Toncoin (TON) is rising, a shift that appears to be driving the move as messaging app Telegram takes a more direct role in the coin’s parent network and pushes for lower transaction costs.
TON has gained more than 36% in the past 24 hours, hitting a four-month high of $1.80, according to CoinDesk data. It is the native token of the Open Network, a layer 1 blockchain designed to integrate crypto payments and applications into the Telegram messaging platform.
Bullish sentiment has spread to the Telegram-related ecosystem, with Notcoin up nearly 26%, Dogs up more than 100%, and several smaller TON-based tokens experiencing greater daily volatility.
The market seems to be reacting to Telegram’s decision to replace the Ton Foundation as the driving force behind TON.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov said in an X post on Monday that the messaging platform will become TON’s largest validator and the driving force behind the ecosystem, with new developer tools, performance upgrades, and an updated ton.org expected to be rolled out within two to three weeks.
Validators are specialized nodes or participants responsible for validating transactions, ensuring network security, and maintaining the accuracy of the blockchain.
Becoming the largest validator shows that Telegram is willing to play its role in the security and direction of the chain. This could reduce one of TON’s biggest unanswered questions, which is the gap between Telegram’s narrative and the TON Foundation’s execution.
The story doesn’t end there. In the same X post, Durov said that after previously announcing that transaction costs would drop to 0.00039 TON (approximately $0.0005), TON fees have dropped sixfold to close to zero, and most transactions will eventually move to a free model.
TON fees dropped 6x — to almost zero.
Next step – Telegram replaces the TON Foundation as the driving force behind TON and becomes its largest validator.
The focus turns to technical advantages.
New https://t.co/Me0w683UiK, new development tools, new performance upgrades…
— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 4, 2026
Near-zero transaction costs are most important for the types of products Telegram can actually distribute, such as on-chain tips, games, bot payments, mini-app transactions, collectibles, and small retail transfers.
Fees seemingly unrelated to the DeFi giant could still kill consumer applications if users move a penny or a dollar at a time. The fixed, tiny cost makes TON more suitable for high-frequency, low-value activities, thereby broadening its appeal as a blockchain to existing users.
Various tracking sites estimate Telegram’s number of monthly users to be as high as 1 billion, although the company does not publicly claim or deny these numbers.
But TON’s fundamentals have failed to keep pace with the hype in recent years. DefiLlama data shows that TON has achieved more than $69 million in locked value in its decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, well below its high of nearly $800 million in 2024. Daily chain fees are approximately $3,600, DEX trading volume is approximately $29 million, and application revenue is close to $134,000.
Data from Tonstat shows that daily active wallet activity on TON is just under 50,000, coming from approximately 136,000 unique wallets. In comparison, more than 2.2 million wallets saw approximately 700,000 daily activities during August and September 2024, the data shows.
