Gram (prev. Toncoin) (GRAM) Price | Market | Project Info | LBank

Toncoin is the native cryptocurrency of The Open Network (TON), a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain. Designed for exceptional scalability and speed, TON facilitates various functions within its ecosystem. It is primarily used for paying transaction fees, participating in network governance through staking, and as a medium for payments for digital goods and services across its growing application landscape. Its design aims to support widespread adoption and integration, especially through its connection with Telegram.

No, Toncoin is no longer owned by Telegram. While initially conceived by Telegram's founders as the Telegram Open Network, the project was discontinued in 2020 due to regulatory challenges. An independent community of developers and the TON Foundation subsequently took over its development. Today, Telegram officially supports TON as its "official Web3 infrastructure," leveraging its capabilities for various integrations, but the blockchain itself is not technically owned or controlled by Telegram. This independent evolution has allowed TON to flourish with community-driven governance.

Users can easily access and utilize Toncoin within Telegram through dedicated integrations. The primary method is via the @wallet bot, which functions like a seamless messaging extension. This bot allows users to effortlessly send and receive cryptocurrency to contacts, much like sending a text message. Additionally, it enables buying TON with a bank card directly within the app and provides access to TON Space, a self-custodial wallet for managing assets and interacting with decentralized applications. These features make crypto usage highly intuitive for Telegram's vast user base.

The TON blockchain is engineered for exceptional speed and scalability, making it one of the fastest in the world. It achieves this through a unique architectural design featuring "infinite sharding." This technology allows the network to dynamically split into numerous smaller "shardchains," distributing the processing load efficiently as transaction volume increases. In public performance tests, TON has demonstrated its capability to handle over 104,000 transactions per second (TPS). This high throughput significantly surpasses that of many other leading blockchains, positioning TON as a robust platform for mass-market applications.

No, it is no longer possible to mine Toncoin. While TON initially employed a unique "Initial Proof-of-Work" (IPoW) distribution mechanism, where all its initial tokens were placed into special smart contracts for anyone to mine, that phase has concluded. All available tokens under this original distribution method have now been fully mined. The network has since transitioned and now operates entirely on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. This means new tokens are not generated through mining but are instead minted as rewards for validators who stake their existing Toncoin to secure the network.