Telegram has formally replaced the TON Foundation as the lead steward of The Open Network (TON), with founder Pavel Durov confirming the messenger will become the blockchain's largest validator. The move, the third phase of Durov's 'Make TON Great Again' program, sent Toncoin surging more than 100% this week. It's a big bet: Telegram now stakes roughly 2.2 million TON to claim that top validator slot, giving it direct influence over the network's direction.
How the network changes
The takeover comes alongside a major technical upgrade. The new Catchain 2.0 consensus cuts block times from about 2.5 seconds down to 400 milliseconds. Finality dropped from roughly 10 seconds to about 1 second, and fees fell sixfold to around $0.0005 per transaction. The network can now handle more than 100,000 transactions per second — numbers that put it in league with top-tier payment rails.
What a billion users means
Telegram's user base — over a billion people — gives TON a distribution advantage few blockchains can match. Alexander Tobol, CTO of Wallet in Telegram, expects TON to become the leading chain by active wallets, driven by retail usage inside the messenger. The idea is simple: if every Telegram user has a TON wallet in their chat interface, adoption could accelerate faster than any traditional crypto onboarding.
But there's a catch. Denis Vasin, founder of Storm Trade, warned that the market has already repriced TON sharply. The rally may test whether Telegram can convert its massive distribution into real, recurring on-chain revenue — not just a speculative spike.
The seller in the room
Telegram isn't just a buyer of TON. Last year, the company conducted large sales of Toncoin, a reminder that it has acted on both sides of the market. All TON sold by Telegram carries a four-year vesting schedule, meaning the supply hitting the open market is tightly controlled. That structure gives the team room to manage dilution, but it also means a large unlock could hit later. For now, staking yields on TON are around 15% annually — attractive enough to keep many holders locked in.
The big question is whether the rally holds. Vasin's caution is a real test: if the price pulls back, the market will be watching to see if Telegram's distribution playbook actually translates into daily on-chain activity. Durov hasn't laid out a fourth phase publicly, but with Telegram now the largest validator, the next steps are likely to come from inside the messenger itself. No timeline has been given for further upgrades or wallet rollouts.
