Brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, founders of Telegram Messenger, started exploring blockchain solutions for Telegram Messenger. They found that there was currently no Layer 1 blockchain that could support Telegram's billion-level user base, so they decided to design their own Layer 1 chain, which was called Telegram Open Network at the time.

Telegram raised $1.7 billion through a planned private sale of TON tokens (then called Grams), one of the largest cryptocurrency offerings ever.

The Telegram team released a series of documents detailing the design of the TON blockchain. Telegram launched two TON testnets, one in spring 2019 and the second in November 2019.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Telegram for an unregistered securities offering. Telegram claimed the SEC's allegations were baseless, but agreed to delay TON's launch until the legal issues were resolved.

Telegram ultimately decided to give up amid an ongoing standoff with U.S. regulators.

The Telegram team halted TON development and support for Testnet 2, paid an $18.5 million settlement, and agreed to return the funds to investors.

NewTON, a small team of open source developers, took an in-depth look at TON's code base, architecture, and documentation. They followed the design in the original TON document and restarted active development of TON.

Testnet 2 has remained stable for a long time, and the community voted to rename it to Mainnet. The NewTON team has also changed its name to the TON Foundation - a non-profit community focused on further supporting and growing the network.

Stable and secure blockchain

TON—ETH and TON—BSC Bridge

Listed on top exchanges; TON subscription

TON Nominator; TON Defi; TON Developer Program

TON DNS; TON payment

TON agent; TON site

TON storage

Cross-chain bridge; TON Connect; Token Guide and Tools; TON Awards 2022; Network configuration adjustments; Tokenomics optimization voting; 100x stress test

DAO & Liqudity Staking Contracts; database; deflation mechanism of token economics; decentralized cryptographic information; address reform; TVM updates; locking and vesting tools

Scalability and speed demonstration; chain sharding guidelines and tools; enhanced coordination between validator nodes; electors and configuration updates; currencies; ETH, BNB, BTC cross-chain bridges

Cross-chain bridge; Separation of sequencers and validators