmers took part in the contest, the winners showed compression more than doubled (47% of the original size). We are exploring approaches that can be applied to the TON main network
Telegram Contest
Prepared and launched up to $200K Telegram x TON Core contest.
The first task asks you to find the best way to optimise block validation, and the second task asks you to make a bulletproof bridge between Layer 1 of TON Blockchain and abstract TVM sidechain.
Winners have the chance to join the Telegram or TON Core teams, or receive support to launch a real TVM sidechain for TON. The best optimization solutions may also be implemented to enhance the TON main network.
Multisig UI update
https://multisig.ton.org UI update with faster loading, ability to add text comment to tranfer and other improvements.
https://github.com/ton-blockchain/multisig/releases/tag/v1.01
Vesting UI update
Added support for Hipo staking service to http://vesting.ton.org.
Media
https://t.me/toncore channel created.
https://t.me/tolk_lang channel created.
Anatoly Makosov - ForkLog podcast (rus).
Anatoly Makosov - interview for OKX Developer Series published.
Alexander Kirsanov - TONPIZ podcast (rus) about TOLK.
Alexander Kirsanov - interview for ton.app.