A glorified blockchain farce
The TON chain, touted as the 'new pinnacle of blockchain technology', has stirred quite a wave in the crypto world since its launch. From its boast of 'million TPS' to its so-called 'Telegram lineage', and its sharding technology, the packaging of the TON chain is exquisite enough to make one applaud. However, when we peel away this shiny exterior, we find that this project is a complete joke in terms of technology and ecology.
The existence of the TON chain proves one thing: the fancier the packaging, the more questionable the content. Next, let’s analyze this 'luxuriously renovated unfinished building' in the crypto world comprehensively, from technology to ecology, from governance to reality, and see how it continues to collapse under its halo.
Part One: Empty Promises of Technology
1. 'Million TPS': A technical myth based on empty talk
One of the proudest selling points of the TON chain is its 'million TPS' (transactions per second). However, this claim of million TPS is entirely theoretical and has never been realized in a real-world environment.
In the blockchain field, improvements in TPS often mean a weakening of decentralization. To boast about its performance, the TON chain employs a highly centralized node architecture, making its TPS appear high in theoretical terms, but in actual applications, it is full of loopholes:
Unreliable test data: The performance testing of the TON chain is entirely based on ideal conditions, such as a small number of users and fixed network conditions. In a real distributed environment, network latency and communication efficiency lead to a shocking decline in its performance.
Severe centralization issues: In pursuit of high TPS, the TON chain adopts a centralized node distribution method, which goes against the core idea of decentralization. In other words, it is merely a 'pseudo-high-performance system dressed in blockchain clothing'.
2. Sharding technology: Self-promotion of pseudo-innovation
The TON chain claims to use the most advanced sharding technology, allowing transaction loads to be distributed across multiple shards to improve overall performance. However, the issues with this sharding mechanism raise doubts about whether its design has been sufficiently validated:
Inefficient cross-shard communication: The core of sharding technology lies in efficient inter-shard communication, and the TON chain performs poorly in this regard. Cross-shard transaction delays are high, and success rates are low, making this technology unable to support complex on-chain applications.
Severe imbalance in sharding: In practical applications, some shards have extremely high transaction volumes while others are almost idle, directly leading to low resource utilization.
3. Shortcomings of the PoS-BFT Consensus Mechanism
The TON chain employs a consensus mechanism that combines PoS and BFT. However, there are serious flaws in the implementation of this consensus mechanism on the TON chain.
Centralization of nodes: The number of validation nodes on the TON chain is limited, with most nodes controlled by a few stakeholders, making its consensus mechanism more like 'a few people make the decisions'.
Vulnerable: The high concentration of nodes makes the TON chain more susceptible to malicious attacks. By controlling a small number of nodes, an attack on the entire network can be initiated, and this level of security is hardly reassuring.
Part Two: The False Prosperity of Ecological Construction
1. The Plight of the Developer Ecosystem
The core competitive advantage of blockchain projects lies in the support of the developer community. However, the developer ecosystem of the TON chain can only be described as 'desolate':
Rudimentary development tools: The official development tools of the TON chain lack necessary functional support, with not even the most basic debugging tools available. This frustrates developers trying to build DApps.
Poor quality documentation: The development documentation of the TON chain is full of errors and incomplete descriptions, requiring developers to spend a lot of time figuring things out on their own.
2. The awkwardness of the DApp ecosystem
There are almost no noteworthy decentralized applications on the TON chain. The current number of DApps is minimal, and most are simple transfer tools or boring mini-games. This ecological status raises the question: Who does the technical advantage of the TON chain really serve?
3. Low user engagement
Users are the core of blockchain projects. However, the user data of the TON chain has always been dismal:
Few active wallet users: The growth of wallet users on the TON chain is slow, showing a huge gap compared to mainstream blockchain projects.
Low transaction volume: The transaction volume on the chain is severely lacking, which not only indicates limited user interest but also reflects the overall ecological attractiveness.
Part Three: The Pseudo-Decentralization of Governance Models
The TON chain claims to adopt a decentralized governance model, but in reality, its governance is highly centralized in the hands of a few stakeholders:
Uneven distribution of nodes: Most validation nodes on the TON chain are controlled by a few institutions, leaving ordinary users with almost no voice.
Highly monopolized governance: The so-called community voting is merely a facade; the real decision-making power is held by the development team and early investors.
Part Four: The Gap Between the Roadmap and Reality
The roadmap of the TON chain is filled with grand goals, such as 'scalability enhancement' and 'smart contract optimization'. However, most of these goals remain in the PPT stage, with very few projects actually realized:
Too many promises, too few deliveries: Every update of the TON chain comes with a lot of publicity, but the actual delivered features are few and far between.
Insufficient technological innovation: Most of the technological highlights of the TON chain are borrowed from other projects, and the so-called innovations are merely 'changing the soup but not the medicine'.
Conclusion: The bubble will eventually burst
The existence of the TON chain is another typical case of the 'technical bubble' in the crypto world. Its technological capabilities are severely exaggerated, ecological construction is lackluster, and there are serious issues with its centralized governance model.
The blockchain industry needs genuine technological innovation, not pseudo-projects packaged in fancy language. The TON chain seems glamorous, but every detail reveals a fact: this is a beautifully packaged bubble, doomed to not last.
The conclusion is simple: the TON chain is a 'luxuriously renovated unfinished building' in the crypto world; no amount of paint can cover its problems.