Telegram on May 5 announced it will replace the TON Foundation as the primary operator of The Open Network and assume the role of the chain's largest validator. The move, branded under a seven-step "Make TON Great Again" (MTONGA) roadmap initiated in April, triggered a 36% single-day rally in Ton...
"The focus shifts to tech superiority. New ton.org, new dev tools, new performance upgrades. Timeline: 2-3 weeks." — Pavel Durov, Founder, Telegram
Telegram on May 5 announced it will replace the TON Foundation as the primary operator of The Open Network and assume the role of the chain's largest validator. The move, branded under a seven-step "Make TON Great Again" (MTONGA) roadmap initiated in April, triggered a 36% single-day rally in Toncoin to $1.80 — a four-month high — and drew $191.8 million in net staking inflows, the strongest single-day figure in nearly four months.
The announcement carries structural implications beyond the price spike. Telegram, with 1 billion-plus monthly users, is consolidating direct control over a Layer-1 blockchain whose DeFi total value locked (TVL) has contracted 91% from its 2024 peak of roughly $800 million to just $69 million, and whose daily active wallets sit below 50,000 — down from 700,000 in September 2024. The bet: Telegram's distribution advantage and near-zero fees can reverse these declines. The risk: a validator set increasingly dependent on a single corporate entity.
MTONGA — an acronym for "Make TON Great Again" — is a seven-step restructuring plan Durov initiated in April 2026. Three steps have been executed publicly:
| Step | Action | Date | |------|--------|------| | 1 | Catchain 2.0 consensus upgrade — 10x throughput, 6x faster block production, sub-second finality (~400ms blocks) | April 9, 2026 | | 2 | Transaction fee reduction of approximately 6x, from ~$0.0023 to ~$0.0005 per transaction | April 2026 | | 3 | Telegram assumes largest validator role; replaces TON Foundation as primary network operator | April 30 – May 5, 2026 |
Steps 4 through 7 have not been disclosed publicly. Durov indicated that a relaunched ton.org, new developer tooling, and a full network performance upgrade would arrive within two to three weeks of the May 5 announcement.
The TON Foundation is not dissolved. According to reporting from CoinDesk and BanklessTimes, the Foundation retains community oversight, veto power on major governance changes, and continues to manage ecosystem grants, hackathons, and developer education. Day-to-day decision-making on network upgrades and infrastructure, however, now flows through Telegram.
The pipeline for H1 2026 includes TON Pay 2.0 (a Layer-2 payments network targeting mid-2026), AgenticKit, a Rust node v1, TON Factory, and a TON Teleport Bridge for Bitcoin interoperability.
On April 30, Telegram staked 2.2 million TON — approximately $2.88 million at the time — to operate as a primary validator. The main validator wallet linked to Telegram holds roughly 28.2 million TON, suggesting a commitment extending well beyond the initial stake.
TON operates 370 validators with a total of 844.9 million TON staked across the network. Telegram's projected validator share is approximately 25%, according to early estimates cited by multiple outlets. Network consensus requires 66% of validators to approve governance changes, meaning Telegram alone cannot force upgrades — but any proposal effectively needs Telegram's sign-off to reach the two-thirds threshold.
This creates a structural dependency. Validators opposing a Telegram-backed direction would need to coordinate across hundreds of smaller stakes to block proposals. The TON Foundation's retained veto power provides a check, but the practical dynamic favors Telegram as the agenda-setter.
To mitigate centralization criticism, Telegram has indicated it will delegate a portion of staking rewards to community validators, aiming to preserve a diverse set of independent operators. The specifics of this delegation mechanism have not been published.
The comparison to other chains is instructive. Ethereum operates roughly 1,050,000 validators. Solana runs approximately 1,300 active validators. TON's 370 validators already placed it among the more concentrated proof-of-stake networks before Telegram's entry as dominant participant.
Telegram's 1 billion-plus user base is frequently cited as TON's core advantage. The on-chain data tells a different story about current conversion rates:
| Metric | September 2024 (Peak) | May 2026 (Current) | Change | |--------|----------------------|--------------------|---------| | DeFi TVL | ~$800M | $69M | -91% | | Daily active wallets | ~700,000 | ~50,000 | -93% | | Unique wallets | 2.2M+ | ~136,000 | -94% | | Daily chain fees | Not reported | ~$3,600 | — | | DEX volume (daily) | Not reported | ~$29M | — | | App revenue (daily) | Not reported | ~$134,000 | — |
The September 2024 peak coincided with aggressive airdrop campaigns (Notcoin, Dogs) that inflated activity metrics. Stripping away airdrop-driven wallets, the baseline usage appears to have stabilized at a significantly lower level. Daily chain fees of $3,600 and app revenue of $134,000 indicate a network generating modest economic value relative to its infrastructure costs and token market capitalization.
The H1 2026 developer roadmap — WalletKit, AppKit Alpha, TON Pay 1.0, Builders Portal 2.0 — is oriented toward reducing friction for mini-app developers building within Telegram. Whether this translates to sustained DeFi activity or remains concentrated in gaming and tipping use cases is unresolved.
The fee cut is the most concrete change for end users. Transaction costs dropped from approximately 0.00039 TON (~$0.0023 at pre-surge prices) to roughly $0.0005 — a flat rate regardless of network load.
Durov stated the target is to move most transactions toward "zero commission." The economic logic is clear: if TON is to function as a payment rail for Telegram's in-app economy — tips, bot payments, mini-app micropayments, collectibles — fees must be negligible. At $0.0005 per transaction, a user sending a $0.50 tip pays a 0.1% fee, competitive with payment card interchange rates.
The trade-off is validator revenue. At current daily transaction volumes of roughly 2 million, daily chain fees of approximately $3,600 imply $1.31 million in annualized fee revenue for the entire validator set. At a 25% share, Telegram's validator operation generates roughly $330,000 per year in fees — a rounding error against a staked position worth tens of millions of dollars. Validator economics are therefore subsidy-dependent, relying on block rewards and token appreciation rather than fee income.
The immediate market response was pronounced:
At $1.86 at time of reporting, TON remained 77% below its September 2024 all-time high of $8.25.
Analyst commentary was cautious. Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at CEX.IO, described the move as "a narrative-driven spike rather than a full fundamental repricing." Ben Caselin, chief marketing officer at exchange VALR, suggested the market may "buy in on announcement… then lock in profits upon execution," pointing to a potential sell-the-news dynamic around the two-to-three-week upgrade timeline.
The RSI entered overbought territory on the daily chart following the surge. Technical analyst "Don," cited by BanklessTimes, identified $1.947 as an immediate breakout target with $6.899 as a full-recovery objective, while noting support at the SMA20 of $1.354.
Institutional engagement with the TON ecosystem has expanded beyond the retail Telegram user base:
The presence of public-market vehicles (Verb) and regulated exchanges (Revolut, Coinbase) creates a distribution channel that did not exist during TON's 2024 rally, which was primarily driven by crypto-native participants and airdrop farmers.
Whether institutional interest survives a governance model where a single private company holds a 25% validator share and sets the development agenda is an open question. Traditional institutional mandates typically require governance neutrality — a standard TON under Telegram's control may struggle to meet.
Telegram's TON takeover is a calculated bet that distribution trumps decentralization. With 1 billion users, near-zero fees, and sub-second finality, the technical ingredients for a mass-market payment rail exist. The on-chain data, however, shows those ingredients have not yet produced sustained usage — TVL at $69 million and daily active wallets under 50,000 represent a fraction of the network's 2024 peak and an even smaller fraction of Telegram's user base.
The centralization trade-off is explicit. Telegram now sets the development agenda, operates the largest validator node, and controls the upgrade timeline. The TON Foundation's veto power provides a formal check, but the practical power dynamic favors Telegram. For a blockchain that aims to serve as neutral financial infrastructure for a billion users, this corporate dependency is a structural risk that markets have not yet priced in beyond the initial narrative-driven rally.
The next two to three weeks — Durov's stated timeline for the ton.org relaunch, developer tools, and performance upgrades — will provide the first test of whether MTONGA delivers substance or remains a catalyst for token speculation.