TON To Become the Next-gen Network To Unite All Blockchains and the Existing Internet

Introduction

The Open Network (TON) is a third-generation proof-of-stake blockchain that is fast, secure, scalable, user-friendly, service provider-friendly, and capable of handling millions of transactions per second.

TON was designed in 2018 by the Durov brothers, the founders of Telegram Messenger to be a flexible multi-blockchain, ultracheap, user-friendly, and completely functional. That is to say, it was designed to outperform Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of speed and scalability.

Later on, the ownership was transferred to the open TON community that has since been supporting and developing it. The TON network was built on the prefix to host all reasonable applications currently approved and conceived. Hence, it is called the “super server”, intended to host and provide a variety of services.

The unique factor about TON blockchain is its “self-healing” vertical blockchain mechanism and Instant Hypercube Routing which makes it fast, reliable, scalable, and self-consistent at the same time.

Thriving on the goal for mass adoption, TON is looking at a future where all individuals can lead an independent financial life, free from discrimination, encumbrance, and impediment.

Key Principles of TON Design and Development

In today’s world, blockchain technology has been made as simple as trading information to exchange value. The key principles of TON’s design and development were written with these objectives in mind:

• Speed and scalability to execute millions of transactions per second, support an infinite number of active users, and keep many apps running.
• Intuitive user interfaces to make blockchain about people, not geeks and nerds, to make it easier for everyone to buy, store, and transfer assets familiarly and conveniently.
• Decentralization is necessary to provide reliability, stability, and safety, as well as to make progress toward a more secure and self-governing society.

Toncoin (TONCOIN)

TON is the main cryptocurrency of the TON Blockchain. TON Token has a total supply of 5 billion. Already, an initial distribution of Toncoins was conducted organically through Proof-of-Work mining and currently, there are 10 active PoW givers on the TON network.

Toncoin is the official means of payment in the TON ecosystem but as the network expands, the team is looking to ensure Toncoin becomes more than a means of payment that operates on the Ethereum platform.

• Commission (gas) paid for processing transactions and smart contracts
• Cross-chain transactions commission in The Open Network
• Payment for services provided by apps built on the platform (TON Services)
• Payment for storing data securely in a decentralized way (TON Storage)
• Payment for registering blockchain-based domain names (TON DNS) and hosting TON-sites (TON WWW)
• Payment for TON Proxy
• Payment for creating extra currencies
• Payment for creating new workchains
• Stakes deposited by validators to be eligible to validate transactions and generate new blocks and coins
• Capital lent out to validators in exchange for a share of their reward
• Voting power required to support or oppose changes in the parameters of the protocol

Below is the factsheet of Toncoin,

TON Network’s Ecosystem

The TON blockchain ecosystem includes all the makings of a true Web3.0 Internet, complete with decentralized storage, an anonymous network, DNS, fast payments, and other decentralized services. Below are some of the key components that make up the ecosystem of the TON network:

TON Blockchain

TON blockchain enables the merging of all existing blockchains into a single decentralized network. It uses the Proof-of-Stake consensus and can contain up to  2³² accompanying blockchains.

TON achieved scalability through sharding. As a result, blockchains in it can automatically split and merge to accommodate load modifications. This makes block generation speed remain unaffected by the transaction volume, therefore, no queues build up and costs remain low notwithstanding the demand.

Due to its smart routing mechanisms, exchange between any two blockchains can be done swiftly regardless of the network size. Scaling to even millions of chains is possible without impairing the processing given the logarithmic relation between data transfer time and several blockchains. 

TON depends on the advanced Proof-of-Stake consensus where validator nodes use deposit stakes to make sure their dependability and reach consensus via a variant of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant protocol.

The above mechanism enables TON to concentrate nodes computing power on handling transactions and smart contracts which results in increased speed and efficiency. At the same time, TON can grow new valid blocks on top of any invalidated blocks to eliminate unnecessary forks.  The self-healing mechanism guarantees all valid transactions are not discarded due to unrelated errors and it also saves resources.

TON Services

The recently launched TON services platform is one of the unique offerings of the TON network. Also known as TON Apps, the platform is partitioned in such a way that one may refer to it as an all-in-one service platform for all kinds of users. TON Services (TON Apps) is divided into these segments: Wallet, Exchange, Utilities, Bridges, Channels, and Chat.

In no particular order, the wallet includes; Tonkeeper, Web TON Wallet, Google Chrome Plugin, Windows TON Wallet, Android TON Wallet, MacOS TON Wallet, Linux TON Wallet, iOS TON Wallet, and @Wallet.

Under the exchange section, Toncoin can be stored, sent, and received centralized (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) as well as third-party services including PancakeSwap, Uniswap, Gate.io, Okex, FTX, Crypto Bot, Dodo, OTC Toncoin Market, 1inch, Mercuryo, and EXMO.

There is also the utility section where TON tools for blockchain explorer and API provider, a Telegram bot where developers can test blockchain and Dapps and so much more. These utilities are as follows: TON SH, Testnet Faucet, TonMoon, TON Notify Bot, Tonometer, TON Grafana, and TON Network.

Also, there are the TON-ETH bridge and the TON-BSC bridge. In addition, there are about three (3) mining pools for those interested in mining TON coins. There is the TonUniverse, a TON mining pool with an open-source client, zero-fee with a large community of users. Others include the TON Coin Pool and the Whales Pool.   

TON created a series of channels for its community members and almost all internationally spoken languages have their community represented. This means every user can easily navigate the community with their own native people and speakers. Best of all, these channels are divided according to languages and uses. There is the Arabic-speaking TON community, English, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Italian, Indonesian, Persian, Uzbek, Turkish, and Spanish-speaking TON community, among others.

Almost similar to the channels, there is also a chat room for most languages as well. This further conceptualizes TON’s mission to reach as many people as possible.

TON Payments

TON Payments is a micropayment platform and a micropayment channel network that is 90% ready. It can be used to transmit value off-chain between users, bots, and other services in real-time. These transfers are as secure as on-chain transactions because of the system’s built-in safeguards.

TON Proxy

For TON nodes, TON Proxy is a network proxy/anonymizer layer. It enables the creation of decentralized VPN services and blockchain-based TOR alternatives, similar to I2P, in order to achieve anonymity and protect online privacy. TON Proxy, when used in conjunction with the TON P2P Network and TON DNS, protects decentralized apps against censorship. The TON Proxy is 75% at its completion stage. 

TON DNS

TON DNS is at the final stage of its launch as the website indicates it is 90% close to completion.  When unveiled, TON DNS will make browsing blockchain similar to surfing the World Wide Web. It will make blockchain mainstream by assigning human-readable names to accounts, smart contracts, network nodes, and services.

TON Storage

TON Storage is 50% complete. The TON P2P Network provides access to TON Storage, a distributed file-storage system. Consider a more user-friendly version of Dropbox. For availability, this torrent-like system uses smart contracts, and it has a lot of promise for storing and transmitting enormous volumes of data.

TON Workchains

TON is made up of a masterchain and up to 2³² workchains with various rulesets, such as distinct account address and transaction formats, virtual machines for smart contracts and basic cryptocurrencies, and so on. However, workchains can still interact utilizing fundamental rules that are consistent. The TON concept will allow all existing blockchains to be combined into a single decentralized network. So far, the TON workchains platform is 50% ready.

TON Network Validators

TON uses the Proof-of-Stake and the system is maintained by validators. The good thing about it is that anyone can do it, after all, the more validators, the better for the network.  Moreover, becoming a validator requires you to start a specific software, stake your TON coin for a specific term.

The only essential condition is a high-performance server with a strong connection operating 24/7. When a validator stakes their Toncoin, the stake is paid back after a validation round with a surplus or validator reward for the effort.

Network validators verify user transactions and if all validators achieve consensus that a transaction is valid, it is incorporated into the blockchain. However, if a validator attempts to cheat or stay inactive, their stake will be taken fully or partially as a penalty.

Stakes deposited by validators are eligible to validate transactions and generate new blocks and coins and validators have the voting power to support or oppose changes in the parameters of the protocol.

What’s more, income (gas) is paid to validator nodes as a reward for processing transactions and smart contracts under the PoS consensus. Also, loans to validators are extended against a share of their reward. Payment for services and options are implemented by TON Services, TON Storage, TON DNS, TON Proxy, TON WWW.

TON Nominators

The TON Foundation unveiled the TON Nominators component to allow a significant number of Toncoin to be used to boost the reliability and scalability of the TON Blockchain while reducing some of the risks associated with PoW mining.

The overall network will profit from the implementation of that component: the more coins distributed to a more diverse group of enthusiasts eager to run validators, and the more reliable the network will become.

The team also expects the TON Nominators component to contribute to the network’s increased decentralization: more new participants from various regions will be able to join the network as validators and receive Toncoin in exchange for their efforts.

TON Roadmap 2022-2023

Final Thoughts

TON is gearing for a massive breakout this year and aims to unite all other blockchains into a single, decentralized network with intense fast transaction speeds and low costs. TON is building a foundation for a genuine web3 internet with decentralized storage, an anonymous network, instant payment, DNS, and support for various decentralized services.

All these show that TON is ready to move to the next stage of its roadmap as it has already done most of its background work by launching The Open Network and has completed work on the TON-ETH bridge. Thus, Toncoin can be transferred back and forth between it and Ethereum blockchain conveniently.

Moreover, with the CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov’s recent announcement on Telegram that the TON project is still “alive” and “evolving fast”, TON is definitely carrying on its vision to be a mass-market blockchain platform. Hence, the partnership with Donate is already yielding many fruits as TON payment was enabled in Q4 last year. 

The first project to watch out for this Q1 is the launch of its DNS service that delegates human-readable names to accounts, smart contracts, network nodes on its blockchain and services.

TON Storage, TON Proxy, and TON DNS launch are almost in their completion stages. You can join them and earn coins immediately when they are unveiled to the public. 

With that in mind, TON stands for “The Open Network”, an equitable path for all to achieve financial freedom regardless of class, race, and gender. For this mission, it is on a rally for mass adoption which it truly hopes to achieve for the benefit of all.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinQuora. No information in this article should be interpreted as investment advice. CoinQuora encourages all users to do their own research before investing in cryptocurrencies.