TON’s first global hackathon Toncoin (TON Blockchain)

Leo Mikhael
6 min readDec 22, 2022

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In January of 2018, personal messaging app Telegram first unveiled their plans to release a blockchain platform referred to as the Telegram Open Network. The venture had objectives to create a relatively scalable blockchain that might aid integrations with the Telegram chatting app and faucet into its huge userbase. A few months later, Telegram began out accomplishing personal income for the Gram token, which changed into imagined to be the local asset of Telegram Open Network. In an try to live compliant with policies and keep away from having the tokens categorised as securities, Grams have been simplest presented to accepted traders. The personal sale attracted huge quantities of hobby and through April 2018, Telegram had raised $1.7 billion in total. This made it one in every of the most important token income of all time, 2nd simplest to the preliminary coin presenting for EOS. Despite Telegram’s efforts, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had severe issues approximately the Gram token sale. After extra than 18 months of communication, Telegram and the SEC didn’t attain not unusualplace ground. In October of 2019, the SEC filed an emergency motion to save you Telegram from dispensing Grams to traders who bought rights to the tokens. At the time, the SEC stated it took the motion to save you Gram tokens, which it regarded as securities that have been offered with out the right registration, from being offered on open markets withinside the United States. The SEC’s involvement in opposition to the Telegram Open Network regarded to be a demise blow for the relatively expected venture. Indeed, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov introduced in May of 2020 that Telegram might prevent being actively worried with Telegram Open Network. TON (The Open Network) venture emerges to hold Telegram’s blockchain imaginative and prescient However, there have been builders that noticed the capability withinside the generation that Telegram had advanced for its might-be blockchain platform. Shortly after Telegram formally deserted the venture, builders Anatoliy Makosov and EmelyanenkoK released Newton, a network that might hold the venture thru open-supply principles. Their plan changed into to hold growing the venture to fulfill the imaginative and prescient defined withinside the whitepaper to start with launched through Telegram. In May of 2021, Newton changed into renamed to TON Foundation (TON now stands for The Open Network). The blockchain’s local cryptocurrency changed into renamed to Toncoin. Interestingly sufficient, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov stated in a message published in December 2021 that he needed achievement for Toncoin and that he changed into glad to peer that different builders are persevering with the paintings that Telegram began out. Despite Durov seemingly being partial to the venture, we ought to make clear that Toncoin is being advanced independently from Telegram. The venture were given a large raise in January 2022, whilst Andrey Rogozov joined the TON Foundation. Rogozov formerly served because the CEO of Russian social media massive VK (which changed into at the start based through Durov). Rogozov continues to be with VK, even though he plans to transport into an marketing consultant position on the corporation as he starts his paintings with the TON Foundation. How does TON Blockchain paintings? Now that we recognise the maximum essential information approximately the venture’s history, let’s check what Toncoin definitely gives and what its developer network is running on. The TON Blockchain is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain platform that implements numerous scaling technology so that it will aid mass adoption. The local asset of the TON Blockchain is referred to as Toncoin. To meet its scalability goals, the TON Blockchain definitely capabilities as a group of blockchains. There is a masterchain that carries the maximum crucial data required for the community to function — this consists of key protocol parameters, the lively set of validators, the lively set of workchains, in addition to the hashes of the blocks currently produced through workchains and shardchains. Smart contracts and crypto asset transfers withinside the TON Blockchain community are treated through workchains. Workchains may be custom designed for precise use cases, so long as they meet baseline standards required to interoperate with different workchains that make up the TON Blockchain. Theoretically, the structure of the TON Blockchain lets in it to aid over four billion workchains. TON Blockchain additionally implements sharding, as workchains may be divided into shardchains. Workchains have now no longer been carried out into the TON Blockchain yet, even though their improvement is underway. The Proof-of-Stake consensus in TON Blockchain is performed through validator nodes. While turning into a validator is available to anyone, it does require a huge quantity of Toncoin. Toncoin holders can function nominators and delegate their cash to a validator to assist them attain the specified quantity. Nominators are of route entitled to a part of the rewards accumulated through the validator they’re supporting, so this represents a manner for nominators to passively develop their Toncoin holdings. Toncoin holders also can delegate their cash to operators of oracle nodes that oversee the bridging of Toncoins to different blockchains. The TON Blockchain ecosystem The TON Foundation is running on a collection of offerings so one can concurrently leverage the TON Blockchain and upload to its functionality. TON Payments TON Payments is a bills platform stimulated through the Lightning Network. The primary concept at the back of TON Payments is to offer transactions which are green sufficient to make micropayments viable. To lessen prices and the weight at the TON Blockchain, bills are made off-chain however the very last balances of the individuals are in the end enforced at the blockchain. TON DNS Everyone who’s ever used a blockchain is acquainted with the lengthy strings of reputedly random characters that make up cryptocurrency pockets addresses. Remembering those addresses is nearly impossible, and the machine doesn’t precisely appear very human-pleasant. TON DNS (Domain Name Service) tackles this difficulty through associating accounts, clever contracts and different offerings at the TON blockchain with human-readable names. This will make the TON Blockchain a good deal mure consumer-pleasant, as we’ve already visible with comparable structures on different blockchains just like the ENS on Ethereum. TON Storage TON Storage is a allotted report garage carrier wherein documents are saved off-chain even as retaining a hash of the report at the blockchain. Smart contracts are used to put into effect the provision of the report withinside the garage community. The structure of TON Storage is stimulated through torrents, and is designed to offer a steady and everlasting location for storing documents. TON Proxy TON Proxy is supposed to offer on line privateness to customers of the TON Blockchain. It permits decentralized VPNs and TOR-like networks to decorate the privateness of customers at the TON Blockchain. In mixture with TON DNS and the TON Blockchain, TON Proxy may be used to installation censorship-resistant decentralized packages. TON Services TON Services lets in builders to release packages and clever contracts that use the TON Blockchain. These offerings are entire with consumer-pleasant interfaces for interacting with DApps and clever contracts, with the cause of giving TON Blockchain customers a comparable enjoy to surfing the web. Toncoin As the local asset of the TON Blockchain, Toncoin performs a key position in incentivizing validators to preserve the community and now no longer act in opposition to its exceptional interests. Toncoin is likewise used as a degree of vote casting energy in terms of proposed modifications to the TON Blockchain protocol. Toncoin is likewise the principle monetary unit withinside the TON Blockchain ecosystem, as it’s used as a way of fee for the offerings mentioned above like TON Storage and TON Proxy. Even aleven though the Toncoin blockchain itself reaches consensus thru Proof-of-Stake, the TON Foundation is using a Proof-of-Work mechanism to distribute the preliminary deliver of five billion Toncoins as pretty as possible. These Toncoins are held through clever contracts referred to as Givers, and are allotted to miners. 98.55% of the Toncoin deliver changed into transferred to the Giver contracts. Toncoin is already indexed on a number of the main cryptocurrency exchanges, which includes the likes of FTX, OKX and Gate.io. Toncoins also can be wrapped and despatched to the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain blockchains thru a decentralized bridge. These transfers arise at a 1:1 rate, even though customers must be conscious that bridging comes with an related fueloline charge at the goal community. The backside line Telegram’s preliminary imaginative and prescient for a hyper-scalable blockchain platform attracted a big quantity of investments, even as blockchain fans have been eagerly ready to peer if the formidable venture ought to recognise its goals. Even aleven though Telegram itself changed into compelled to desert its position in the venture, TON is now led through an open-supply network that’s basically searching to complete the paintings that Telegram began out. As TON Blockchain improvement maintains to progress, it is going to be thrilling to peer whether or not the blockchain’s precise layout may be capable of provide the scalability and consumer enjoy vital for mainstream adoption.

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