The Telegram team will take over the development of The Open Network (TON) from the TON Foundation and become the largest validator in the network. This was announced by the messenger's creator, Pavel Durov.
According to him, the next phase of ecosystem growth will focus on "technological superiority."
In the next two to three weeks, developers will unveil an updated website at ton.org, new tools for builders, and enhancements to blockchain performance. Durov described this as the third of seven steps in the initiative to Make TON Great Again.
He also mentioned that network fees have decreased sixfold and are now "close to zero." This change resulted from the Catchain 2.0 update, which was activated on April 9. The upgrade accelerated block production and increased validator yields.
Following this news, the price of Toncoin surged over 25% in a single day. According to CoinMarketCap, the asset has re-entered the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, now valued at $4.6 billion, surpassing Litecoin and Avalanche.
At the time of writing, the coin is trading around $1.7.
Hourly chart of TON/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.
As a reminder, in early December 2025, Telegram launched a "decentralized confidential computing network" called Cocoon.