TON Surges 90% in a Week, Flips XLM and SUI in Market Cap

According to CoinMarketCap and Telegram founder Pavel Durov's announcements, Toncoin (TON) surged over 90% between May 3 and May 9, rising from approximately $1.30 to $2.75 by May 7 before settling around $2.50 by May 9. With a market cap now around $6.8 billion, TON has surpassed both Stellar's XLM ($0.1639, up 2.61% weekly) and Sui's SUI ($1.05, up 14.38% weekly) in market ranking.

On May 4, Durov announced that Telegram would replace the TON Foundation as the primary driving force behind the network and become its largest validator, staking over 100 million TON across several dozen validators. Transaction fees dropped sixfold to approximately $0.0005 per transfer. The Catchain 2.0 upgrade reduced block time from 2.5 seconds to 400 milliseconds, achieving transaction finality in roughly one second and throughput exceeding 100,000 transactions per second. According to Durov's comparison, TON leads major Layer 1 blockchains in finality time at 0.6 seconds, ahead of Avalanche (1 second), BNB Smart Chain (1.1 seconds), and Sui (1.5 seconds). DEX volume reached $46 million daily, while total value locked climbed 61% to $94 million.