TON Atlas

Architecture

A blockchain of blockchains, not another EVM.

TON was designed at Telegram in 2018–2020, then picked up by the community. Legally it is not “Durov’s chain”. Technically it is still that whitepaper: shards, actors, its own VM.

Block

0.41s

Finality

0.8s

Real TPS

36

Peak / 100 blocks

1,542

On paper

104,715

TPS

Nakamoto

89

391 validators

How it is built

Five ideas without which TON does not parse.

  1. 01

    Infinite sharding

    A blockchain of blockchains. Workchains split into shardchains by address prefix. Shards split under load and merge when idle. Up to 2^60 shards per workchain on paper.

  2. 02

    Masterchain → Workchain → Shardchain

    Masterchain stores validators and global state. Workchain 0 is the public app chain. Shards execute in parallel — horizontal scale, not “buy the validator more RAM”.

  3. 03

    Async actors

    Every contract is an account with its own state. Contracts talk via messages, not EVM-style sync calls. Each NFT is its own contract — a 137k collection does not hot-spot one piece of state.

  4. 04

    Catchain BFT

    Proof-of-stake with rotating validators. ~390 validators, Nakamoto coefficient ~89 (TRON has 27 Super Representatives). ~48% of circulating GRAM is staked; last closed cycle paid ~17% APY.

  5. 05

    TVM, not EVM

    Own VM. Languages: FunC, Tact, Tolk (plus Acton CLI). Cost of independence: less Solidity copypasta, different fees (gas + storage).

In plain words

Why a normal person should care about shards and TVM.

Why NFTs are different here

On Ethereum a collection is one contract and a table of tokens. On TON each NFT is its own contract. A 137k number set does not become one hot piece of state. The cost: indexers have a harder job — which is why global aggregators go blind.

Why the fee is a rounding error

The network does not sell the block as a scarce billboard. Load moves to a neighbouring shard. Storage is metered separately, so dead contracts do not sit for free forever. For a chat transfer you do not notice — and should not.

Why not EVM

Solidity compatibility would have given Uniswap-copypasta over a weekend. Own TVM gave actors and sharding out of the box. The price: less ready DeFi, a different stack (Tact / FunC / Tolk), a different mental model.

docs.ton.org

Why staking is 17%, not 4%

Sub-second blocks (April 2026) multiplied rewards. Last closed Ton Whales cycle paid 17.8%. Hipo currently leads liquid staking. Telegram is the #2 staker. Open the APY board.

GRAM, not Toncoin

The native ticker became GRAM 1:1. Same contract. Wallets and exchanges will keep writing TON for a long time. On the network the ticker is already Gram. ATH $8.25 was the old name.

Throughput, honestly

1,500 TPS in a stress test is not 1,500 TPS at lunch.

Observed

36

TPS over a typical day

Stress / peak 100 blocks

1,542

What the network printed under load

Whitepaper

104,715

Shards on paper. Not a promise.

Timeline

From Durov’s SAFT to a live number floor.

  1. 2018

    Telegram designs TON

    The Durovs raise $1.7B via Gram SAFT. Whitepaper: infinite sharding, Hypercube Routing, TON Storage.

  2. 2020

    SEC, Telegram exits, community fork

    Telegram returns investor money and leaves. The code is open — the community ships mainnet. Legally not “Telegram’s chain”. Culturally, still is.

  3. 2021–22

    Mainnet and Fragment

    Network lives. Fragment auctions @usernames and +888 numbers — the first NFTs that do something in a messenger.

  4. 2023

    USDT on TON

    Tether issues USD₮ as a jetton. In-Telegram payments become a product, not a demo.

  5. 2024

    Wallet, Notcoin, Hamster

    Telegram Wallet, tap-to-earn, 200M+ players. Peak on-chain noise. TON shows up outside crypto Twitter.

  6. 2025

    Gifts

    Telegram Gifts become collectible NFTs. A market that looks like neither PFPs nor ordinals.

  7. 2026

    Gram rename, live number floor

    Native ticker becomes GRAM 1:1. Numbers floor prints live from nums888. Tracked TMA MAU ~21.3M. Stress tests print ~1,500 TPS.

GRAM on CoinGecko