Author: Dr. Awesome Doge, early member of the TON core team; Translation: Jinse Finance Xiaozou

The name TON Foundation may be known to many, but few are aware of the story of its early contributors—the NEWTON team (TON core team).

Through voluntary technical contributions, NEWTON was recognized by the official Telegram team in 2021, achieving the greatest 'community takeover' technology handover in blockchain history.

As an early member of NEWTON, let me tell you this story.

1. Introduction: Joining the NEWTON team and the team's mission

When I joined the NEWTON team, our primary task was clear: to maintain the stability of the TON testnet2 code while enhancing development tools.

Since we did not have direct control over the TON blockchain GitHub repository but needed to continuously update the code, we created a new organization called NEWTON. To ensure smooth network updates, we encouraged the community to use the validators developed by NEWTON as the standard version.

From its establishment to June 2021, the NEWTON team completed several groundbreaking development and infrastructure projects. Let's delve into the 10 key contributions that influenced the early development of TON.

(1) mytonctrl: Automated node management tool

Our first major contribution is mytonctrl, a powerful automation tool for node installation and validator setup.

It provided some basic functionalities like wallet creation, contract deployment, transaction history retrieval, and even a DNS registration system—interestingly, the DNS at that time was different from the modern NFT-wrapped DNS we see today.

mytonctrl can also configure validators, liteservers, and litclients, making node data access and parsing simpler. In 2021, we added CPU-based mining scripts and automated power testing to simplify TON minting.

(2) tonmon: Visualizing blockchain health

Having nodes and accessing data is not enough; we need more visualization tools to monitor the blockchain's health.

To better monitor blockchain health, we created tonmon. The key metrics tracked by this tool include block creation time, shard status, dPoS election schedule, validator count and weight, and mining contract status. We can quickly respond to any network anomalies.

This network was very small in the early stages, with only about 80 validators worldwide.

(3) tonmine: Monitoring Giver contracts

We developed tonmine to track TON mining activities. Although the initial givers on the TON blockchain varied widely, only 10 small givers remained by 2021. tonmine displays daily mining statistics for each contract, averaging 20,000 TON per contract daily—a total of 200,000 TON for all contracts.

Mining difficulty varies greatly among different givers, depending on the number of miners—some givers have lower difficulty due to fewer miners, while others are extremely difficult.

(4) Cross-chain bridge

Before TON had the jetton or NFT standards, we recognized the importance of cross-chain compatibility. The NEWTON team developed a TON-native bridge for ERC-20 tokens on EVM-compatible chains and successfully tested it on bridge.ton.org. This made seamless transfers between TON, Ethereum, and BSC possible.

(5) @cryptobot: Telegram Bot wallet

In 2021, before the mini app appeared on Telegram, a team member developed the @cryptobot Telegram wallet. It initially supported BTC, TON, BNB, and USDT. After the launch of the mini app, the wallet underwent a complete update.

(6) toncenter: Simplifying blockchain data access

With toncenter, developers no longer need to set up full nodes, study lite clients or liteservers, or worry about serialized data formats. toncenter provides a public API that greatly simplifies on-chain data access for various wallets and blockchain explorers.

Although TON's infrastructure has evolved to have more API provider options, like today's tonxapi.com, toncenter continues to serve developers, proving the strength of its design.

(7) explorer.toncoin.org: The first block explorer for TON

The first TON blockchain explorer was built into the core codebase of explorer.toncoin.org. Although incredibly fast, its data representation was too technical for most users.

(8) ton.sh: A new generation browser

To address the complexity of explorer.toncoin.org, we created ton.sh. After solving the challenge of deserializing blockchain data, we published it using a public API.

ton.sh focuses on basic functionalities: wallet balance, transactions, especially memos. Memos are crucial for early TON users; before TON Connect or complex DeFi contracts emerged, memos were command operations, especially for deposit operations in exchanges.

Although new browsers like TONScan and TONViewer later emerged, ton.sh remains a historic milestone in TON development.

(9) TonWeb: Basic JavaScript SDK

Due to the challenging languages Fift and Func used in TON smart contracts, the NEWTON team developed TonWeb, a JavaScript SDK that simplifies wallet creation, deployment, and transactions.

(10) ton wallet: My first TON wallet

This TON wallet dates back to the Telegram era; it is my first wallet, and I still use it today.

2. Historic recognition: NEWTON's open letter to the official Telegram team

By June 2021, the NEWTON team made significant contributions, including running public liteserver, DHT servers, and archive nodes to maintain network stability. Then, toya-yanot wrote an open letter to the TON-blockchain team, documenting our year of work and requesting institutional permission from GitHub.

The letter listed the two leading figures and main team members of NEWTON.

Yes, I (Dr. Awesome Doge) am also on the list.

At that time, I thought it was just an open letter—a great way to showcase our contributions to the network without expecting any response.

But what surprised us was that the official Telegram team responded on June 30, 2021.

This marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the TON blockchain.

3. Reflecting on the past and looking to the future: Builder notes

Reflecting on this incredible journey, the early contributions of the NEWTON team far exceeded just code. Every line of code, every tool we developed, every sleepless night of maintenance—these efforts laid the foundation for TON today.

The explosive growth of TON in 2024, with thousands of builders joining the ecosystem, validated our belief during those challenging early stages—that the potential of TON was worth fighting for.

NEWTON members are spread across the globe, each supporting TON in their own way. My focus remains on developer needs and development in Asia (I am the only team member who speaks Mandarin). My team TONX and I are building the necessary infrastructure for the TON ecosystem:

  • TONX API: A powerful RPC & API for all dapps

  • Tonkey App: A multi-signature wallet managing 400 million assets

  • TonStake: The largest staking pool

  • TON Research: A community hub for developers

  • TON Hackers' Home events span Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Taipei

Stay tuned for the future.

The spirit of NEWTON lives on. This is just the beginning. Let's build TON together.