Layer 1 blockchain
TON ticker GRAM
Summary
Proof-of-stake network with a masterchain that holds configuration and the validator set and records the latest block of every shard, plus workchains (the main one holds ordinary accounts) that split into shardchains by address prefix as load rises and merge as it falls. Since April 2026 mainnet runs Catchain 2.0, a leader-based Byzantine-fault-tolerant protocol described in TON's Simplex whitepaper: validators take turns proposing and a block is finalized on votes worth at least two-thirds of stake, assuming less than one-third of stake is faulty. Every account, including each wallet, is a smart contract, and contracts interact only through asynchronous messages. 2345671519
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainOne permissionless layer-1 network made of a masterchain plus workchains that split into shardchains. Shards are part of the base protocol and are run by TON validators; they are not separate chains or rollups. The native coin was renamed from Toncoin (TON) to Gram (GRAM) on 2026-06-15; the network is still called TON.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- Validators who lock Gram as stake (documented technical minimum 300,000 Gram, about 1,000,000 in practice). Each slot window has a leader chosen in rotation from the validator set. The August 2026 node release added collators, specialized nodes that can build blocks for validators; their use on mainnet was not verified.
- Fork choice
- No weight-based fork choice: a block is finalized once votes from at least two-thirds of stake are collected, so conflicting finalized blocks would need more than one-third of stake to misbehave. A shard block is final once a finalized masterchain block references it; statuses shown before that point can still be rolled back.
Qualifications
- Block metrics · Partial. TON produces masterchain blocks plus blocks for every shard of every workchain, and the shard count changes with load, so single-chain block measures do not map directly.
- Evm compatibility · Not applicable. TON runs its own virtual machine, the TON Virtual Machine, with asynchronous messages between contracts, and does not execute EVM bytecode. EVM applications reach TON users through the separate TAC chain.
- Validator decentralization · Contested. The project says about 400 validators on six continents make TON one of the most decentralized networks and that Telegram becoming the largest validator strengthens that; the stake minimum, datacenter hardware and stake concentration point the other way, and concentration was not measured here.
- Finality · Partial. A block is final once validators holding two-thirds of stake vote for it. The original whitepaper says signing an invalid block can cost stake, but current docs are narrower: the validator guide sets a 101 Gram fine for processing under 90% of expected blocks and says validators breaking maintenance rules are fined and excluded, and neither it nor the Catchain 2.0 paper describes a penalty for signing conflicting blocks. It is therefore recorded as committee finality, not stake-backed economic finality.
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other: TON settles on its own layer-1 network of a masterchain plus workchains and shardchains, where validators finalize blocks with Catchain 2.0 and contracts run on the TON Virtual Machine; nothing settles to another chain. None of the named settlement families describes this.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Scalability and Security Contested
- Gives up
- Operational decentralization: running a full node or liteserver needs data-center-grade hardware and bandwidth, validating needs hundreds of thousands of Gram in stake, the active validator set is a few hundred operators, and Telegram said in May 2026 that it was becoming the largest validator. Blocks also stop finalizing if more than one-third of stake is offline.Security here means Byzantine-fault-tolerant finality while less than one-third of stake is faulty; penalties beyond the fine for low block production were not verified. The project calls TON fast, secure and scalable and, in May 2026, one of the most decentralized networks with about 400 validators and Telegram's stake as a counterbalance. That claims all three goals, which this review treats as disputed: the stake minimum, data-center hardware and unmeasured stake concentration point the other way. The liveness point is inferred from the two-thirds rule.
- Full node at home
- Data-center class 1314TON's node guide lists 16 cores, 128 GB RAM, at least 1 TB NVMe, at least 1 Gbps and about 16 TB of traffic per month at peaks for a liteserver; validators need 16 dedicated cores, 128 GB RAM and about 64 TB per month; archive liteservers need 20 TB or more of storage. All need a static public IPv4 address. The guide offers no smaller home profile.
- Throughput claims
- Lab benchmark: 100,000 tx/s 114Controlled benchmark; not observed network behavior.ton.org states a verified '100K+' figure from a public test.Date, duration and network size of the test are not stated on the cited page.Not stated for the test. TON's own node guide lists 16 cores, 128 GB RAM and at least 1 Gbps for ordinary liteservers and validators.The cited page gives no date, validator count, transaction mix or independent observer for the test. A public test is not observed mainnet load; the figure says nothing about state growth or propagation to ordinary nodes at that rate. Which consensus version the test ran on is not stated; mainnet changed consensus in April 2026.
- Theoretical peak 2Theoretical peak; not comparable across chains or with observed load.No number given: the 2021 whitepaper says the design could handle millions of transactions per second if necessary.A design aspiration based on splitting into many shards, not a measurement. Any aggregate rate across many shards would depend on many validator groups running data-center-grade nodes; no single ordinary node would process all of it.
Scaling layers
- TON payment channels · Payment channels, status unknown 22021
Two parties lock coins in an on-chain channel contract and exchange signed states off-chain; in an uncooperative close the other party has a grace period to submit a newer state, after which the latest submitted state is paid out. The core reference contract repository has had no commits since June 2022; a community project, with releases as recent as May 2026, builds a routed payment network with virtual channels on top. Mainnet usage was not verified. - TAC (TON Application Chain) · Sidechain, mainnet 222324
Separate EVM chain built with the Cosmos SDK and its own consensus, linked to TON by a sequencer network (the TON Adapter) whose groups each need three-of-five internal agreement, with several groups required to agree; assets are locked on the origin chain and minted on the other. TAC's own docs say the sequencer network is currently distributed but not decentralized. Users trust TAC's validators and sequencers, not TON validators. Not a rollup.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; no documented hash- and time-locked swap standard for TON was found in reviewed documentation. Because contracts interact through asynchronous messages, a swap spanning several contracts is not one all-or-nothing transaction unless contract logic makes it so. 8 |
| Authenticated data publication | Core-team softwareLimited scope | TON Storage shares files as hash-identified bags that readers check chunk by chunk against a Merkle root, and storage-provider contracts keep that root on-chain and demand periodic storage proofs. Its official implementation, storage-daemon, ships in the TON software suite from the ton-blockchain maintainers, who publish the reference node. Limited: the root is on-chain only when a storage-provider contract is used, and no way to publish or discover updated data is documented. 12 |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Consensus produces what a light client checks: masterchain blocks signed by validators. Lite clients query liteservers and check Merkle proofs against a trusted masterchain block. Limited: lite clients depend on liteservers for data, and TON's docs note that trusting that starting block needs key-block syncing or validator-signature checks. Verification code exists in several libraries. 11 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Partial (layer not stated) Earlier definition | A payment-channel contract from the core organization and a community payment-network implementation exist; the reference repository is inactive since 2022 and mainnet usage was not verified. 2021 |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Every account, including each wallet, is a smart contract run by the TON Virtual Machine; wallet contracts check an Ed25519 signature, a sequence number and an expiry time, and custom contracts can impose their own spending rules. This is built into the account model, not an add-on. 89 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; no way for a sender to cancel or reclaim a payment, and no recovery path, was found. A standard vesting contract releases coins on a cliff-and-period schedule and lets the recipient return locked coins to the original sender, but the sender cannot take them back on its own. 10 |
| Rollups | Unknown | Absence was not verified, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this unknown rather than not present. Earlier finding: no rollup settling to TON was found in reviewed sources; TAC is a separate chain linked by a sequencer network, and TON's shardchains are part of the base protocol. 622 |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | Established in the ecosystemSTON.fi, DeDust | STON.fi's documentation describes constant-product pools on TON; DeDust describes itself as a DEX on TON. Other pool types, liquidity depth and audits were not assessed. 252627 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | Established in the ecosystemUSDT (Tether) | Tether lists USDT on TON as an active jetton (master address EQCxE6mUtQJKFnGfaROTKOt1lZbDiiX1kCixRv7Nw2Id_sDs). Native here means issuer-issued on TON, not a protocol asset. Circle's USDC address list does not include TON. 2829 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Algorithmic, synthetic or hybrid dollar tokens on TON were not reviewed. |
| Bridges | Established in the ecosystemTAC TON Adapter, Legacy TON bridges to Ethereum, BNB Chain and Polygon | TON's documentation marks its original bridges as legacy and not recommended and points to third-party bridge providers without naming them; TAC links TON to its EVM chain through a sequencer network. Risk: Every route relies on parties outside TON consensus: the legacy bridges' operators (whose trust model current docs do not describe, and which the docs warn can be deprecated at any moment), TAC's sequencer groups and validators (TAC says its sequencer network is distributed but not yet decentralized), or third-party bridge operators. A bridged token is only as sound as those parties and their contracts. 1723 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemTON explorer (explorer.toncoin.org), Tonviewer, Tonscan | TON's docs link the low-level TON explorer; Tonviewer is operated by Keeper per its footer, and ton.org links Tonscan. Explorer data is provider-indexed; listing is not a quality check. 1183031 |
| Hardware wallets | Established in the ecosystemLedger | See custody rows: Ledger lists the coin in Ledger Wallet; Trezor says it does not support Gram (formerly Toncoin). 3234 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Native supportSame as native: Unknown | Can: Hold, send and receive the coin, still listed by Ledger as Toncoin (TON), in Ledger Wallet with keys on a Ledger device Can: Buy or swap the coin inside Ledger Wallet through the providers Ledger integratesLower confidence: Ledger Wallet's code has a TON feature switch that is off by default, and the only readable sign that it is on for users is Ledger's templated coin page. That page does not say whether jettons such as USDT on TON, NFTs or staking are supported. The TON device app's README mentions only the version 4 wallet contract and says the app must be sideloaded, so it looks out of date. 323338 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Manage Gram (formerly Toncoin) in Trezor SuiteTrezor's own page says it does not currently support Gram (previously Toncoin); third-party wallets that might sign TON transactions with a Trezor were not checked. 34 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for TON yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
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Node release v2026.08 adds collators to Catchain 2.0
TON's v2026.08 node release added collators to its Simplex-based consensus, letting specialized nodes build blocks on behalf of validators, along with better node metrics and stability fixes.
- Implementation:implemented in node software
- Release:released 2026-08-17
- Activation:mainnet use not verified
Sources: ton-blockchain maintainers — TON v2026.08 release notes (external site) · ton-blockchain maintainers — TON releases (external site)
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Node release v2026.07 improves QUIC connection and public-broadcast performance
TON's v2026.07 node release improved the performance of QUIC connections and public broadcasts between nodes, added metrics for QUIC and fixed stability issues. The release notes credit several bug-bounty participants. They describe no change to contract behaviour, fees or consensus rules.
- Implementation:implemented in node software
- Release:released 2026-08-03
- Activation:no network-wide activation described; changes apply to nodes that install the release
Sources: ton-blockchain maintainers — TON v2026.07 release notes (external site) · ton-blockchain maintainers — TON releases (external site)
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Node release v2026.06 brings global version 15, enabled on mainnet on 23 July 2026
TON's v2026.06 node release added global version 15, a set of protocol rule changes, along with sync and networking changes for nodes. TON's global-versions document says version 15 was enabled on mainnet on 23 July 2026. Under it, only governance contracts can change libraries, private libraries can no longer be added or used, accounts cannot be deployed with a library dictionary, a failed action phase also charges action fines for the messages that succeeded, and a transaction's outgoing messages are capped at 5,242,880 bits and 20,480 cells in total.
- Implementation:global version 15 rules implemented in node release v2026.06
- Release:released 2026-07-15
- Activation:enabled on mainnet 2026-07-23, per TON's global-versions document
Sources: ton-blockchain maintainers — TON v2026.06 release notes (external site) · ton-blockchain maintainers — Global versions (external site) · ton-blockchain maintainers — TON releases (external site)
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Toncoin renamed Gram (GRAM) after a community vote
The official TON channel announced that 81.22% of votes favoured renaming the native coin from Toncoin (TON) to Gram (GRAM), effective 15 June 2026 at 12:00 UTC. The network name, balances, addresses, contracts, NFTs, staking and DeFi positions were unchanged, and no swap or migration was required.
- Proposal:community vote June 1-8, 2026; 81.22% in favour
- Implementation:name, ticker and logo change only
- Release:not a protocol change
- Activation:effective 2026-06-15 12:00 UTC
Sources: Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Native Token Rename: Toncoin (TON) to Gram (GRAM) (external site) · TON (ton.org) — TON: The Open Network (external site) · Trezor — Gram (prev. Toncoin) support status (external site) · Ledger — Toncoin wallet (external site)
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Validators cut TON network fees about six-fold
After a validator software update on April 28, 2026 and a validator vote on gas prices that began on April 30, 2026, the official channel announced on May 4, 2026 that fees had dropped about six times. ton.org quoted about 0.00039 Gram for a simple transfer at review time.
- Proposal:validator configuration vote reported as started 2026-04-30
- Implementation:validator software update scheduled for 2026-04-28 (node release v2026.04-1 is dated that day), then a network configuration change
- Release:fee change made by configuration vote rather than by a software release
- Activation:reported active by 2026-05-04
Sources: Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Fees in TON have dropped 6x (external site) · Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Blockchain fee reduction plan (external site) · Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Gram of TON (official channel, public web view) (external site) · ton-blockchain maintainers — TON releases (external site) · TON (ton.org) — TON: The Open Network (external site) · TON Docs — Transaction fees (external site)
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Catchain 2.0 activated, bringing sub-second blocks to TON mainnet
Validators voted to fully activate Catchain 2.0, TON's new consensus protocol. TON's developer guide says the block interval fell from about 2.5 seconds to about 400 milliseconds and the lag to finality from about 10 seconds to about 1 second.
- Proposal:validator vote needing 75% of stake across two rounds, per the channel
- Implementation:implemented in TON node software
- Release:phased mainnet rollout: node upgrades from 2026-03-31, a basechain activation vote on 2026-04-02 and a final full-activation vote from 2026-04-08, per the channel
- Activation:active on mainnet by 2026-04-09
Sources: TON Docs — How to adopt sub-second finality (external site) · Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Sub-Second Mainnet Activation Starts Now (external site) · Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Catchain 2.0 activation is underway (external site) · Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — The TON blockchain just got upgraded (external site) · Gram of TON (Telegram channel) — Gram of TON (official channel, public web view) (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for TON through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- Validator election timing, stake lock-up period, maximum validator count and the full penalty scheme were not verified in current documentation; only the 101 Gram fine for low block production is recorded, and no penalty for signing conflicting blocks was found in the validator guide or the Catchain 2.0 paper. Whether the stake loss for signing invalid blocks that the original whitepaper describes is enforced today was not confirmed.
- Stake concentration, including Telegram's share after it announced becoming the largest validator, was not measured.
- Whether the collator nodes added in the August 2026 release are used on mainnet was not verified.
- Whether the whitepaper's method for correcting an invalid shard block after the fact is implemented in production was not verified.
- The official name of the smallest unit after the rename was not confirmed: the whitepaper calls it a nanoton, while current TON Storage documentation prices storage in nanograms. The nine-decimal division comes from the whitepaper.
- Mainnet usage of payment channels was not verified.
- No trust-minimized atomic-swap standard was found, and algorithmic or synthetic dollar tokens on TON were not reviewed.
- Named third-party bridges other than TAC's adapter were not reviewed, and current docs do not describe the legacy bridges' trust model.
- TAC's own validator set, its consensus details beyond its use of the Cosmos SDK, and its sequencer membership were not reviewed; the sequencer trust description comes from TAC's own documentation, which says the network is not yet decentralized.
- Ledger's page does not say whether jettons (including USDT), NFTs or staking are supported in Ledger Wallet; third-party Trezor signing paths were not checked.
- Ledger Wallet's code keeps TON behind a feature switch that is off by default and Ledger's remote switch settings could not be read, so the native Ledger rating rests on Ledger's templated coin page; which wallet contract versions Ledger Wallet supports was not confirmed.
- The public-test throughput figure on ton.org has no published date, setup or observer.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- TON: The Open Network (external site)
- The Open Network (whitepaper, based on the work of Dr. Nikolai Durov, July 26, 2021) (external site)
- Blockchain foundations overview (external site)
- Catchain 2.0: Simplex consensus in TON (external site)
- How to adopt sub-second finality (external site)
- Blockchain sharding (external site)
- Glossary (external site)
- Messages and transactions overview (external site)
- How TON wallets work (external site)
- Vesting contracts (external site)
- Liteserver proof verification (external site)
- TON Storage (external site)
- Nodes overview (external site)
- Set up a node with MyTonCtrl (external site)
- Staking overview (external site)
- Run a validator (external site)
- Bridges (external site)
- Blockchain explorers (external site)
- TON v2026.08 release notes (external site)
- TON payment channels contracts (external site)
- TON Payment Network (external site)
- TAC architecture (external site)
- TON Adapter (external site)
- TAC network info (external site)
- STON.fi documentation (external site)
- STON.fi (external site)
- DeDust.io: DEX on TON (external site)
- Supported protocols (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- Tonviewer TON explorer (external site)
- Tonscan TON blockchain explorer (external site)
- Toncoin wallet (external site)
- TON app for Ledger devices (external site)
- Gram (prev. Toncoin) support status (external site)
- Native Token Rename: Toncoin (TON) to Gram (GRAM) (external site)
- Telegram becoming TON's largest validator (post of 2026-05-05) (external site)
- 400 validators across 6 continents (post of 2026-05-12) (external site)
- currencyTon feature switch in Ledger Wallet code (declared without a value, so off by default) (external site)
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Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding