Key Highlights
- The TON network now processes transactions in less than 1 second with 400-millisecond block times.
- The Catchain 2.0 upgrade helps in improving consensus speed while increasing validator rewards.
The Open Network (TON) has announced the activation of sub-second transaction finality on its mainnet, reducing confirmation times from around 10 seconds to approximately one second.
According to the official announcement, TON now produces blocks every 400 milliseconds and offers near-instant agreement on transactions, changing the user experience from noticeable delays to real-time interactions. The blockchain claims the interactions to be as seamless as sending a message in Telegram.
In an X post on Thursday, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov highlighted the development, stating, “The TON blockchain just got upgraded and is now 10× faster. Block rate increased 6×.”
The core of the update
The central point of the update is Catchain 2.0, a revamped consensus mechanism that basically alters how the network approaches agreement. The progress includes faster block production at 400 ms intervals and a new streaming layer pushing the updates to applications swiftly in less time for network-wide consensus.
For everyday users, the payment process speeds up, trades happen without lag, and decentralized applications respond swiftly, as expected from modern consumer apps. The multi-second waits that once defined on-chain activity have broadly disappeared.
The upgrade also comes with economic implications. Higher block frequency surges validator rewards, strengthening staking incentives and drawing more TON into circulation. This leads to a rise in the network’s annual inflation rate from around 0.6% to 3.6%. With time, as staking participation surges, rewards are anticipated to attain a new equilibrium.
Previous developments
Earlier, in October 2025, TON introduced Cocoon, a decentralized AI compute network made on the TON blockchain, targeting to amalgamate privacy-preserving artificial intelligence with an open, distributed infrastructure.
Cocoon permits GPU owners to contribute their unused computing power in exchange for TON tokens, while developers gain access to low-cost AI compute for their applications, as updated by Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov.
TON price context
At the time of this writing, Toncoin, the native token of TON, is trading around $1.28, up 2.26% in the past 24 hours and 5% in the past seven days, as per the data provided by CoinMarketCap.
The token is 84.36% lower than its all-time high of $8.24 as recorded on June 15, 2024. On the other hand, it is 229.7% higher than its all-time low of $0.3906, as recorded on September 20, 2021. Currently, the total holds a market capitalization of $3.17 billion with a total supply of 5.15 billion TON.
Broader context
As the protocol-level advancements are live, users will only experience the complete benefits if applications are updated accordingly. Developers are encouraged to shift from traditional polling methods to streaming APIs that offer real-time state changes.
This change makes sure that the apps reflect the network’s new speed instead of appearing laggy. The TON team advises integrating Streaming API v2 for real-time updates, TON Center v3 or TONAPI for data access, and AppKit for handling balances, tokens, and smart contract interactions.
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