What is Toncoin?

Toncoin (TON) has been one of the year’s biggest gainers in the crypto world, turning in a remarkable 300% gain over the past 12 months as the token minted new all-time highs last June.

TON is the second major effort to build a cryptocurrency based on a global social media vertical after Meta’s efforts in developing its very own Diem coin, which never saw the light of day. 

The development and history of Toncoin and the regulatory hurdles it has faced over the years has exposed why many social media platforms are skittish or lack the motivation to explore platform-based digital currencies.

Nevertheless, Toncoin’s subsequent rise in recent years has showcased the token’s resilience, positioning it among the future leaders of the rapidly-evolving blockchain space. This article will give you the complete rundown on Toncoin and how to buy TON on Houdini Swap. 

A Brief Introduction to Toncoin and The Open Network

Toncoin is known among serious crypto enthusiasts as Telegram’s take on digital currencies. The social messaging app with over 900 million users was in the process of launching Toncoin, until it was forced to abandon its plans in 2020 following challenges imposed by SEC.

Ever since the project was taken over by The Open Network, Toncoin has broken new all-time highs. Toncoin is now a firm fixture on the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization—it’s back in a big way, and in greater demand than it has ever seen before as it lists on major crypto exchanges.

Toncoin (TON) is the native token underpinning the ecosystem of The Open Network, a Layer-1 blockchain that runs a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Toncoin facilitates transactions and interactions within The Open Network ecosystem, serving as the lifeblood of the blockchain’s economy.

Toncoin: The Telegram connection 

Telegram is a social messaging app, positioning itself as a security and privacy-focused encrypted messaging service across all browsers and devices. In recent years, Telegram has become the instant messaging app of choice for the crypto industry, with the app integrating features such as trading bots, crypto wallets, access to exchanges, and many others. 

The platform was first launched in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, gaining prominence for storing encrypted messages on a secure cloud spread across global data centers. Headquartered in Dubai, Telegram has become the primary messaging app in the European, Asian, and African markets, while steadily gaining traction in the Americas. 

TG and The Open Network are closely associated. Notably, the Durov brothers were also the pioneers of Telegram Open Network, the forerunner of the present-day The Open Network, which managed the TON Blockchain Project. Its goal was to create an efficient, tailored blockchain to support Telegram’s growing user base. The project launched in 2018, as the core infrastructure of the blockchain and its whitepaper were being built out. The TON Network, formerly known as GRAM, launched its testnet in 2019 in preparation for its scheduled mainnet in October 2019.

However, the US SEC classified Toncoin as a security, with the securities regulator alleging that Telegram issued unregistered securities in the form of Toncoin to clients in the United States and other countries during its ICO in 2018. Faced with the hassle and frustration of hostile SEC regulations and ongoing legal battles, Pavel Durov abandoned the Telegram Open Network project in 2020.

Shortly thereafter, independent developers took over the Toncoin project, which culminated in the launch of the present-day The Open Network (TON) Foundation—which now oversees every aspect of Toncoin.

Toncoin: What does Toncoin do? 

Toncoin ($TON) is the native token of the TON blockchain, serving as the medium of exchange for all native transactions such as the payment of gas and transaction fees, payment for goods and services, mining, staking, DeFi features, and rewards. 

It facilitates in-app transactions and a robust, secure, and efficient decentralized payment network for the Telegram app. While the initial vision behind the TON blockchain and its underlying $TON token was mainly to support in-app payments, the project has blossomed into a large, complex ecosystem with a variety of utilities such as decentralized storage, decentralized apps, and private and anonymous domain name services.

TON is a multi-chain project, which means that different blockchains are issued to increase the project’s overall scalability while maintaining its security. On the Ton blockchain, it’s more like several independent blockchains (shard chains, work chains, master chains) working hand in hand to provide overall Ton blockchain services. 

Toncoin: Price history, price prediction, tokenomics, and market capitalization

As of press time, Toncoin has a total circulating supply of 2.53 billion $TON tokens and a maximum supply of 5.11 billion $TON tokens. Notably, $TON hit its all-time high of $8.25 last June 15th 2024, representing a substantial increase of over 1100% from all-time lows of $0.52 recorded on September 21st 2021. Toncoin is the 11th-largest crypto by market capitalization, sitting at a market cap of $13.8 billion, where it sits at a current price of $5.41. 

While Toncoin remains a good bet to continue its bullish trajectory—with some analysts predicting that it could go on to mint new all-time highs by the end of the year—the future of any project nor its token cannot be predicted with absolute certainty.

Nevertheless, Toncoin has managed to gain significant traction especially as Telegram continues to integrate the cryptocurrency within its app. Toncoin is well-positioned to benefit from the growing adoption of both Telegram as a social messaging app and Toncoin as a digital asset as The Open Network continues to roll out more updates.

TON Network ecosystem features

As we mentioned earlier, the TON Network has grown from facilitating payments to supporting a variety of ecosystem features and design. Here are some of the TON Network’s leading features: 

• TON Blockchain. The TON Blockchain features a unique sharding architecture supporting flexible, scalable smart contracts, micropayments, hypercube routing, and various consensus mechanisms to enable a variety of use cases. The TON Blockchain is also distributed across multiple nodes, ensuring decentralized and censorship-resistance. 
• TON Proxy. TON Proxy is a privacy-enhancing feature providing an anonymizing network to mask users’ IP addresses and enabling private connectivity and encrypted communications. This enables private, secure, and anonymous transactions on the TON Network. This reduces the risk of attacks, surveillance, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, while allowing users to skirt censorship or geo-restrictions imposed on accessing content or services.
• TON Services. TON Services refers to the full range of applications and services on the TON Network. Its growing ecosystem supports payment gateways, decentralized exchanges, blockchain gaming platforms, social media platforms, supply chain management, identity verification, and data storage platforms. 
• TON Storage. The network also offers a secure and censorship-resistant distributed storage system for files, supporting archived block copies, state snapshots, and a variety of services to store and retrieve data without relying on centralized servers.
• TON Payments. Users can also perform payments and microtransactions designed for low fees and fast speeds. Toncoin also works with third-party applications to perform secure, seamless information exchange to encourage seamless integration between applications. 
• TON DNS. TON DNS is a decentralized domain name service built on the TON Network enabling the creation of easy-to-remember human-readable addresses from machine-readable addresses on the TON Network. This enables users to easily access, create, and manage interaction with apps within the TON ecosystem. 
• TON DHT. TON DHT helps build decentralized apps and data storage protocols securely on the TON Network.

How to buy Toncoin on Houdini Swap

Want to get started with Toncoin? Investors looking to buy Toncoin without having to go through a centralized exchange and their tedious registration processes should try Houdini Swap. Houdini Swap is a liquidity aggregator allowing users to swap, send, buy, and bridge upwards of 4,000+ cryptocurrencies and over 8 million token pairs and counting with the added bonus of enabling a layer of private swaps hitherto unseen in the crypto world. 

Here’s how to buy TON using Houdini Swap. This guide assumes that you have a crypto wallet MetaMask or Trust Wallet containing an amount of crypto to buy Toncoin on the platform. 

Step 1: Connect your wallet using WalletConnect

Go to the Houdini Swap website and connect your wallet. Indicate the amount of crypto you hold in your wallet you wish to exchange for TON, indicate whether you wish to use the standard swap option or private swap option. Do take note that private swaps take more time to complete in exchange for the heightened privacy, while the standard swap option allows users to conduct faster, semi-private, and low-fee swaps.

Step 2: Indicate the receiving wallet’s address

Enter the wallet address that you are sending TON to. Double check the amount, address and any other pertinent information before confirming the transaction.

Step 3: Confirm the transaction

Houdini Swap will then determine the conversion rate. Follow the on-screen instructions to confirm the transaction. Upon completion, the TON will be sent to your specified address. 

Houdini Swap is an established liquidity aggregator that has risen to prominence off the back of its enhanced privacy, variety of cryptocurrencies and token pairs, and decentralized, trustless platform to the tune of a $1B trade volume. That number is only set to grow in the coming years as Houdini Swap establishes itself as one of the most promising up-and-coming players in the crypto industry.

The final word

Toncoin is one of the most promising Layer-1 protocols in recent memory—and it’s only set to continue its meteoric rise ahead of the next bull run. The project has already surpassed other Layer-1 networks that have mooned in the past cycle, and is set to rival the upper half of the top 10 with Solana, Ethereum, and Bitcoin. With a user base pushing almost 1 billion users, we may very well see Toncoin break into the top 5 in the coming years. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Toncoin

What are the use cases of Toncoin? 

$TON holders use Toncoin to pay transaction fees on the TON Network. Moreover, they can stake $TON to earn additional tokens in exchange for helping validate transactions and secure the blockchain. Holders can also trade their tokens on centralized exchanges that support the token. Toncoin is also used as the primary medium of exchange for operations, interactions, decentralized apps, and transactions on the blockchain.

Has Toncoin been profitable?

Toncoin is among the top gainers in the past year, hitting new all-time highs of $8.25 just this last June 15th 2024. Contrast that to its all-time low of $0.52 at the height of the crypto winter last September 2022, and Toncoin has easily been one of the most profitable cryptos since its launch. Early Toncoin investors who bought in during these lows have earned over 10x and more.

What is the circulating supply of Toncoin?

Toncoin has a circulating supply of 2.5 billion $TON tokens as of end-August 2024.

Is it possible to stake $TON?

Yes, you can stake Toncoin to earn passive income on TON staking platforms.

Is it possible for Toncoin to hit $10?

The crypto world is full of twists and turns, and there is no way to accurately predict how much a particular asset will be by a specific timeframe. However, based on Toncoin’s recent performances, as evidenced by its $8.25 all-time high last June, $10 is definitely possible by the end of the year

Why is Toncoin growing in popularity? 

Toncoin is well-poised in the coming years due to Telegram’s popularity as a social messaging app. $TON leverages Telegram’s massive user base of 900 million users that could see $TON gain even wider acceptance with greater in-app integration.