Telegram's Pavel Durov touts TON's upgraded 'one second' transaction speed

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov took to his messaging app on Thursday to highlight that the TON blockchain received a major upgrade.

"The TON blockchain just got upgraded and is now 10× faster," Durov said. "Block rate increased 6× ... Transactions are now instant, subsecond."

In a statement, TON said the blockchain will have sub-second finality on mainnet beginning April 10 (but elsewhere in the release said the upgrade is up and running). TON also said the upgrade has been powered by Catchain 2.0.

TON's primary purpose is to serve as blockchain infrastructure Telegram uses for transactions and to power the mini-apps that live and operate within the messaging platform's ecosystem. The blockchain is said to operate independently of Telegram, but remains closely linked to the app.

This new upgrade to "sub-second finality is a prerequisite for the kinds of applications TON is positioned to support at scale inside Telegram's ecosystem of more than 1 billion users," according to the statement.

"Payments that feel like sending a message, trades that execute without lag, and Mini Apps that respond instantly were not fully achievable at ten-second confirmation times," the firm said.

Telegram, a popular messaging app that Durov has said possesses over 1 billion users, first began exploring blockchain in 2018, before abandoning the project amid U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. Then in 2022, open-source developers continued the development of a blockchain project, rebranding it as The Open Network, or TON.

"This was step 1 of 7 to Make TON Great Again (MTONGA)," Durov said Thursday. Next step: cut the already low transaction fees by 6×."

TON also said this upgrade will strengthen the network's economics with more blocks leading to increased validator rewards and more incentives for staking.

UPDATE: TON later clarified the upgrade was live as of April 9.