TON: From an Unfinished Dream to the Free Spirit of Web3

#Telegram
In 2018, a GRAM token whitepaper lay quietly on the desk of Telegram founder Pavel Durov. At that time, the blockchain world was plagued by congestion and high transaction fees, with Ethereum's TPS falling below 30, causing cross-border transfers to wait for hours and cost several dollars. Durov wrote down his vision on paper: "Making cryptocurrency as simple as sending a message," which became the initial spark of TON—a decentralized ecosystem capable of supporting Telegram's 900 million users.

The turning point of fate came unexpectedly, and regulatory pressure brought the GRAM project to a sudden halt, with its technical blueprint sealed in a code repository. However, the spark has never gone out. In 2020, the global developer community picked up this torch and renamed the project "The Open Network," marking the beginning of a community-driven rebirth. They retained the core design of "infinite sharding," allowing the network to dynamically split and merge shards like flowing water, with single shard TPS exceeding 100,000 and theoretical performance of the entire network surpassing one million, completely breaking the performance ceiling of blockchain. Even more revolutionary is the zero-fee mechanism, made possible through PoS consensus and a validator rental model, allowing scenarios such as small payments and micro-donations that were previously deterred by high Gas fees to become feasible.

The rise of TON began with its deep integration with Telegram. Users can transfer funds through the built-in wallet directly in the chat box, and creators can set up paid content with "0.1 TON unlock" in their channels. Gamers can trade items directly through Bots—900 million monthly active users become the largest traffic entry for Web3. The celebration of "Hamster Kombat" with 200 million users and the embedded trading on the Getgems exchange prove the limitless potential of "social + blockchain." When TON Card partnered with Visa and Mastercard, allowing 90 million merchants worldwide to accept TON payments, cryptocurrency finally stepped out of the digital island, becoming a payment tool accessible to ordinary people.

The prosperity of ecology has never stopped. Ston uses "virtual AMM" technology to crack the problem of impermanent loss in DeFi, with TVL surpassing $1 billion; Nike's wearable NFTs can be displayed in the metaverse and tried on in AR reality; in TON Spaces, musicians hold virtual concerts, with ticket revenues automatically distributed through smart contracts. More profoundly, it provides a cross-border remittance channel for the unbanked population in Africa, creates a user-friendly toolchain for developers without requiring Solidity, and even collaborates with OpenAI to build a decentralized AI model marketplace.

From an abandoned project to a strong competitor in Web3 infrastructure, there are no lone heroes in the story of TON, only countless developers committed to "decentralized inclusiveness." When quantum-resistant signature technology strengthens the security defense, and when 1,000 global validation nodes weave a stable network, this token that carries Telegram's unfinished dream is using technology to break the boundaries between Web2 and Web3. As Durov said: "The mission of TON is not to replace the traditional internet, but to inject a soul of freedom into it"—and this soul continues to thrive in the digital world with every zero-delay transaction and every innovative application.

TON Token Core Research:

The total supply of TON is approximately 5.09 billion tokens, with a circulation of 3.53 billion tokens. Initially, 98.55% was distributed through POW mining, with the team only holding 1.45%. Currently, it adopts a POS consensus mechanism, with an annual inflation rate of about 0.6% for validator rewards. Its core operation relies on infinite sharding technology, with a single shard TPS exceeding 100,000, and it is deeply integrated with Telegram, supporting functions such as transfers within the chat box and embedded wallets. Currently, about 480 million TON are staked, and 1.081 billion inactive tokens are frozen for 48 months. In terms of profit distribution, validators receive inflation rewards through staking, while ecosystem developers leverage Telegram's user base of over 1 billion to monetize applications. Token usage covers payment, NFT trading, DeFi, and other scenarios, with projects like Ston having a TVL that has exceeded $1 billion.

Recently, Coinbase launched TON and received venture capital support for it. AlphaTON invested 28.6M in TON staking and ecological acquisitions. Telegram's compliant wallet and mini financial tools in the U.S. were implemented, driving a 113% month-over-month increase in memecoin trading. However, the token has significant risks, with 68% of the supply controlled by whales. The current price has dropped over 54% from historical highs, with a weekly decline of 17%. Additionally, it has a strong correlation with altcoins and is easily affected by market sentiment. Validator income depends on coin prices, which may lead to node exits due to price sluggishness.

Bullish Logic:
The conversion potential of Telegram's massive user base is significant, with only 37,000 current holders, marking a substantial gap from the target of 300 million users. Additionally, the expansion of scenarios such as payments and e-commerce continues to boost token demand. On the institutional level, the listing on Coinbase brings increased liquidity and credibility, with analysts optimistic about breaking resistance levels to reach the $3.75-10 range. Increased staking and the expansion of the ecosystem dApps further reduce circulating supply.

Currently, Telegram is temporarily restricted from developing in China, but it is expected that these restrictions will be lifted within the next 5 years. At that time, TON will fully welcome Chinese users, and the token price will be wildly sought after. We are currently at a historical bottom stage, and it is expected to reach 3u within a month, exceed 5u within a year, and exceed 10u within 5 years!