Recently, the TON public chain has finally started to take off after a long period of downturn, with the total locked position exceeding 78 million, a record high. In addition, a large number of Memecoins have emerged in its ecology, and the TON Foundation has also announced the recruitment of Memecoin ecology leaders, which means to vigorously develop the Meme ecology. However, this move also caused some controversy, that is, can Ton replicate the Solana Meme craze? After all, unlike the Solana ecosystem, TONs DeFi ecosystem is still in its early stages. The current DeFi applications and tools are relatively limited, and there are also challenges of centralization issues and insufficient capital efficiency.
Introduction
TON (The Open Network) is a decentralized network that aims to build an open Internet environment for everyone. Originally conceived by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, the founders of Telegram, the development of TON has now become community-driven. This shift emphasizes its fundamental principles of decentralization and the broader community’s commitment to its growth and innovation. Although Telegram later distanced itself from the project due to regulatory challenges with the SEC, the network remains closely associated with the messaging app, integrating various blockchain-based services such as cryptocurrency payments and storage solutions directly into Telegram in the ecosystem.
Integration with Telegram
The combination of TON and Telegram began with the vision of a new blockchain platform (Telegram Open Network) developed by the Telegram team since 2017 and its native cryptocurrency Grams. The goal of this project is to improve the speed, efficiency and security of daily commercial transactions through TON blockchain technology, thus making Grams a true complement to traditional currencies. Telegram hopes that the TON blockchain will create a stable ecosystem and represent a major improvement in speed, usability, and scalability.
However, Telegram had to abandon the project due to legal conflicts with the US SEC. Despite this, TON did not terminate because of this. In May 2021, a developer community called NEWTON took over Telegrams unfinished TON project and continued its research and development independently of Telegram. This team formed spontaneously by members of the Telegram community was later renamed the TON Foundation (TON Foundation) in 2021, marking a new starting point for the project. With this major change, the project name has also been updated from the original Telegram Open Network to The Open Network, reflecting its wider application and openness. At the same time, the projects native encryption token was also renamed from Gram to Toncoin. This series of changes demonstrates TONs determination and pace of transforming into a more decentralized and open network.
The development of the TON ecosystem has been widely supported by the Telegram community, which is particularly evident in its integration with Telegram. Telegram has seamlessly integrated TON-based crypto wallets into its ecosystem, making Telegram’s nearly ten Billions of users can now easily make cryptocurrency payments and access numerous Toncoin-based DApps. This not only increases Toncoins adoption and popularity, but also provides Telegram users with a highly practical and convenient way to explore and participate in the Web3 economy.
In addition, the TON Foundation and Telegram announced a formal partnership at last years Token 2049 event in Singapore, demonstrating their ambition to transform Telegram into Web3 through Toncoin, as well as Telegrams support and commitment to the TON ecosystem.
With such an integration, the partnership between TON and Telegram not only advances Toncoins market position, but also provides new impetus to the cryptocurrency community on Telegram. As more products and applications are launched and integrated, the partnership between TON and Telegram will continue to expand its influence, further increasing Toncoins adoption and popularity, and energizing the entire ecosystem.
technical analysis
Technology Architecture
Sharding technology: TONs architecture uses sharding technology to divide the blockchain into multiple shard chains. Each shard chain can independently process transactions and smart contracts, greatly improving the ability to handle a large number of transactions.
Main chain and work chain: TON includes a main chain (masterchain) and up to 2^32 work chains (workchains). Each work chain has its own set of rules. These rule sets cover account address format, transaction protocol and execution Smart contract virtual machine, etc.
Hypercube routing: TON uses slow hypercube routing and instant hypercube routing technologies to achieve effective message transmission between shard chains, ensuring network scalability and instant communication needs. Among them, slow hypercube routing ensures that the distribution of messages among multiple shard chains can logically grow as the number of shard chains increases. This means that when the network grows, the increase in message delivery time is minimized, ensuring reliability. Scalability. Instant Hypercube Routing is used in scenarios that require instant messaging between shard chains, supporting nearly instantaneous communication, which is critical for operations that rely on real-time data exchange and coordination of different network parts.
PoS consensus mechanism of Byzantine fault tolerance variant: Combining Byzantine fault tolerance technology with the PoS consensus mechanism, TONs consensus mechanism not only improves network security, but also ensures efficient network operations and lower energy consumption. Validation nodes need to stake tokens to participate in the consensus process, which not only provides economic incentives, but also increases the economic cost of malicious behavior, thereby enhancing the security of the network. In addition, by introducing BFT technology, TON can maintain the normal operation of the network and ensure the correctness and consistency of transactions and data even in the face of node failure or malicious attacks.
Technical features
High efficiency and scalability: Through sharding technology and efficient routing mechanisms, TON is able to handle millions of transactions per second while maintaining low latency and low costs, solving the challenge of blockchain scalability.
Security and decentralization: TONs governance model is inherently decentralized. Decisions on network modifications require the approval of a majority of verification nodes and are implemented through a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. This mechanism further strengthens the security and decentralization of the network.
User-friendliness: TON provides a variety of services such as TON DNS, TON Storage, etc., allowing users to use blockchain technology in a more intuitive and convenient way.
Ecosystem diversity: TON not only supports cryptocurrency transactions and smart contracts, but also aims to create an ecosystem that includes a variety of decentralized services such as decentralized storage, anonymous networks, DNS, and instant payments to promote the development of blockchain .
Other services and features
TON DNS: Enhances user experience by converting complex blockchain addresses into easy-to-understand names, similar to the traditional domain name system in the cryptocurrency field, and uses .ton as its exclusive domain name suffix. This mechanism allows users to access DApps using short and easy-to-remember domain names without having to memorize or enter lengthy alphanumeric strings. Additionally, users can associate these domains with their wallet addresses, simplifying access to blockchain resources.
TON Storage: a distributed file storage system. Its operating mechanism draws on the principles of the Torrent network to store and distribute files through distributed technology. Users can participate in the storage of files by providing their own disk space and receive TON as a reward. If users need more cloud storage space, they can also obtain it by paying $TON. To ensure the security and anonymity of storage channels, TON Storage utilizes encryption technology and TON Proxys IP address masking technology to protect data and prevent censorship and tracking. Based on its architecture, TON Storage supports the development of a variety of distributed applications, including video streaming services, providing users with a platform that integrates video streaming, search, catalog and recommendation systems.
TON Payments: An internal payment system built on TON. Although it mainly uses Toncoin as the transaction currency, it also supports transfers between different cryptocurrencies within the ecosystem. It is not only suitable for wallet transfers between users, but also supports micro-payments within DApps, TON Proxy payments, and fee settlement for DNS and file storage services. TON Payments achieves a fast, efficient and secure payment process through decentralized and distributed technology, allowing users to conduct various transactions and payment operations freely and securely within the TON ecosystem.
In summary, the TON blockchain combines advanced technology and a wide range of application scenarios to provide a high-performance and scalable blockchain platform. By working closely with Telegram, TON further leverages Telegrams large user base to simplify cryptocurrency transactions and enhance the ease of use and accessibility of blockchain technology. This collaboration not only drives the adoption of TON, but also promotes the diffusion of blockchain technology into mainstream society.
Will she become the next Solana?
In this cycle, many public chains are imitating Solana and attracting users through the wealth creation effect of memes, and TON is also one of them. In recent days, FISH has led the memecoin surge in the ecosystem, and many people believe that TON will become the next Solana.
At the time of writing this article, Toncoin wasCoinMarketCapIt ranks 11th on the list with a market capitalization of US$17.1 billion, while Solana, which ranks fifth, has a market capitalization of US$78.3 billion, five times further away. Comparing the same trading volume, SOLs daily trading volume reached 2.21 billion US dollars, while TONs was 333 million US dollars. Additionally, crypto researchersSun and Moon XiaochuAn analysis of TONs on-chain chips shows that the total amount of TON is 5.1 billion, with 3.8 billion in circulation. Project parties have about 960 million in hand, while early low-cost miners have more than 1 billion. And some of the early miners were foundations. This distribution model highlights that the development team and stakeholders retain a significant portion of the tokens, which may be used for future development, marketing, and ecosystem rewards. But it also shows the fact that the TON ecosystem relied on these key supporters in its early days.
When discussing whether TON can replicate Solanas successful trajectory, we can divide the discussion into pros and cons.
Positive view: TON has its unique advantages and potential
Technological innovation and scalability: TONs architectural design has native sharding support and can theoretically reach a processing speed of 104,715 transactions per second while maintaining high efficiency. In addition, TONs multi-chain structure and ability to support custom working chains provide strong flexibility for different types of applications.
Integration with Telegram: TON’s biggest advantage may be its tight integration with Telegram. Backed by Telegrams 900 million monthly active users and its mini app function, TON is able to provide a unique user experience in the social and gaming fields, which is difficult to copy by other blockchain projects.
Community and ecosystem growth: Although TON is a latecomer, it is rapidly growing its ecosystem, providing a wealth of development tools and resources. TON’s vision is to drive the development of the ecosystem through the power of the community, rather than relying on a single development team or company.
Counterpoint: TON faces challenges and limitations
Market competition and technical challenges: Although TON has a high TPS in theory, there are stability issues in actual operation. Moreover, although the TON blockchain has shown growth potential in the DeFi field, it still faces some challenges and disadvantages. Its DeFi ecosystem is still in its early stages, and current DeFi applications and tools are relatively limited, and suffer from centralization issues and insufficient capital efficiency. These factors may affect TONs appeal and credibility in the highly competitive DeFi market. TONs TVL is incomparable in absolute terms to other networks such as Polygon or Solana.
Legal and regulatory risks: The founder of Telegram has previously stated that it intends to list on the stock market through an IPO. Can it avoid making the same mistakes and avoid legal and regulatory risks? If not, it will limit TONs development space.
Market manipulation and network security risks: Early low-cost miners have 1 billion chips, which may lead to instability in market supply and price fluctuations. When these early miners decide to sell large amounts of their cryptocurrency holdings, it can cause a sharp drop in market prices, affecting the interests of other investors. In addition, excessive concentration of currency may also increase the risk of the network being manipulated by a few people, thereby affecting the decentralization characteristics and security of the blockchain network.
comprehensive analysis
Although TON has its own uniqueness in social networking and gaming through the Telegram platform, and its technical advantages cannot be underestimated, the many challenges it faces are also obvious. In sharp contrast, Solana has established a strong ecosystem in many fields such as DeFi, NFT market and high-frequency trading by virtue of its excellence in technological innovation and developer-friendly environment. Solana’s success is largely due to its ability to handle ultra-high transaction speeds and reduce costs – capabilities that TON has yet to fully demonstrate.
In general, although TON has its unique market advantages in combining Telegrams social and gaming fields, the technical challenges, legal risks and market competition it faces may become obstacles for it to repeat Solanas successful path. Therefore, investors and market observers should remain cautiously optimistic and continue to pay attention to TONs potential development in the social media field, while also being alert to the various risks it faces.
