The Open Network can now finalize a transaction in 0.6 seconds — about 6,000 times faster than Bitcoin's roughly one hour. Telegram founder Pavel Durov posted data this week ranking Layer 1 blockchains by finality time, putting TON first and Bitcoin dead last. The speed jump follows the Catchain 2.0 upgrade, which cut block times to around 400 milliseconds and finality below one second as of April 10. Meanwhile, Telegram itself has become TON's largest validator, staking roughly 2.2 million TON — valued near $2.9 million at the time.
The speed ranking
Durov's ranking compared finality times across major Layer 1 chains. TON topped the list at under a second. Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain, and Sui all clock in under two seconds. Hedera, XRP Ledger, and Stellar come in under five seconds. Solana sits at 13 seconds. TRON takes about a minute. Ethereum takes 13 minutes, Litecoin 15 minutes, Monero 20 minutes, and Cardano a full day. The 6,000x gap between TON and Bitcoin is the headline number Durov highlighted — a technical edge the network has been pushing hard this year.
Telegram's validator play
Telegram now operates as TON's largest validator, staking about 2.2 million TON. Durov framed the move as a counterweight to centralization — a big validator that can act independently. But critics have pointed out that Telegram's stake could approach 25% of total validator power. That's a lot of sway for a single entity. The network's roughly 20% staking yield has drawn more participants, locking up supply and reducing the circulating float. That yield competition makes validator slots increasingly attractive — and concentration risk more acute.
Market reaction
TON's price rose after Durov posted the validator update. The market read it as a sign of Telegram's long-term commitment. But price action alone doesn't build a network. The article notes that sustained adoption depends on application activity keeping pace with network speed gains. Technical speed is one thing; having things to do with that speed is another. The ecosystem still needs real-world use cases that pull in users beyond stakers.
Where TON fits
The finality comparison puts TON in a league of its own on pure speed — at least among the chains Durov listed. But the centralization trade-off is real. A single validator approaching a quarter of network power is a red flag no matter how fast the blocks come. The question now: can TON's app ecosystem fill the gap fast enough to justify all that speed? Or will the network end up fast, but empty?
