Introduction to The Open Network (TON) for beginners

Telegram team founders and brother duo Pavel and Nikolai Durov founded Toincoin (TON). It is a layer 1 blockchain that was originally meant to release sooner with Gram (GRAM) as its original native token. Unfortunately, the United States (US) court stopped its distribution, prompting Pavel Durov to announce their departure from the project in 2020 in a Telegram blog.

After that, the Telegram team stepped away from the project and assembled a non-profit association of developers to take over. It is now called The Open Network (TON) and its mainnet launched in 2022. Instead of being similar to Bitcoin, it is now closer to Ethereum as a layer 1 network with the ability to oversee smart contracts.

Toncoin (TON) became the native currency of the network and it functions as the utility token for every action on TON. Its best quality is having a bridge with Ethereum (ETH), allowing seamless transfer of ERC-20 tokens between the two blockchains. Thus, all Ethereum users can benefit directly from the strong network used by TON crypto.

Fast, cheap, and environmentally-friendly transactions

The biggest quality of TON that made it a big deal in the crypto industry is its powerful network. It was intentionally designed to support billions of transactions if necessary. This is done in preparation for Telegram’s number of users worldwide because the network was created for them.

Users of the cloud-based messaging app can now buy and sell cryptocurrencies using the same platform that they use in communication. Therefore, it serves as a messaging, exchange, and wallet app all-in-one. All transactions are operated by a bot developed by the TON Foundation.

All of these functionalities can be done almost instantly thanks to the networks’ robust system. TON is a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain using a native sharding system that helps it process every request neatly and orderly without consuming too much energy.

Thus, TON offers some of the cheapest, fastest, and most environmentally-friendly networks compared to its contemporaries. Not to mention that its smart contract support also allows layer 2 networks to be built on top of it like in Ethereum.

Goals of TON mainnet

The TON Foundation already provided their roadmap on their websites with plans perpetually extending by the year. This contains all of the features they aim to add and topics they need the community to decide on before starting development. All of these are done in the service of the initial two goals for TON.

Mass adoption

Telegram wants the same end goal as Bitcoin and Ethereum which is to help realise global adoption for crypto. The vision is ultimately helpful in reinventing finance for the whole world and it’s a noble goal to make cheap and fast payment accessible to everyone.

Telegram isn’t content with just offering TON to these people, too, so the network can also work well with Ethereum. Blockchain interactivity gives all networks involved each other’s benefits, improving their applications for all users.

Mass distribution

TON has the best chance of mass distribution right now because it is available for Telegram’s 700 million monthly users as of 2023. It is only 8% of the world population but it is still one of the top five most downloaded apps in the world.

Telegram has 55.2 million daily active users this year with 3-hours average use and 15 billion messages are transferred daily. TON can match these numbers in payment and remittances. The only goal for Telegram right now is for more users to need that feature in any way.

Current state of TON crypto

TON crypto is currently in a good position as a reliable network but its native token needs better visibility. Many people are currently relying only on Telegram’s original messaging function and not its blockchain-based services. It’s still in a good spot in the crypto landscape relatively speaking thanks to its connections with Ethereum and it will be better this year. See the roadmap for more information.

 

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