The Social Token Economy

Social tokens are cryptocurrencies built around the influence of an organization or creator.

Holders of social tokens are usually granted governance votes in their respective communities. The creators of these social tokens also allocate a portion to themselves so they can benefit from investors.

Once TON is integrated into third-party products and services, people will be able to create social tokens on the network.

It’s a win-win for everyone because the more value created by both the influencers and the community, the more the token’s price rises.

What creators, influencers and orgs do you want to see build on TON?

Stablecoins in DeFi

Stablecoins are essential to DeFi. They are pegged to 1 USD and reduce the uncertainty in crypto.

In the future, the crypto economy may expand faster than the dollars available to back stablecoins. This means networks will need algorithmic stablecoins that stay at peg and scale.

If the TON Network is to scale to accommodate a global economy, it is possible that we will need these algorithmic stablecoins.

The idea of decentralized, trustless and algorithmic stablecoins with infinite scalability is the holy grail for stablecoins, and we presume it’s something the TON Network will need to be interoperable with.

What do you think is the best stablecoin right now?

Changes Coming to the TON Apps Suite.

There is now a more simplified and streamlined verification process for projects wanting to add their products to the TON Apps suite.

This new procedure now allows a dozen or so projects that had initially gone through the process and were denied to officially join the family of TON-based apps.

What this means for users:

From this day forward, the TON Apps suite will display apps that have been officially approved by the TON Foundation and others awaiting their pending verification.

What this means for developers:

Adding projects to the TON Apps suite has become significantly easier. To learn more, go to the @TonAppBot and follow the instructions.

TON Community Weekly Digest.

Here’s a roundup of the ecosystem’s most exciting news from the past seven days.

Network stats update:

The number of new accounts created on TON from Feb. 6 to 12 grew from 215,086 to 240,457 (+11.8%).

News:

— Crypto exchange EXMO changed Toncoin’s ticker to TON.

— The TON Foundation founding member Steve Yun participated in an AMA.

— The TON Foundation sent out an invitation encouraging developers to join a discussion on creating a nonfungible token standard for TON.

— The verification process in the TON Apps suite was improved. It now reduces the amount of time needed to check applications, allowing projects and apps to become official TON-based products more quickly.

Stay up-to-date with the latest developments brewing in the TON ecosystem by turning on the notifications to this channel. You won’t want to miss a thing!

True Decentralization

Web3 is beginning to permeate every aspect of mainstream culture. A common criticism of cryptocurrency is the issue of the actual level of decentralization of the technology.

Here’s how TON embodies decentralization:

— TON has never held an ICO or accepted outside investment.

— TON is sustained by a decentralized community of enthusiasts.

— TON’s proof-of-stake mechanism includes a routing system that pushes new nominators towards smaller validators.

TON has built a foundation of true decentralization that the rest of its product offerings will rest on.

What else should blockchains do to sustain decentralization?

Twitter thread here.

Smart Contracts on TON

Smart contracts are “if/when…then…” statements that are written into code in order to execute commands when the specified parameters are met. They act as a way to automate agreements without an intermediary having to approve them.

The TON Virtual Machine handles the deployment of smart contracts on the TON Network by using tagged data types that give it the capability to handle complex operations.

Complex, high-load smart contracts can have an instance of their program stored in each shardchain for a large commission.

Currently, high gas fees limit the capabilities of smart contracts. TON smart contracts can reach their ultimate potential of replacing transaction types of increasing complexity through the network’s low cost to transact.

What smart contracts use cases are you most excited to see in the future?

Twitter thread here.

What is TON Storage?

TON Storage will be used by the TON Blockchain to store archived copies of blocks and status data (snapshots) but will also store arbitrary files for users or other services running on the platform.

Currently, most database systems are centralized within big tech firms.

Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba and Tencent control more than 70% of the cloud computing market.

These concentrated powers can de-platform services easily and can access data that is supposed to be private to copy and use against rivals.

This is where Web3 comes in.

More info on Twitter here.

Interview with Anatoliy Makosov — Part 1

We had the pleasure of discussing the TON project with Anatoliy Makosov, one of the core developers of TON.

During the interview, Anatoliy (tolya-yanot on GitHub) answered a lot of questions about TON’s technology in detail.

Here’s Part 1 of the interview, but keep an eye out for Part 2. We’ll be publishing it here soon 👀

Crypto As a Sport

The biggest athletic events of the year have a distinctive Web3 focus.

— The Super Bowl lived up to its “Crypto Bowl” nickname, sporting multiple ads from exchanges such as Coinbase, eToro and FTX, along with a collaboration between Bud Light and Nouns DAO.

— The Olympics have also been adopting digital currencies, with NFT collections from the Olympic Federation and AlibabaGroup, as well as the launch of the Chinese digital yuan.

— Recently, Tezos struck an estimated $27-million deal to display its logo on Manchester United’s kit. Clearly, the relationship between athletes and blockchain is here to stay.

TON’s recent partnership with popular Russian rapper Morgenshtern sets the stage for a sports collab of our own.

Is there anyone from the sports world you’d be excited to see us work with?

​TON’s nonfungible token standard has been upgraded to “Release Candidate.”

At the beginning of the month, the TON Foundation organized a public discussion among developers to draft a nonfungible token (NFT) standard for the TON blockchain.

We’re pleased to announce that the status of the NFT standard for TON has been upgraded to “Release Candidate,” which means it’s practically ready to be deployed without having to make significant changes.

All developers were welcomed to join the discussion to develop the standard, but the TON Foundation team would like to express its deep gratitude to every developer who participated.

The developers indeed produced some outstanding results:

1. The fees to mint an NFT on TON will be about 500 times cheaper than those on Ethereum.

For comparison’s sake, minting the 10,000 NFTs from the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club collection cost close to $290,000 worth of Ether (ETH) at the time of writing.

Launching a collection of 10,000 NFTs on TON will only require around $500 regardless of Toncoin price fluctuations.

2. TON NFTs will have their own unique distribution method to avoid network congestion, even when minting a collection of 1 million NFTs.

3. The metadata of TON NFTs will be compatible with NFT metadata on Ethereum — e.g., with the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea.

4. Thanks to TON’s infrastructure flexibility, developers will be able to create new mechanisms; for example, a game where one NFT smart contract alters the content of another NFT or even its code. Of course, minting regular, immutable NFTs will always be possible.

Starting today, app developers and NFT artists can start deploying their technology on the testnet.

We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, but we’re excited for the token standard’s final release and all the NFT products that will grace the TON ecosystem.

Have you checked out our new site Tonic?

Think of Tonic as our hub for developers and TON enthusiasts who want to see what is being built and discussed in the TON ecosystem.

Check out the Tonic Discord.

​TON Community Weekly Digest

Here’s a roundup of the ecosystem’s most exciting news from the past seven days.

Network stats update:

The number of new accounts created on TON from Feb. 13 to 19 grew from 245,900 to 286,501 (+16.5%).

News:

— TON’s NFT standard was upgraded to “Release Candidate.”

— The @TonMoonBot released an update.

— Tonscan.org released an update for its explorer.

— The TON Community published Part 1 of its interview with core TON developer Anatoliy Makosov.

Stay up-to-date with the latest developments brewing in the TON ecosystem by turning on the notifications to this channel. You won’t want to miss a thing!

Storing Toncoin (TON)

As Toncoin’s popularity grows, we want to make sure that our holders are educated in the best ways to store their cryptocurrency for their strategy.

Everything you need to know is on our Medium.

The Battle for Blockchain

Cryptocurrency adoption is at an all-time high, and governments around the world are taking steps to respond.

• In the coming days, new laws to govern cryptocurrencies in Russia are supposed to come into effect. Simultaneously, the Bank of Russia has said that it has begun the pilot test of its digital ruble.

• In Ukraine, the parliament recently legalized cryptocurrencies.

• The U.S. continues to consider regulation.

• China unveiled its digital yuan as a payment option in the Olympic Village and surrounding area.

• In Canada, COVID-19 lockdown protests by the country’s truckers have led to Prime Minister Trudeau sanctioning crypto wallets full of donations to the cause.

• Countries such as Puerto Rico and the UAE continue to utilize lax policies in order to attract crypto wealth.

Check out our Twitter here.

TON’s Proof-of-Stake Protocol

The TON Blockchain functions through a network of validators who stake a large amount of Toncoin and receive rewards by processing transactions on the network.

• Anyone with a high-performance server and enough Toncoin can become a validator.

• A validator stakes their Toncoin for a specific term, which is paid back at the completion of a validation round, plus the validator reward as interest.

• The protocol creates receipts of any attempt to cheat, and any cheating nodes are cut off and penalized.

• A nominator is someone who lends Toncoin to a validator and gains a % of its validator’s rewards.

Twitter thread here.

What would make contributing to the TON Blockchain easier?

​TON’s History and Network Upgrades

In 2018, Nikolai and Pavel Durov were unable to find a blockchain in the market that reflected their vision of Web3 and blockchain technology.

They then formed a talented dev team to create TON.

Learn about TON’s history on Medium.

The TON-Enabled Future of NFT

As NFTs come to TON, here’s a look at the current state of the scene.

• The market for profile picture projects, which allow holders to pledge their allegiance to a community, is soaring.

• Through integrations into the metaverse and even an Alfa Romeo vehicle, NFTs are also showing their capability for utility.

• With TON’s enhanced technological capabilities for NFTs, network security and much lower gas fees, we hope to give creators and investors a world-class experience.

What NFT use cases do you want to see on TON?

How are NFTs structured on The Open Network?

The CAT Telegram channel has published thorough material on the structure of NFTs and how they operate.

For more information, click on this link: https://blog.ton.cat/how-to-nft