Recently, after a prolonged period of stagnation, the TON public chain has finally started to pick up momentum, with a total locked volume surpassing 78 million, reaching a historic high. Additionally, its ecosystem has seen the emergence of numerous Memecoins, and the TON Foundation has announced the recruitment of a Memecoin ecosystem manager, indicating a strong intention to develop the Meme ecosystem. However, this move has also sparked some controversy, namely whether TON can replicate the Memecoin frenzy of Solana. After all, unlike Solana’s ecosystem, TON’s DeFi ecosystem is still in its early stages, with relatively limited DeFi applications and tools currently available, while also facing challenges such as centralization and insufficient capital efficiency.

Introduction

TON (The Open Network) is a decentralized network aimed at building an open internet environment for everyone. Initially conceived by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, the founders of Telegram, TON’s development has now shifted to being community-driven. This transition emphasizes its decentralized principles and a broader community commitment to its growth and innovation. Despite Telegram later distancing 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’s ecosystem.

Integration with Telegram

The integration between TON and Telegram began with the vision of a new blockchain platform (Telegram Open Network) and its native cryptocurrency Grams, developed by the Telegram team since 2017. The project aimed to improve the speed, efficiency, and security of daily business transactions through TON blockchain technology, making Grams a true complement to traditional currencies. Telegram hoped that the TON blockchain could create a stable ecosystem and represented significant improvements in speed, availability, and scalability.

However, due to legal conflicts with the U.S. SEC, Telegram had to abandon the project. Nevertheless, TON did not terminate as a result. In May 2021, a developer community called NEWTON took over Telegram’s unfinished TON project and continued its research and development independently of Telegram. This team, spontaneously formed by members of the Telegram community, later renamed itself the TON Foundation in 2021, marking a new beginning for the project. With this significant change, the project’s name was updated from the original Telegram Open Network to The Open Network, reflecting its broader applications and openness. At the same time, the project’s native cryptocurrency was renamed from Gram to Toncoin. These series of changes demonstrate TON’s determination and pace towards a more decentralized and open network transformation.

The development of the TON ecosystem has received extensive support from the Telegram community, particularly evident in its integration with Telegram. Telegram seamlessly integrated TON-based crypto wallets into its ecosystem, enabling Telegram’s nearly one billion users to easily conduct cryptocurrency payments and access numerous DApps based on Toncoin. This not only boosts the adoption and visibility of Toncoin but also provides Telegram users with a highly practical and convenient way to explore and participate in the Web3 economy.

Furthermore, the TON Foundation and Telegram announced a formal partnership at last year’s Token2049 event in Singapore, showcasing their ambition to transform Telegram into Web3 through Toncoin and Telegram’s support and commitment to the TON ecosystem.

Through such integration, the collaboration between TON and Telegram not only enhances Toncoin’s market position but also provides new momentum for the cryptocurrency community on Telegram. As more products and applications are launched and integrated, the collaboration between TON and Telegram will continue to expand its influence, further boosting the adoption and visibility of Toncoin, and injecting vitality into the entire ecosystem.

Technical Analysis

Technology Architecture

1. Sharding Technology: TON’s architecture adopts sharding technology, dividing the blockchain into multiple shardchains, each capable of independently processing transactions and smart contracts, significantly improving the network’s capacity to handle large volumes of transactions.
2. Masterchain and Workchains: TON comprises a masterchain and up to 2^32 workchains, with each workchain having its own rule set covering account address formats, transaction protocols, and virtual machines for executing smart contracts.
3. Hypercube Routing: TON utilizes both slow hypercube routing and instant hypercube routing technologies to facilitate effective message passing between shardchains, ensuring network scalability and the demand for real-time communication. Slow hypercube routing ensures that message distribution among multiple shardchains logically grows with an increase in the number of shardchains, minimizing the increase in message delivery time as the network grows, thereby ensuring scalability. Instant hypercube routing is used for scenarios requiring real-time message passing between shardchains, supporting almost instantaneous communication, which is crucial for real-time data exchange and coordinating operations across different network segments.
4. Byzantine Fault Tolerant Variant of PoS Consensus Mechanism: Combining Byzantine fault tolerance technology with a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, TON’s consensus mechanism enhances network security while ensuring efficient network operations and lower energy consumption. Validator nodes are required to stake tokens to participate in the consensus process, providing economic incentives and increasing the economic cost of malicious behavior, thereby enhancing network security. Additionally, by introducing BFT technology, TON can maintain normal network operation even in the face of node failures or malicious attacks, ensuring the correctness and consistency of transactions and data.

Technical Features

1. Efficiency and Scalability: Through sharding technology and efficient routing mechanisms, TON can process millions of transactions per second while maintaining low latency and low costs, addressing the scalability challenges of blockchain.
2. Security and Decentralization: TON’s governance model is inherently decentralized, with decisions regarding network modifications requiring approval from the majority of validator nodes, achieved through the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. This mechanism further strengthens the security and decentralization of the network.
3. User-Friendliness: TON provides various services such as TON DNS and TON Storage, allowing users to interact with blockchain technology in a more intuitive and convenient manner.
4. Ecosystem Diversity: TON not only supports cryptocurrency transactions and smart contracts but also aims to create an ecosystem comprising various decentralized services such as decentralized storage, anonymous networks, DNS, and instant payments, driving the development of blockchain technology.

Other Services And Features

1. TON DNS: Enhances user experience by converting complex blockchain addresses into easily understandable names, similar to traditional domain name systems in the cryptocurrency field, using “.ton” as its exclusive domain name suffix. This mechanism allows users to access DApps using short and memorable domain names without the need to remember or input lengthy alphanumeric strings. Additionally, users can associate these domain names with their wallet addresses, simplifying the process of accessing blockchain resources.
2. TON Storage: A distributed file storage system that operates based on the principles of the Torrent network, storing and distributing files using distributed technology. Users can participate in file storage by providing their own disk space and receive TON as rewards. If users require more cloud storage space, they can also obtain it by paying with $TON. To ensure the security and anonymity of storage channels, TON Storage utilizes encryption technology and IP address masking technology through TON Proxy to protect data and prevent censorship and tracking. Based on its architecture, TON Storage supports the development of various distributed applications, including video streaming services, providing users with a platform that integrates video streaming, search, directory, and recommendation systems.
3. TON Payments: An internal payment system built on TON, primarily using Toncoin as the transaction currency but also supporting transfers between different cryptocurrencies within the ecosystem. It is applicable not only for wallet transfers between users but also for micro-payments within DApps, TON Proxy payments, and fee settlements for DNS and file storage services. TON Payments enables fast, efficient, and secure payment processes through decentralized and distributed technology, allowing users to freely and securely conduct various transactions and payment operations within the TON ecosystem.

In summary, the TON blockchain combines advanced technology with a wide range of applications to provide a high-performance and scalable blockchain platform. Through its close collaboration with Telegram, TON leverages the significant user base of Telegram to simplify cryptocurrency transactions and enhance the usability and accessibility of blockchain technology. This collaboration not only drives the adoption of TON but also promotes the dissemination of blockchain technology to mainstream society.

Will It Be The Next Solana?

This cycle, many public chains are emulating Solana, using the wealth effect of memes to attract users, and TON is among them. In recent days, FISH has led to a surge in memecoins within the ecosystem, leading many to believe that TON could be the next Solana.

As of the deadline of this article, Toncoin ranks eleventh on CoinMarketCap with a market capitalization of $17.1 billion, while Solana, ranked fifth, has a market capitalization of $78.3 billion, a fivefold difference. Comparing trading volumes, SOL’s daily trading volume reached $2.21 billion, while TON’s was $333 million. Additionally, crypto researcher riyuexiaochu conducted an analysis of TON’s on-chain tokens, indicating that TON has a total supply of 5.1 billion coins, with 3.8 billion in circulation. The project team holds around 960 million coins, while early low-cost miners hold over 1 billion coins, with some being part of the foundation. This distribution pattern highlights the fact that the development team and related stakeholders have retained a significant portion of the tokens, possibly for future development, marketing, and ecosystem rewards. However, it also indicates that the TON ecosystem relies on these key supporters in its early stages.

When discussing whether TON can replicate Solana’s successful trajectory, we can divide the discussion into pros and cons.

Positive View: TON Has Its Unique Advantages And Potential

1. Technological Innovation and Scalability: TON’s architecture is designed with native support for sharding, theoretically capable of achieving a processing speed of 104,715 transactions per second while maintaining high efficiency. Additionally, TON’s multi-chain structure and ability to support custom workchains provide powerful flexibility for various types of applications.
2. Integration with Telegram: TON’s greatest advantage may lie in its close integration with Telegram. Leveraging Telegram’s active user base of over 900 million and its mini app functionality, TON can offer unique user experiences in the social and gaming fields, which are difficult for other blockchain projects to replicate.
3. Community and Ecosystem Growth: Despite being a newcomer, TON is rapidly developing its ecosystem, providing rich development tools and resources. TON’s vision is to drive ecosystem development through the power of the community rather than relying on a single development team or company.

Negative View: TON Faces Challenges And Limitations

1. Market Competition and Technical Challenges: Despite theoretically high TPS, TON faces stability issues in practical operation. Additionally, while TON blockchain demonstrates growth potential in the DeFi sector, it still faces challenges and disadvantages. Its DeFi ecosystem is still in its early stages, with limited DeFi applications and tools, and issues such as centralization and capital inefficiency. These factors may impact TON’s attractiveness and credibility in the competitive DeFi market. TON’s TVL is incomparable in absolute terms compared to other networks like Polygon or Solana.
2. Legal and Regulatory Risks: Previously, Telegram’s founder expressed intentions to go public through an IPO. Can TON avoid similar pitfalls and mitigate legal and regulatory risks? Failure to do so could limit TON’s development prospects.
3. Market Manipulation and Network Security Risks: Early low-cost miners holding chips totaling 1 billion coins could lead to unstable market supply and price fluctuations. When these early miners decide to sell a large amount of their cryptocurrency holdings, it could result in a sharp market price decline, affecting other investors’ interests. Furthermore, excessive coin concentration may increase the risk of the network being controlled by a few, compromising the decentralization and security of the blockchain network.

Comprehensive Analysis

Despite TON’s unique advantages in social and gaming aspects through the Telegram platform, as well as its noteworthy technological prowess, it also faces numerous challenges. In stark contrast, Solana has built a robust ecosystem in many areas such as DeFi, NFT markets, and high-frequency trading, leveraging its outstanding performance in technological innovation and developer-friendly environment. Solana’s success largely stems from its ability to handle extremely high transaction speeds and reduce costs—capabilities that TON has yet to fully demonstrate.

Overall, while TON has unique market advantages in combining with Telegram’s social and gaming fields, the technical challenges, legal risks, and market competition it faces may hinder its path to replicating Solana’s success. Therefore, investors and market observers should maintain a cautious optimism, continue to monitor TON’s potential development in the social media field, while also being aware of the various risks it faces.

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