TON is pushing the potential of blockchain technology to new heights. TON (The Open Network) was originally created by the Telegram Messenger development team and has since been taken over by the community to build a fast, secure, and scalable blockchain network. As a blockchain project at the forefront of technological innovation, TON has attracted many developers and users with its high performance and flexibility, especially TON's theoretical maximum TPS can reach millions. With the continuous growth of the ecosystem and the continuous iteration of technology, TON is expected to become an important player in the blockchain field in the future, promoting the popularization and development of decentralized applications.
It is worth noting that OKX Web3 launched a new App Connect protocol on September 6, 2024, which currently supports the TON ecosystem and will soon be expanded to popular networks such as EVM and Solana. This upgrade allows developers to easily call the OKX App wallet directly through the Telegram Mini App to implement DApp interactive operations such as signature transactions. Developers only need to connect to App Connect to quickly build their own DApps on TON and Telegram, which not only simplifies the development process, but also lays the foundation for building a richer Web3 ecosystem.
This is the 2nd issue of the "Developer Stories" column, which will help you better understand the TON world from the perspectives of Anatoly Makosov, a core developer of TON, and Wang, the head of OKX Web3 TON ecosystem access. This issue covers TON technology progress, developer construction, community governance, ecological security, and other aspects, aiming to gain an in-depth understanding of the insights and plans of TON core developers.
Key points at a glance:
TON’s long-term goal is to promote the large-scale popularization of the crypto industry and decentralized technology, rather than short-term trends; our clear short-term goal is to achieve 500 million monthly active users within 5 years.
My appeal to Solidity programmers - if you don’t want to be left behind like Prolog or Fortran programmers, don’t be afraid of new things.
OKX Web3 launched a new App Connect protocol on September 6, 2024. It currently supports the TON ecosystem and will soon expand to popular networks such as EVM and Solana.
Telegram project developers do not necessarily have to choose the TON chain, they can choose any blockchain.
All services and products in the TON network have been developed entirely by the community in a decentralized manner, and our core team is only responsible for the implementation of the blockchain kernel.
I think only Bitcoin and TON will continue to exist in the future, and other blockchains will look outdated - their development cycles are too slow and their goals are unclear.
We have great respect for Bitcoin and Ethereum — they started the crypto era. But to be honest, they haven’t achieved much in terms of mass adoption.
In addition to providing a stage for outstanding projects in the TON ecosystem, OKX Web3 also promotes the development of the TON ecosystem through technology.
At present, we at TON Core are not standard setters, but pioneers.
We need to focus on the average user who is not yet familiar with blockchain. Perhaps such a user will find that having a TON passport with visa-free access to 256 countries is more attractive than yet another complex mining protocol.
OKX OS, a service provided by OKX Web3, provides TON developers with a complete set of development tools, SDKs, APIs, and documentation, greatly simplifying the development process. Developers can quickly build their own applications on TON and connect to the OKX Web3 wallet, solving project deployment and operation needs in one stop.
Detonating blockchain gaming, sharing TON’s technological innovation and progress
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: These games with tens of millions or hundreds of millions of users chose TON because TON seemed to be the only blockchain that could handle such a high load. Although we did encounter some challenges in the process, in the end we successfully completed the launch of all these games.
On May 16, 2024, Notcoin, a game project with 35 million users, issued its tokens on the TON blockchain and was listed on the world's top exchanges. On the first day of the game's launch, the TON blockchain welcomed 1 million new Notcoin holders. Also noteworthy are the token issuances of Avacoin in July and DOGS in August, which have 6 million and 50 million monthly active users respectively. Next, this year, projects such as Hamster Kombat, a gaming giant with 239 million players, and TapSwap, with 56 million players, will issue tokens on TON. These data are quite amazing even by Web2 standards. We feel like we are really pioneers.
TON has an asynchronous architecture that is capable of dynamic sharding. However, in practice, there are indeed some implementation and infrastructure issues that we work hard to address in a timely manner to keep up with the increasing load. We release planned kernel updates every 1-2 months, some of which improve resource consumption and performance of certain parts by dozens of times. This year we plan to release a major "accelerator" kernel update and update the decentralized weak validator penalty system to encourage network validators not to skimp on hardware.
Additionally, we are proud of our fixed network fee system, which does not fluctuate based on network load. If the TON token price increases, the fee can be lowered by a network-wide vote, as we have demonstrated this year.
Wang, head of OKX Web3 TON ecosystem access: Regarding this topic, I would like to add a few words from the perspective of three parties. The explosion of TON ecosystem on-chain games is mainly attributed to two key technical factors:
First of all, the deep integration of TON and Telegram and the TON Connect protocol have brought unique advantages to the TON ecosystem in the field of blockchain games, especially in terms of blockchain game promotion and user growth. Users can directly access blockchain games and other DApps on TON in the Telegram application, and achieve smooth wallet connection and interactive operations through TON Connect. This greatly reduces the user's entry threshold, making it more convenient to participate in blockchain games, thereby promoting the rapid growth of the user scale.
Secondly, TON’s sharding technology is another of its core strengths. This architecture significantly improves the throughput and scalability of the network and can effectively cope with the needs of high-concurrency scenarios. This is especially important for blockchain games, which typically need to handle large numbers of small transactions and real-time interactions. TON's sharding architecture ensures that the network can still operate stably even under high user volumes, avoiding congestion problems, thereby providing a smooth gaming experience and ensuring that players can seamlessly interact and trade in games.
Through these two major technological innovations, the TON ecosystem provides strong support for the development of blockchain games.
Why does TON ecosystem application start with GameFi instead of DeFi?
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: The goal of the TON blockchain is to promote the mass adoption of the crypto industry and decentralized technologies, which is why we always focus on the needs of ordinary users rather than short-term trends in the crypto industry. I am surprised why other blockchains focus almost entirely on the speculative component of cryptocurrencies. After all, speculators and traders are not the mainstream of the global population.
The TON network has a comprehensive tool system, covering DEX, lending protocols, liquidity staking, etc. We hope that users can play DeFi on TON as easily as playing small games and get started quickly.
On other blockchains, ordinary users can't even figure out how to send tokens. We need to solve this problem first before more people can use DeFi. This year we launched USDT on the TON network, which, according to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, was the most successful USDT launch in history, thanks to TON's low fees that do not depend on changes in network load, integration directly in the Telegram wallet, and the ability to pay network fees with USDT.
What does TON bring to developers?
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: First of all, I think the main force that attracts developers lies in the growing number of users in the TON ecosystem. Since the beginning of the year, the number of accounts on the TON blockchain has increased more than 10 times from 4 million to 53 million. In addition, with the emergence of a series of tools, which enables developers to create Mini Apps in Telegram and easily link them to the TON network and TON wallet through TON Connect, this provides blockchain developers with the opportunity to reach nearly 1 billion Telegram users.
Secondly, we are not compatible with EVM because they belong to different architectures: EVM is a non-scalable synchronous architecture, while TVM is a scalable asynchronous architecture. But if you consider programmers around the world, there are actually very few Solidity programmers. Our target is ordinary users who are not yet familiar with blockchain, not traders. At the same time, we also target ordinary developers who have not yet come into contact with blockchain, such as developers of languages such as Java, Python, C++, JavaScript, etc., rather than the few Solidity developers.
We have our own development tools and programming languages because TON's asynchronous structure is fundamentally different from the previous generation of synchronous blockchains. This allows developers to build scalable decentralized products. Some developers are lazy about learning new things. But programmers also moved from single-threaded languages to multi-threaded programming before the advent of blockchain. I appeal to Solidity programmers - if you don't want to be left behind by history like Prolog or Fortran programmers, don't be afraid of new things.
We continue to develop our own development tools and programming languages. Alexander Kirsanov, the maintainer of the KPHP language, and Anton Trunov, who created the Scilla language for the Zilliqa blockchain, have joined TON. We plan to show major updates at the Gateway conference this fall.
The TG+TON ecosystem is often compared with WeChat, which dominates many businesses. What is the division of labor between you and the community?
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: At this stage, all services and products in the TON network have been completely developed by the community in a decentralized manner. Our core team is only responsible for the implementation of the blockchain kernel and provides network guidelines and platforms for the community. The Telegram team has created a top-level messaging application with rich features and provides public Bots API and Mini Apps API.
Wang, head of OKX Web3 TON ecosystem access: Indeed, TON needs to focus more on the construction of the underlying protocol, especially in terms of infrastructure. Compared with mature public chains such as Ethereum, there is still room for improvement. In the future, as TON infrastructure improves, this will not only help attract more developers to the TON ecosystem, but will also pave the way for a wider range of application scenarios in the future.
Do the projects that come to TG for entrepreneurship have to choose TON in the end?
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: We have no mandatory requirements for developers, they can choose any blockchain. For example, the HOT project, which was originally running on Telegram, chose the Near blockchain, but failed in its initial token offering because the Near blockchain was overloaded and could not continue the issuance. Therefore, the HOT project has now moved to the TON blockchain. However, due to the viral nature of Telegram, those products that choose to launch on Telegram are more likely to gain a sufficient user base.
Wang, head of OKX Web3 TON ecosystem access: Although Telegram startup projects do not necessarily have to choose the TON chain, there are indeed many projects that choose to deploy on other public chains such as EVM. However, due to the deep integration of TON and Telegram, projects that choose to deploy on the TON chain have more obvious advantages within the Telegram ecosystem. The seamless connection between the TON chain and Telegram can greatly simplify the user experience of the project, improve user acquisition and participation, and at the same time use Telegram's huge user base and powerful social functions to effectively promote project development.
TON’s current and future position in the public chain ecosystem
Anatoly Makosov, core developer of TON: We follow our own path and do not blindly follow the trend. Our uniqueness attracts more innovators with new ideas rather than practitioners of crypto scams. At the same time, the crypto trend has not bypassed TON - we have experienced many engraving crazes and Meme coin crazes, etc.
TON is a community-driven project. No one, including the core team, can make changes on the blockchain alone. We can only provide options to improve the network for the community to choose from. Voting is built into the core of the TON blockchain, in line with the principles of decentralized projects. Major changes are voted on through the TON.vote platform and then voted on by validators.
I think only Bitcoin and TON will continue to exist in the future, and other blockchains will look outdated - their development cycles are too slow and their goals are unclear.
TON has a clear goal - to achieve 500 million monthly active users in 5 years. We are steadily moving towards this goal - since the beginning of this year, the number of monthly active users has increased more than 20 times, from 221,000 MAU to 4.5 million MAU.
What contribution does TON make to industry standardization?
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: I think the industry has not yet reached the stage of standardization. We have great respect for Bitcoin and Ethereum - they opened the era of the crypto industry. But to be honest, they have not achieved much in terms of large-scale applications.
At present, we at TON Core are not standard setters, but pioneers. Our development results will become industry standards in the future. However, we want to introduce a standard now. Last fall, we conducted a blockchain performance test and demonstrated 100K TPS of complex smart contract execution, which set a world record. The problem we encountered is that there is currently no unified system to measure and compare the performance of blockchains. The well-known auditing agency CertiK cross-validated our results and created a leaderboard in its system. This has the potential to become something like the Guinness World Records in the blockchain field.
TON is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain with its own Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol called Catchain. This year, we reached 400 independent validators on the network, with 600M TON (over 10% of the total supply) participating in the validation to ensure the correctness of the network. Although there have been no hacks on the TON kernel or smart contracts written by the core team during this period, we will not be too complacent.
In addition to the in-depth and long-term testing by the core team, we also work with top global auditing agencies and actively conduct bug bounty activities in the community. For example, USDT's smart contracts have been tested and reviewed by the core team, as well as by Trail of Bits, Zellic, and public cracking competitions.
In realizing large-scale applications of TON, which technological development direction are you paying attention to?
Anatoly Makosov, TON core developer: We need to focus on ordinary users who are not yet familiar with blockchain. Perhaps such a user will find that having a TON passport with visa-free access to 256 countries is more attractive than another complex mining protocol.
This year, we developed a new TON wallet smart contract v5.0, which will support two-factor authentication, social key recovery to prevent loss, and has implemented gas-free transactions, which means no TONcoin is required to pay network fees. In addition, we have now launched TON Mintless Token technology, allowing projects to instantly distribute tokens to hundreds of millions of users with a network cost of less than a dollar.
However, we still face many challenges, both technical and non-technical. It’s hard to single out a single problem - we need to improve the core, infrastructure, APIs, and applications. We also need to rethink the user experience (UX) and user interface many times until they are intuitive enough for everyone. TON has an inherently scalable architecture, good technology, and Telegram as a rocket launcher, so we can solve all these challenges. Many other blockchain projects lack these advantages.
Wang, head of OKX Web3 TON ecosystem access: I am personally also very concerned about the development of TON’s wallet smart contracts.
The latest v5 contract version introduces gas-free transactions, off-chain calls and other capabilities, which undoubtedly lays the foundation for the development of more Web2 usage scenarios. This has a lot in common with the EIP-4337 wallet, but also has unique advantages. This greatly improves the user-friendliness, flexibility and security of the TON chain wallet.
When users can use the TON chain wallet 'unconsciously', combined with Telegram's inherent user base in Web2, this will inevitably promote TON's further large-scale application.
What has OKX Web3 done for TON ecosystem construction?
Wang, the person in charge of OKX Web3 TON ecosystem access: First, as a leading Web3 portal, the OKX Web3 wallet has natively integrated the TON chain ecosystem. Users can manage TON assets in a one-stop manner through the OKX wallet, and smoothly complete cross-chain Swap, NFT, Defi, and access TON DApps on mobile and desktop. At the same time, OKX Web3, in conjunction with TON project parties and The Open League, launched a series of Giveaway and Cryptopedia activities, which exposed and attracted high-quality projects on TON and helped more Web3 users onboard to the TON ecosystem.
Second, in addition to providing a stage for outstanding projects in the TON ecosystem, OKX Web3 also promotes the development of the TON ecosystem through technology. We actively cooperate with TON core developers to jointly promote some TON Enhancement Proposals (TEPs) and continuously improve infrastructure to help developers better build applications in the ecosystem and make the TON ecosystem healthier and more sustainable. In addition, in terms of tools, the OKX OS service provided by OKX Web3 provides TON developers with a complete set of development tools, SDKs, APIs and documents, which greatly simplifies the development process. Developers can quickly build their own applications on TON and connect to the OKX Web3 wallet to solve project deployment and operation needs in one stop.
Third, OKX Ventures, as the investment department of OKX, has established a fund in cooperation with TON, actively participated in the investment and incubation of TON ecological projects, and helped start-up projects grow on the TON network. Through financial support and resource guidance, it helps more projects to be launched and commercialized in the TON ecosystem.
In short, OKX Web3 has been committed to promoting the innovation and application of blockchain technology, and the TON ecosystem is one of the areas we are very optimistic about. Our cooperation with the TON ecosystem will focus on promoting the growth and development of more projects within the ecosystem and providing users with the best multi-chain support and developer tools. However, OKX Web3 is very friendly to developers of all public chains in terms of technology and resources, not only for TON developers. In the future, we will continue to optimize our products and provide more convenient services for users and developers. We look forward to promoting the implementation of more application scenarios and attracting more users and developers to the Web3 ecosystem through resource sharing and technical exchanges.
About the "Developer Stories" column
Web3 developers have made important contributions to the development of the crypto industry. Their innovative spirit and technical capabilities have injected lasting vitality and momentum into the development of the entire industry, not only improving the technology itself, but also providing support for future application scenarios and business models. However, although they are active, they are rarely paid attention to. The "Developer Story" column launched by OKX Web3 and ChainCatcher aims to understand the development context, technical insights, latest developments, market changes, hot comments, etc. of different public chains from the perspective of developers through dialogues with core developers of different public chain ecosystems and the OKX Web3 technical team, enhance the voice of Web3 developers, approach these most active and interesting people, and provide them with the greatest support.
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