What is Toncoin

The Open Network (TON) is a first-layer blockchain that was created to provide payments within the Telegram messaging platform.

Established in 2018, The Open Network aims to provide fast, cheap, and energy-efficient blockchain transactions.

TON is the project’s native cryptocurrency that operates through the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, making it a highly scalable network.

Toncoin has an annual inflation rate of 0.6%, and the network operates through validators who are required to own a significant number of the network’s native asset.

History of TON

Throughout its history, The Open Network has gone through a number of challenges that have undoubtedly slowed down the development of the network.

In 2018, the project’s white paper, which was originally named Gram, was released. During its development until 2020, Telegram raised funding through private sales of GRAM tokens.

As mentioned above, the project’s initial goal was to provide secure crypto payments through the Telegram app. Despite the development team’s efforts, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opposed the idea because Telegram did not disclose the sale of GRAM tokens worth a record $1.7 billion.

The app, run by Russian national Pavel Durov, eventually lost the case and halted development, and began compensating investors after the SEC categorized the offering as a sale of unregistered securities.

Despite the setbacks, the developers continued to work on the TON network in 2020. They relaunched under the name “NewTon”. After the change, the network provides fast and secure transactions with low fees, even allowing the purchase of goods and services through the applications on the network.

Because of its open source, community developers were able to pick up where Telegram left off and build new functionality on TON.

The idea behind Ton was initially to serve as an alternative to Gram and not represent an investment in Telegram itself.

How does Toncoin work?

Toncoin has a number of potential implementations on the TON network, including as a form of payment in decentralized applications (dApps).

Unlike most other blockchain ecosystems, TON is designed to support billions of concurrent users. The ecosystem does this by using blockchain sharding, which involves the use of multiple subnets or shards on the same chain to perform tasks quickly. Each shard has its own purpose and works to prevent large accumulations of unchecked blocks.

As already mentioned, TON uses the PoS mechanism, and every transaction is validated using Toncoin, which is also used to reward validators. The network also allows “nominators” to provide their tokens to validators to earn rewards. To lend tokens, a nominator must join a pool and stake (pledge) their assets. Both nominators and validators are managed using smart contracts, which adds an extra layer of security.

Use cases

• Data storage: Users are offered a web platform for data storage or, in other words, a decentralized file-sharing service analogous to well-known file hosting services such as Dropbox or Filecoin. Blockchain data is stored in encrypted form, and only the owner of the crypto wallet associated with the account can gain access.
• Proxy: With Toncoin, you can pay for digital entry points to an independent network that you can connect to yourself. This means that two (or more) users can create their own network that only they can access. Two updates are planned for this project. Proxy 2.0 will allow you to completely mask the IP addresses of sites and network users and provide anonymity and data protection. Proxy 3.0 plans to introduce the decentralized financial economy (DeFi) to the future internet. Payment for using the network will be made through crypto wallet integration.
• DNS: The TON project is currently running an auction for “.ton” domain names. You can buy your own domain on it. You can also link your wallet to the domain name: then another user will be able to send you coins by simply specifying the domain address as the recipient.
• TON Payments: The project is a unified payment system that will allow users and DeFi platforms to exchange tokens without fees and speed limits using smart contracts.
• Voting: TON token holders can vote on network developments and changes through the project management program.
• Validator: Every single user who validates transactions on the network (validator) is rewarded for maintaining the stability of TON.
• TON Diamonds: One of TON’s popular products is TON Diamonds, the decentralized marketplace for NFTs where users can participate in online auctions, buy and sell collections of the world’s best digital artists.