All You Need to Know in 2024

One factor that Telegram mini-games proved is that crypto adoption doesn’t essentially begin by pushing complicated applied sciences and burdensome onboarding processes that significantly hinder person expertise.

With only a few mechanics and clear in-game economies and rewards, Telegram-based crypto video games made headlines all through 2024, making a fuss on social media and contributing a big chunk of progress to Telegram’s person base.

All of that is due to The Open Community (TON), one of many largest blockchain ecosystems within the DeFi house. However is it simply mini-games? No, it’s a fancy system with subtle mechanisms tailor-made to builders’ calls for. From liquid staking protocols to constructing a DAO or a Area Identify Service (DNS), TON has develop into a Web3 powerhouse.

Within the following information, you’ll be taught not solely the way it works but in addition all the important thing elements that maintain the ecosystem and make it distinctive within the crypto house. You’ll additionally find out about the most well-liked DeFi initiatives and its flagship coin, Toncoin.

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What Is The Open Community (TON)?

The Open Community (TON) is a blockchain platform designed for seamless integration with different blockchain programs, aiming to make exchanging digital belongings, reminiscent of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as easy as on a regular basis messaging.

Initially developed by Telegram, the messaging app developed and led by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, TON has developed right into a next-generation blockchain centered on velocity, scalability, and person accessibility.

Fast Historical past Recap

TON’s origins hint again to Telegram’s imaginative and prescient of making a blockchain that would assist its huge neighborhood and improve the app’s ecosystem with a platform able to dealing with safe and fast transactions.

Whereas it was a sound challenge originally, regulatory obstacles didn’t take lengthy to kick in. TON was initially known as Telegram Open Community and raised over $1.7 billion by a personal token sale in 2018. Nevertheless, a 12 months later, the US Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) filed a lawsuit in opposition to Telegram, alleging that the token providing was an unregistered securities sale.

This prompted Telegram’s withdrawal from the challenge, handing out the event of the blockchain to the neighborhood, which renamed it The Open Community. And whereas TON operates independently from Telegram, it maintains ties with the messaging app. Lots of the crypto mini-games constructed on TON are deployed on Telegram, seeing large success for tokens like Notcoin (NOT) and Catizen, two fashionable tap-to-earn video games that massively boosted Telegram’s person base, which is almost one billion customers worldwide.

How Does TON Work?

TON’s structure is nothing in need of easy. It’s constructed to be extremely scalable, quick, and interoperable, utilizing a complicated mixture of a masterchain-workchain construction, dynamic sharding, and a consensus mechanism with Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) properties.

Total, TON is a strong platform for dApps and decentralized companies. Let’s look at it.

Masterchain and Workchains

That is the place issues get difficult, however let’s dive deep into it.

TON employs a multi-layered construction consisting of a number of chains that may talk with one another. All chains on TON are known as a workchain, and there are solely two operational workchains: The Masterchain and the Basechain.

The Basechain is the place transactions between actors are settled each day. The Masterchain is principally the community’s central ledger that shops block headers of all accompanying Workchains. In different phrases, the Masterchain maintains the community’s general state and managing essential capabilities reminiscent of protocol adjustments and validator elections.

Then again, Workchains are particular person blockchains throughout the TON community. Every Workchain operates independently and may deal with particular functions or use circumstances, offering flexibility and specialization throughout the community.

Furthermore, TON can assist 2^32 (roughly 4.3 billion) workchains, however once more, there are solely two operation ones. You would theoretically construct a workchain, nevertheless it’s fairly difficult and costly—and also you’d want ⅔ of votes from validators to approve it.

Sharding Know-how

To boost scalability, TON makes use of superior sharding techniques. Dynamic sharding permits TON to routinely break up and merge shardchains primarily based on transaction quantity. This ensures that efficiency stays optimum and prevents any potential bottlenecks.

TON additionally leverages horizontal scalability, which signifies that by including extra shards, the community can deal with elevated transaction volumes with out compromising general efficiency. It’s primarily an adaptable system that may stay sustainable whilst demand grows.

TON’s Proof-of-Stake Consensus

As talked about, TON leverages the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism that comes with Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) properties, which implies the community can obtain consensus even when some malicious actors are current, making certain uptime, reliability, and safety. Let’s broaden a bit extra on this and clarify it merely:

• Most sincere nodes on TON can proceed to course of transactions and preserve the community’s integrity even when some nodes are compromised or appearing maliciously.
• There’s additionally slashing, which cuts malicious actors’ staked tokens in half, so it’s fairly a strong financial disincentive.
• To wrap it up, sincere nodes can agree on the state of the community even when different not-so-honest nodes are conflicting info.

Validator nodes play an important function on this course of by staking TON cash to take part within the consensus mechanism, successfully vouching for his or her reliability and trustworthiness. This course of ensures that solely credible members contribute to sustaining the community’s integrity.

Key Options

TON is designed to be each scalable and quick, able to processing hundreds of transactions per second. The community achieves a finality time of simply 5 seconds, making it one of many quickest blockchains in operation.

Moreover, TON emphasizes cross-chain compatibility, which permits for seamless interplay with different blockchain networks. This interoperability makes it straightforward for various networks to speak and trade knowledge, enhancing the general utility of the TON ecosystem.

Immediate Hypercube Routing

Hypercube is one other revolutionary characteristic of TON that ensures environment friendly knowledge trade between any two blockchains within the community, no matter their measurement. The time taken to switch knowledge has a logarithmic relationship with the variety of blockchains, permitting TON to scale to tens of millions of chains with out compromising processing velocity.

TON Digital Machine

The TON community additionally gives sturdy good contract capabilities due to the TON Virtual Machine (TVM), designed to execute good contracts effectively and make it appropriate for a variety of dApps.

For the builders studying this, TON helps a number of programming languages, together with fashionable choices like Fift and Solidity, for good contract growth, offering you with the flexibleness to decide on the language that most closely fits your wants.

TON Community Governance

The TON Basis performs a major function in driving the community’s progress by initiatives reminiscent of ecosystem incentives and developer grants. These efforts be sure that the community continues to develop, appeal to expertise, and stay revolutionary.

Nevertheless, TON’s governance system works barely otherwise than a typical decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). That is the place TON.Vote kicks in—a decentralized on-chain governance platform tailor-made to the TON ecosystem.

Not like platforms like Snapshot.org, TON.Vote conducts all voting straight on-chain, which considerably enhances transparency and safety. The platform contains a decentralized and trustless voting mechanism the place every proposal triggers the deployment of a sensible contract. All votes are securely saved on IPFS, making them independently verifiable.

TON.Vote helps voting choices reminiscent of “sure,” “no,” and “abstain,” so it’s fairly an easy decision-making course of for the neighborhood.

In the end, updates or modifications to the TON blockchain require approval from no less than 66% of the validators. This excessive approval threshold ensures that adjustments to the community obtain substantial assist from the neighborhood.

Whereas TON.Vote shouldn’t be precisely a DAO; it helps the creation and administration of a number of DAOs throughout its ecosystem.

Total, the concept is to supply a construction that allows higher flexibility, as completely different initiatives and communities can set up their very own governance mechanisms. You probably have a challenge seeking to construct a DAO, then the platform gives the instruments essential to implement such governance performance.

Different Vital TON Options

It’s troublesome to cowl all of TON’s integration, options, and mechanisms because of its fast-paced progress, however there are a couple of elements that we will’t miss and are important to the TON ecosystem:

• TON Storage: a decentralized file storage resolution throughout the TON ecosystem designed to supply a safe, environment friendly, and versatile method to retailer knowledge. It helps each people and companies, offering scalability, safety, and reliability in a decentralized setting.
• TON Proxy: an anonymity-focused community layer inside TON designed to guard your privateness and improve safety. It gives options that assist bypass censorship and preserve anonymity whereas interacting with the TON community. This app routes your visitors by encrypted channels, successfully disguising your IP handle and transmitted knowledge. It’s a developer’s greatest buddy relating to constructing safe dApps with enhanced privateness options.

TON Funds

TON Funds is a layer-2 solution constructed on high of the TON blockchain, designed particularly for dealing with high-frequency, low-value transactions effectively. It really works fairly equally to Bitcoin’s Lightning Community, because it makes use of fee channels to course of transactions off-chain, settling them afterward the primary blockchain.

How Do TON Funds Work?

As talked about, TON Funds allows near-instantaneous transactions by processing them off-chain, considerably rushing up transaction instances in comparison with on-chain settlements. And sure, that features settlements on Telegram-based crypto video games.

TON Funds operates by an easy three-step course of.

• First, a channel is opened by creating a sensible contract on the TON blockchain, the place each events deposit their preliminary balances.
• After that, the events can conduct limitless off-chain transactions between themselves, bypassing the necessity to work together with the primary blockchain for every transaction.
• Lastly, when each events determine to settle, they shut the channel, and the ultimate balances are recorded on the blockchain, finishing the method.

One of many standout benefits is that 1) it has a low-cost construction, making it supreme for micropayments, supporting new enterprise fashions that depend on frequent, small-value transactions, and a pair of) there aren’t any charges for particular person transactions inside an open fee channel, with charges solely incurred when opening or closing a channel.

Nevertheless, do remember that the system’s effectiveness will depend on community results, that means it turns into extra environment friendly with widespread adoption, which could take time to realize.

TON DNS

TON DNS (Area Identify System) is a decentralized service that lets you assign easy-to-remember names to blockchain entities, changing complicated cryptographic addresses for smoother interactions throughout the TON ecosystem, much like how Ethereum Identify Service (ENS) works.

TON DNS is managed by good contracts; one central good contract controls the general system, whereas particular person area contracts deal with particular domains and subdomains, permitting for automated, safe administration.

You may assign these names to numerous blockchain components reminiscent of crypto wallets, good contracts, TON Websites, and community nodes, making them simpler to handle and keep in mind.

How Does TON DNS Work?

The system operates in a construction much like conventional DNS. There are top-level domains (TLDs) managed by the TON Basis, like “.ton,” “.pockets,” and “.surf.” Below these, you’ll be able to register your individual second-level domains, reminiscent of “myname.ton,” and create additional subdomains like “weblog.myname.ton.” This layered construction supplies flexibility and customization to your wants.

In case you’re planning to host an internet site on the TON community, TON DNS supplies decentralized domains. This integration provides necessary encryption and authenticity verification, making certain that TON Websites stay safe and credible, with the added benefit of supporting subdomains.

Additional, TON DNS is designed with a robust emphasis on decentralization and safety. It makes use of cryptographic proofs to confirm area authenticity, making certain safe and reliable identify assignments. Naturally, all knowledge storage is decentralized to make sure the system stays tamper-proof and dependable.

Use Circumstances of TON DNS

• NFT-Primarily based Domains: Domains inside TON DNS, particularly these ending in “.ton,” perform as NFTs. This implies they are often owned, transferred, and traded like another NFT, providing you with flexibility in the way you handle your domains.
• Decision Course of: The method for resolving names inside TON DNS includes a community of Subresolver Managers. Domains are damaged down into particular person components and are resolved step-by-step till the ultimate blockchain handle is discovered. This decentralized course of ensures correct and environment friendly identify decision.
• Developer Instruments: Builders can work together with TON DNS utilizing instruments such because the JavaScript SDKs TonWeb and TonLib. There’s additionally assist for utilizing lite-client and tonlib-cli for DNS queries, making it accessible for integrating TON DNS performance into functions.

In abstract, TON DNS is a basic piece of the TON ecosystem, providing simplicity and decentralization for area companies. It makes interacting with blockchain components way more intuitive.

Why Is TON Enticing for Crypto Sport Builders?

In case you’ve been within the crypto house for some time, then you definately’ve in all probability come throughout Telegram mini-games like Notcoin (NOT) and Catizen AI (CATI). These and dozens of different crypto video games have been developed on TON.

What makes TON engaging to crypto sport builders—moreover providing scalability and excessive throughput appropriate for giant participant communities—is that video games may be launched straight inside Telegram, making entry straightforward and speedy. That is necessary as a result of builders have entry to an unlimited participant base of over 900 million, providing immense progress potential.

Furthermore, since TON helps all kinds of digital belongings, coupled with cross-chain interoperability, it’s doable to create a number of monetization pathways by introducing NFTs, in-game tokens, paid options, and many others.

Additionally, the low transaction charges enable in-game microtransactions to stay inexpensive even throughout excessive exercise durations (due to sharding and the BFT algorithm we mentioned above).

Toncoin (TON) Tokenomics

Toncoin (TON) is The Open Community’s utility foreign money, and it really works equally to many different PoS cash. It serves varied functions throughout the ecosystem, beginning with transaction charges and good contract operations:

• Transaction Charges: These are used to pay transaction charges when conducting funds or executing good contracts on the TON blockchain. It additionally serves as an incentive for builders to assist the expansion of the TON ecosystem.
• Staking and Community Safety: Validators can stake Toncoin to safe the community. All validators taking part in block manufacturing and community safety obtain Toncoin as a reward.
• Governance: Naturally, it’s additionally the governance token, giving holders a say in community upgrades and growth selections, all carried out by TON.Vote.
• Cost for Decentralized Providers: You need to use Toncoin to pay for various decentralized companies throughout the TON ecosystem, reminiscent of TON Proxy, TON Storage, and TON DNS. You can even use it to pay for Telegram Premium subscriptions and acquire nameless cellphone numbers by Telegram.
• DeFi Purposes: It additionally acts as collateral in varied dApps on the TON ecosystem, enabling entry to decentralized lending, borrowing, and different monetary companies.

Okay, so what precisely is Toncoin? It’s a deflationary foreign money during which a portion of the transaction charges paid in Toncoin is burned, making a deflationary impact that may improve the token’s shortage and worth over time.

Fast details:

• Reached an all-time excessive of $8.25 on June 15.
• It’s up practically 1,000% because it launched on September 21, 2021.
• Circulating provide is over 2.5 billion (doesn’t have a max provide).
• About 98.55% of tokens have been made obtainable for mining, whereas the crew retained 1.45%. Distribution was achieved by decentralized mining.

Within the final six months, the burn charge has seen a major spike, peaking at 27.4K in April of 2024. This was a interval of excessive exercise for TON, adopted by a pointy decline within the burn charge, suggesting a change in community dynamics (i.e., decrease community exercise post-hype), solely to see a extra gradual uptick in the course of August all the way in which to September.

The variety of accounts has additionally been progressively rising within the final six months, reaching over 87M in September. Accounts check with any kind of good contract throughout the TON blockchain—NFT, staking contracts, and many others. Furthermore, the variety of on-chain activated wallets reached practically 20M in the identical month.

Prime DeFi Initiatives on The Open Community

Liquid staking initiatives account for many of the capital in TON’s cumulative worth, beginning with Tonstakers. Nevertheless, TON has additionally seen a number of derivatives protocols, lending and borrowing platforms, and decentralized exchanges being constructed on high of its community. Let’s evaluation them beneath.

Tonstakers

Tonstakers is an open-source, decentralized liquid staking platform on the TON community. You may stake your TON cash and obtain a liquid staking spinoff token (tsTON) in return. This token lets you use staked belongings in DeFi platforms whereas incomes staking rewards, with the choice to exit with extra TON than initially staked.

• Founders: Based by Nikolai Durov, the elder brother of Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
• Traders and Backers: It reached over $300M in TVL by June 2024, receiving funding from CoinFund, Delphi Ventures, Karatage, and the TON Basis.

Ston.fi

STON.fi is a decentralized automated market maker (AMM) trade constructed on the TON blockchain. It gives practically zero charges and low slippage for buying and selling TON-based tokens, making certain environment friendly and cost-effective transactions. STON.fi permits direct cross-chain swaps, broadening buying and selling choices, and is built-in with Telegram for handy DeFi entry.

• Founders: Based by Slavik Baranov (CEO), together with Mike Fedorov and Stanislav Bazylevich.
• Traders and Backers: Backed by the TON Basis, Karatage, Delphi Ventures, and CoinFund.

DeDust

DeDust is a decentralized trade (DEX) on TON, permitting you to commerce cryptocurrencies straight out of your pockets. It leverages the DeDust Protocol 2.0, benefiting from TON’s excessive scalability and throughput for quick, low-cost transactions. It gives each risky swimming pools and steady swaps to go well with completely different buying and selling preferences.

• Founders: Created by Nick Nekilov, who additionally developed Scaleton.
• Traders and Backers: There’s no publicly obtainable info on funding.

Cygnus

Cygnus is a stablecoin protocol constructed on short-term US debt belongings, bridging non-EVM programs like TON with EVM ecosystems. It gives yield technology and liquidity validation, enhancing cross-chain interactions. To earn rewards, you’ll be able to have interaction in staking and liquidity provision.

• Founders: Established by Eric Cheung, an investor and blockchain entrepreneur.
• Traders and Backers: No public info on traders, nevertheless it’s energetic on social media, sharing partnerships and milestones.

EVAA Finance

EVAA is a lending and borrowing protocol built-in with Telegram, permitting you to handle belongings straight. It gives options appropriate for each seasoned DeFi members and newcomers, enabling lending, liquidity provision, and token-based governance.

• Founders: Based by Artem Lazarev, with contributions from Vladislav Blizniuk.
• Traders and Backers: Raised round $820K in a public sale and funding led by TONcoin.fund and WAGMI Ventures.

Bemo

Bemo is one other liquid staking platform on TON, the place you deposit TON tokens and obtain stTON tokens in return. These tokens may be traded or utilized in varied DeFi functions whereas incomes staking rewards.

• Founders: Pavel Altukhov is the founder and CEO with over 20 years of expertise in asset administration.
• Traders and Backers: No public info obtainable.

Storm Commerce

Storm Trade gives a decentralized buying and selling expertise on the TON blockchain with options like leverage, remoted margin, and gamification. It helps crypto, shares, commodities, and foreign exchange, permitting versatile buying and selling by way of an online app or Telegram bot.

• Founders: Led by Denis Vasin, a software program engineer with intensive IT expertise.
• Traders and Backers: Raised over $400K from Magic Sq., Sky9 Capital, BlackDragon, and TONcoin.fund.

So, as you’ll be able to see, there’s all kinds of initiatives on TON. From liquid staking and decentralized exchanges to cross-chain swaps and community-driven economies, there’s rather a lot to discover if you happen to’re eager on this explicit ecosystem.

TON Roadmap and Social Media Presence

When reviewing TON’s roadmap, you’ll be able to see it’s divided between TON Blockchain, TON Proxy, TON Funds, and TON Storage.

The roadmap supplies an easy view of the challenge’s present standing and a few of the potential community adjustments being mentioned by the neighborhood.

Additional, you’ll be able to relaxation assured that TON is sort of energetic on social media. It hosts dwell areas, promotes its DeFi ecosystem, and sometimes supplies guides and updates for the TON neighborhood. Furthermore, the challenge usually promotes its CTF (Seize the Flag) competitors for TON builders. This can be a multi-day occasion hosted by the TON Basis, Tonbit, and TONX Studio, during which builders remedy complicated challenges to earn flags, finally competing to win prizes of over $10k or extra.

TON Builders, that is your second!

Simply introduced: the Seize The Flag competitors on #TON – TON CTF! Granted by TON Basis and arranged by Tonbit & TONX Studio.

Calling all #FunC and #Tact builders to affix the problem! Every solved problem earns you a “flag,”… pic.twitter.com/JMtXt06pC2

— TON (@ton_blockchain) September 24, 2024

What Are the Advantages of Utilizing TON?

• Scalability: By using superior sharding strategies, TON can course of tens of millions of transactions per second, fixing one of many largest challenges conventional blockchain networks face.
• Interoperability: Designed to work together effortlessly with different blockchain networks, TON opens up alternatives for cross-chain exchanges and collaborations.
• Decentralized Providers: TON isn’t only a blockchain; it gives extra decentralized companies like TON Storage for file administration, TON Proxy for privateness, and TON Providers to assist decentralized functions (DApps).
• Speedy Transactions: Because of its distinctive consensus mechanism, TON delivers transaction speeds which are considerably sooner than many established blockchain platforms.

Closing Ideas: What Makes The Open Community Stand Out?

The TON ecosystem stands out as one of the dynamic blockchain protocols in 2024.

By offering assist for builders with instruments and sources, coupled with state-of-the-art applied sciences that increase scalability and throughput, TON has drawn in tens of millions of customers and expanded past simply mini-games to develop into a complete Web3 platform.

Its capacity to supply superior scalability, cross-chain interoperability, and integration with companies like Telegram showcases its potential to develop into a number one pressure within the crypto house.