What's TON?

Nowadays, everyone wants to join the crypto game as a participant, developer, or investor. Even high-tech companies are joining the race.

Telegram messenger is one of them. They were about to launch one of the most sensational projects of 2018 in cryptocurrencies: the TON - Telegram Open Network (now known as The Open Network). The Durov brothers (Pavel and Nikolai) introduced the TON concept and attracted several billion dollars in investments. They were planning to migrate their Telegram messenger to TON, providing millions of users with the opportunity of fast and cheap transactions directly in the app.

Attention! Do not confuse Toncoin with TON Token, since these are two different cryptocurrencies!

Crypto coins are the native asset of a Blockchain like Bitcoin or Ethereum, whereas crypto tokens are created by platforms and applications built on top of an existing Blockchain. In other words, coins are any cryptocurrency with a standalone, independent blockchain. At the same time, tokens are cryptocurrencies that do not have their blockchain but live on another blockchain, and consequently, they benefit from its technology. 

If you look at CoinMarketCap, you can see that Toncoin and TON Token take entirely different positions. 

TON Token's rank is 5039. Today's live TON Token price is $0.0085 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $8,900 USD (latest info).

Toncoin is definitely doing way better, ranking 36th and valued at $1.29. The Market capitalisation is $1.22B, with a total supply of 5.047 Billion. Сompared to the token, the coin is a success.

Toncoin is the “Future of Currency”, as its creators call it. It is scalable and shareable. Its flexible architecture lets it grow with no loss of performance. 

Hope it sounds promising enough to learn more about the TONcoin crypto. Let's find out if Toncoin might be the next Bitcoin!

So, what is TON, after all?

TON is a fully decentralised layer-1 blockchain designed by Telegram. It boasts ultra-fast transactions, tiny fees, easy-to-use apps, and is environmentally friendly.

The ultimate goals of TON are:

1. to combine all existing blockchains into a new unified network;
2. to support a Web 3.0 initiative with decentralised storage, an anonymous network, instant payments and friendly, convenient services;
3. Access the community of 700 million users of the Telegram messenger, providing Toncoin with the most extensive potential user base.

Roadmap: Historical reference

In 2017, the founder of Vkontakte (social media network) and Telegram said that bitcoin is a chance for all countries to reduce dependence on the US dollar.

Since 2018, the Telegram team has been developing a new blockchain platform – TON, and its cryptocurrency – Gram. Once the public sale of Gram tokens completed several rounds, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Telegram, accusing it of conducting an unregistered securities offering. Telegram disputed the SEC's claims as unfounded but agreed to postpone the launch of TON until governance could resolve legal issues. However, that never happened, and the Telegram team had to close the project in early 2020.

Luckily, the idea had long spread by that time across the crypto-enthusiasts community. So in May 2020, a group of developers, validators and representatives announced the launch of the FreeTON project. That was possible since Telegram posted the open-source of the blockchain on GitHub. The team continued to maintain and develop the original testnet2 network from the Telegram team, which was launched in November 2019.

In May 2021, the community renamed the testnet2 network to the mainnet. The development team also changed the name from "NEWTON" to "TON Foundation", as we know it today. The TON Foundation is a non-profit community aiming to support further and develop the network. The Durov brothers have also transferred the rights to use the ton.org domain and GitHub repository to the TON Foundation as a gesture of support.

How does TON Blockchain work?

TON blockchain is both a heterogeneous and homogeneous multi-blockchain platform that is entirely self-sufficient. The ecosystem of the platform allows you to create a global market where any participants, whether ordinary people or companies, can freely interact with each other.

TON Blockchain can process millions of transactions per second and supports Turing Complete Smart Contracts. It has updated official blockchain specifications, multi-currency transfers, and micropayment channels for off-chain payment networks.

It seems like a lot, doesn't it? Let's break down the statement above to see what each of those means.

A heterogeneous blockchain has permissioned (only specific nodes are allowed to confirm operations), and permissionless blockchains are interconnected under one ecosystem. That means if you're a developer, you can pick whichever option works best for your app: permissioned or permissionless. Only a few blockchains can provide you with such freedom of choice.

Homogeneous multi-blockchain allows you to create any number of blockchains using the same rules and currency. That will help to unite all apps in one ecosystem, making it easy to integrate apps. Just imagine what opportunities it provides! 

Let's dive a bit into the technical details. If you're not a tech enthusiast, you can skip that part :) 

TON blockchain has several layers:

1. Master blockchain / Masterchain is a one-of-a-kind blockchain containing general information about the protocol and the current values of its parameters, a set of validators and their shares, as well as a set of currently active workchains and their 'shards' (we'll get to what that is a bit later).
2. Working blockchains / Workchains are a set of blockchains (up to 2 to the power of 32) that contain asset movement transactions and smart contracts. Individual workchains may have their own "rules", account address formats, transaction formats, etc. But all of them must meet some essential criteria of functional compatibility to ensure relatively simple interaction among themselves. That makes it possible to easily integrate different apps running on the TON blockchain with one another.
3. Shard blockchains / Shardchains are a subset of blockchains (up to 2 to the power of 60) within a set of workchains that ensures the operation of a sharding system. Sharding is a method of dividing and storing a single logical data set as multiple databases and has the same rules and block format as the workchains. Basically, it 'breaks' the network into pieces that store information about transactions and can share that information with the whole network. Sharding allows for increasing the transaction speed without enlarging the database.

 The consensus algorithm

TON uses the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism to validate transactions. PoS is a widespread algorithm that involves validators, the owners of cryptocurrencies, verifying transactions. If at least 2/3 of the validators agree that the transaction is correct, it is added to the new block of the blockchain.

Compared to PoW (Proof of Work), PoS is more energy efficient and, therefore, more environmentally friendly. That is why many blockchain networks have abandoned the first consensus algorithm used initially by Bitcoin.

The TON consensus network comprises various types of nodes: validators, nominators, phishers, and collators.

1. Validators are PoS nodes and block producers. They do the hard work of validating if the transaction is correct and storing information about it, aka 'mining'. 
2. Phishers monitor the consensus network for errors or supposedly malicious nodes. They 'protect' the system from being abused or hacked. Suppose the phisher unequivocally confirms a malicious node. In that case, he receives a reward as confiscation of part of the share of this validator.
3. The collators prepare shardchain blocks and provide them for validation. For that, they receive their part of the reward. Collators are additional participants in the consensus since validators almost always generate blocks themselves.
4. Nominators lend their assets (Gram tokens) to validators for profit. In fact, nominees are not part of the validators' infrastructure but only divide their large initial share of the asset between them in exchange for a proportional percentage of the total remuneration. Thus, the scheme and the amount of compensation that nominees receive depends entirely on the results of the validators' work, while nominees "vote" for validators by lending them Gram tokens. 

Toncoin: The future of currency

Toncoin has its blockchain, while other cryptocurrencies have been developed on top of pre-existing ones, such as Ethereum. Toncoin has several uses in the TON ecosystem; the official website lists them all; you can use it to:

• pay for transactions;
• ensure the security of the blockchain by placing bets;
• deciding how the network develops;
• and settling payments.

You can buy Toncoin on exchanges or directly in wallets. Whichever suits you best.

What is the difference between Toncoin and other cryptocurrencies? 

1. TON is close to being integrated into a messenger with an audience of over 700 million people. That makes its adoption much easier and faster than other crypto coins. In simple terms, as soon as Toncoin was fully integrated, users could transfer coins between each other without hindrance; and as a result, Toncoin may become a new form of money;
2. Toncoins allow you to actively participate in how the blockchain is developed by voting for certain decisions;
3. Being run on the TON Blockchain, everyone can quickly join the fast-growing community of developers and apps that will form the future.

What to do with Toncoin? 

You can buy and send it via the Telegram app using the @wallet bot.

In addition, you can use Toncoin to pay within TON for various services offered by decentralised applications created within the TON ecosystem. This is often the case in other blockchains that support the creation of dApps, such as Ethereum and Avalanche.

You can also use Toncoin as part of the TON management program to vote for changes and development of TON. Using this voting system, users can give their opinion on how TON is progressing instead of letting the creators of TON make all the decisions.

Toncoin transactions are also very accessible to conduct. One of the biggest problems of the cryptocurrency industry is the growth of transaction fees in hundreds of blockchains. The TON developers designed the network to maintain low transaction fees of less than $0.01. Even for swaps on Toncoin, a commission is less than $0.05. Compared to many other blockchains, these fees are negligible and make the use of TON more accessible to everyone.

Like any cryptocurrency, the price of Toncoin constantly fluctuates, but currently, its value is just under $1. In fact, until July 2022, Toncoin saw a general increase in demand and value, despite the continued decline of the cryptocurrency market.

Development prospects

Optimists believe that a platform with so many technological bells and whistles simply has to survive and win. Sceptics object that it will be complicated without integration into the messenger and access to large exchanges. The first steps have already been taken. We can already buy and sell cryptocurrency, and the number of exchanges will grow over time. Developers launched a bridge between TON and Ethereum networks on the mainnet network, allowing transactions of TON coins on the official website.

Now might be the perfect time to jump the crypto train by purchasing Toncoin!