DEV Community: ton-adoption

How to bridge from Ethereum to TON: a user's guide

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:27 +0000

Moving from Ethereum to TON isn’t “switch network” inside the same wallet, the way Polygon or Arbitrum is. It’s an ecosystem swap: new wallets, new DEXes, new tokens. This guide is for users with an Ethereum stack (MetaMask, ETH, USDT, NFTs) who want to understand how to migrate to TON and what to do once there.

Key thing first: TON is not EVM

Before anything — the core difference. In the Ethereum family (Polygon, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Base) wallets and contracts are compatible: one MetaMask works across networks; USDT on Ethereum can be bridged to Polygon with minimal fuss.

TON is different. TON uses TVM, not EVM — its own virtual machine with its own contracts and wallets. The reasons are in the EVM-incompatibility article. Practical takeaway: you need a separate wallet, and tokens on TON are separate jetton contracts, not ERC-20.

What’s worth bringing along

Sensible things to “carry” from Ethereum to TON:

USDT — by far the most liquid bridge token.
USDC — available on TON via bridges (native USDC is still in discussion).
ETH as WETH-jetton — for arbitrage and DeFi inside TON.
Stablecoins for trading on TON DEXes.

NFTs and custom tokens usually stay in Ethereum. TON has its own NFT ecosystem (TON Diamonds, getgems) with different collections.

Step 1. Create a TON wallet

The first task is a wallet that speaks TON. Detailed guide — How to create a TON wallet in 5 minutes. Quick version:

Tonkeeper — the flagship, the MetaMask of TON.
MyTonWallet — open-source alternative.
Wallet in Telegram — custodial, for the simplest scenarios.

Tonkeeper is the best fit for a MetaMask user. The Chrome extension feels familiar; mobile is even nicer.

Step 2. Get TON for gas

In Ethereum every transaction needs ETH for gas. On TON — Toncoin (TON) itself. Three ways to get it:

Through a bridge

If you have USDT on Ethereum, bridge it to TON (Symbiosis, Orbit Bridge), then swap part of the USDT to TON via STON.fi/DeDust. It works, but you already need TON to pay DEX gas — chicken-and-egg for new users.

The fix: many bridge UIs automatically include a small TON “for gas” alongside the destination token. Symbiosis and Orbit do this.

Through an exchange

The cleanest path for a new user. Buy TON on OKX, Bybit, Binance, MEXC and withdraw to your Tonkeeper address.

In-wallet purchase via Tonkeeper

Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet integrate MoonPay and Mercuryo — buy TON inside the wallet with a card. Fee 1.5–3%, but convenient for the first purchase.

i
How much TON to start with

For active TON-network use, 5–10 TON is enough (about $2–4 in mid-2026). Plenty for hundreds of transactions, several swaps and a .ton domain registration. No need to load up on day one.

Step 3. Bridge tokens over

Now to the main act — moving USDT (or another token) from Ethereum to TON.

Symbiosis Finance

symbiosis.finance — multi-chain bridge with TON support. Flow:

Open symbiosis.finance in the browser.
Connect MetaMask (Ethereum) and Tonkeeper (TON).
From — Ethereum + USDT, To — TON + USDT.
Set the amount, check the fee (typically 0.1–0.3% + Ethereum gas).
Confirm in MetaMask (USDT moves to the bridge contract on Ethereum).
Wait 5–15 minutes.
USDT-jetton arrives in Tonkeeper.

Symbiosis also drops a “pinch” of TON for gas so the new address can do something immediately.

Orbit Bridge

bridge.orbitchain.io — alternative supporting Ethereum ↔ TON via wrapped tokens. Wrapped USDT through Orbit may differ from native USDT on TON — different jettons. Confirm which one you’ll receive before using.

Official USDT bridge (Tether)

Tether issued native USDT on TON — not wrapped. To move it:

From an exchange (OKX, Bybit) withdraw USDT directly via the TON network. The exchange offers a network choice; pick TON.
The exchange routes Ethereum-side USDT through its internal bridge contract; what arrives in Tonkeeper is USDT on TON.

This is the most convenient path for most users — no separate bridge UI, all through your familiar exchange.

Step 4. TON equivalents of Ethereum tools

A “what to use on TON instead of the Ethereum tool you know” table:

Ethereum	TON equivalent
MetaMask	Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet
WalletConnect	TON Connect 2.0
Etherscan	tonscan.org, tonviewer.com
Uniswap	STON.fi, DeDust
Aave	EVAA Protocol, DAOLama
Lido (ETH staking)	Tonstakers, Hipo, bemo
OpenSea	getgems.io, mrkt.app
ENS (Ethereum Name Service)	TON DNS (.ton domains)
Hardhat / Foundry	Blueprint
Solidity	Tolk, Tact, FunC

More on TON Connect — in a dedicated piece. On explorers — the TonScan guide.

How DeFi differs on TON

If you’re used to Uniswap, STON.fi feels familiar — pairs, liquidity, AMM curves. The differences:

TVL and depth

TON ecosystem TVL in 2025–2026 is $150–400M, well below Ethereum DeFi (tens of billions). For large swaps ($50k+) slippage is higher; for retail it doesn’t matter.

Available strategies

Swaps on STON.fi and DeDust — standard AMM.
TON staking through Tonstakers/Hipo/bemo — 3–5% APR, the Lido equivalent.
Lending — EVAA, a lending protocol with a limited set of pairs.
Yield farming — minimal, mostly on STON.fi and through Telegram-native projects.

What’s missing (or scarce)

Complex derivatives (perps, options) — almost absent.
MEV / sandwich bots — exist, but at much smaller scale due to fixed gas pricing.
Flash loans — extremely rare.

If you ran strategies on Aave + Uniswap + Curve, most won’t reproduce on TON. If you wanted just swaps and staking — everything’s there.

What happens to your Ethereum assets

The most common worry: “I bridged USDT to TON, what’s left on Ethereum?”

The ETH wallet stays. MetaMask with the same seed keeps working with Ethereum.
NFTs on Ethereum stay. They don’t move automatically.
Contracts you participated in (Uniswap LP, staking) keep working. No one touches them.
The USDT you bridged is gone from Ethereum. It’s locked in the bridge contract; you received an equivalent jetton on TON. To return — same bridge.

Pitfalls

What you must know before bridging:

1. Gas works differently

You don’t manage gas priority via auction the way you do on Ethereum. Price is fixed; the transaction either confirms in 1–2 blocks or it doesn’t. No pending transactions. Details — in the fees guide.

2. Two address formats

The same TON wallet has two address formats: EQ… (bounceable) and UQ… (non-bounceable). Exchanges and bridges typically require UQ — otherwise misrouted funds bounce. Tonkeeper shows both.

3. USDT on TON ≠ USDT on Ethereum

If you send to an Ethereum-USDT address from a friend who expected USDT on TON — funds go to the wrong network. Always check both the network and the address in the UI.

4. NFTs don’t cross simple bridges

Most bridges only support fungibles. For NFTs on TON you buy native TON NFTs (on getgems.io); it’s a different collection.

5. Recovery seeds differ

A MetaMask seed phrase technically works in Tonkeeper (both BIP-39), but generates a different address — different derivation path. If you use one seed for both networks, the addresses are different — don’t confuse them.

!
Don't reuse one seed for high-value wallets across networks

Technically convenient, practically risky. If the seed leaks, you lose both wallets. For serious amounts use separate seeds for Ethereum and TON.

Where to start

A minimal path to try TON without fully migrating:

Install Tonkeeper — 5 minutes. Detail — in the wallet creation guide.
Buy 5–10 TON through an exchange or in-wallet on-ramp.
Bridge 50–100 USDT through a bridge or via the TON network from your exchange.
Make your first swap on STON.fi or DeDust.
Try a mini-app in Telegram via TON Connect.

That gives you a real feel for TON’s speed and cost. If it clicks — move more; if not — your ETH stack is untouched on Ethereum.

What next

For a deeper look at why TON is architecturally different — the EVM-incompatibility piece. For the detailed comparison of fees and speed — the fees guide. General ecosystem onboarding — the TON full guide.

Sources

TON for developers: FunC, Tact and Tolk in 2026

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:25 +0000

For a developer used to Solidity, TON is a separate universe. Different languages, different concepts (asynchrony, cells, message-passing), different tools. This guide is a map of the terrain: what exists, what to pick, in what order to learn it.

One important disclaimer: below we discuss smart contracts, i.e. code that lives on-chain. For front-end integration (a JS/React dApp, a bot, a mini-app) the languages are different — TypeScript, Python — and they are standard.

Three TON languages

TON has three actively maintained languages for smart contracts in 2026:

FunC — low-level, historically the first, written by Nikolai Durov.
Tact — high-level, introduced in 2023, syntax close to TypeScript/Kotlin.
Tolk — newest (2024–2025), positioned by TON Foundation as the recommended default.

There’s also Fift — a stack-oriented language, but it’s used only for deployment and low-level utilities. Production contracts are not written in it.

All three languages compile to TVM bytecode, which is what runs on the network.

FunC: the classic

FunC is a functional, low-level language with explicit work over TON memory primitives (cells, slices, dictionaries). Its syntax resembles a hybrid of C and Lisp:

Explicit typing (int, cell, slice).
Direct TVM instructions when needed.
Minimal abstractions — you write close to the metal.

Pros:

Full control over gas spend.
All examples in the TON docs were historically in FunC — the base language.
The majority of existing mainnet contracts are written in FunC.

Cons:

High entry barrier: you need to understand cells and the low-level model.
Lots of boilerplate (serialisation, message handling, authorisation — all manual).
Easy to mistype or get the operation order wrong.

FunC is still supported, but TON Foundation is gradually shifting focus to Tolk. Pure-FunC new projects in 2026 are rare.

Tact: the friendly one

Tact was conceived as “Solidity for TON” — a high-level language that hides most of the TVM complexity. The syntax is close to TypeScript:

contract Counter {
    val: Int as uint32 = 0;

    receive("increment") {
        self.val = self.val + 1;
    }

    get fun value(): Int {
        return self.val;
    }
}

Pros:

Low barrier for developers with TypeScript/Java/Kotlin background.
Automatic message serialisation.
Built-in patterns for jettons, NFTs, ownership.
Excellent documentation at tact-lang.org.

Cons:

Less control over gas — the compiler generates “safe” code, not always optimal.
Some scenarios still require embedded FunC fragments.
Smaller community than FunC.

Tact is actively used in production — many 2024–2025 projects migrated from FunC to it.

Tolk: the new recommended default

Tolk is TON Foundation’s freshest work. Launched in 2024–2025 and by 2026 the recommended default language.

fun main(in_msg: cell, in_msg_full: cell, my_balance: int): int {
    var counter: int = read_counter();
    counter += 1;
    save_counter(counter);
    return 0;
}

The Tolk idea:

Modern, type-safe syntax (TypeScript-like).
A FunC core under the hood — full TVM control.
Automatic packing of structures into cells.
Pattern matching, null safety, generics.

Pros:

30–50% gas savings versus FunC, per TON Foundation’s own benchmarks.
Auto-inlining of functions (manual in FunC).
Modern type system: type aliases, union types, generics, null safety.
Still close to TVM, low-level flexibility preserved.

Cons:

Young — the ecosystem is still forming.
Fewer ready-made examples and audited cases.
Documentation is still being written.

In 2026 TON Foundation is actively rewriting examples and templates in Tolk. New developers should look at Tolk first.

What to choose

Scenario	Recommendation
New project, no legacy code	Tolk
Gas optimisation is critical	Tolk or FunC
Team comfortable with TypeScript/Solidity	Tact
Maintaining an existing FunC project	FunC
Learning, understanding TON internals	First FunC for the basics, then Tolk

For an absolute beginner the path is:

Learn the TON base model — cells, async messages, account-as-contract.
Build the first contract in Tolk via Blueprint.
As needed — peek into FunC for deep control.

Blueprint: the main tool

Blueprint is the framework for TON development, the analogue of Hardhat in Ethereum. Built by TON Foundation, supports all three contract languages.

What’s inside

Scaffolding — npm create ton@latest builds a project with an example.
Compiler — built-in support for FunC, Tact, Tolk.
Sandbox — local TVM emulator for unit tests.
Deploy — scripts for testnet/mainnet via Tonkeeper or mnemonic.
Testing — Jest-based, runs through @ton/sandbox.

Creating a project

npm create ton@latest my-contract
cd my-contract
npm install

Blueprint then asks: which contract language (FunC/Tact/Tolk), the main contract name, whether to scaffold an example. After that you have a ready structure with tests and a deploy script.

Running tests

npx blueprint test

Tests run in the local sandbox — no network calls, no TON spent. Time per test — milliseconds.

Deploying to testnet

npx blueprint run --testnet

The script asks how to authenticate (Tonkeeper via QR or mnemonic) and deploys the contract. Same with --mainnet for production.

Minimal development workflow

The typical contract development process:

Scaffold. npm create ton@latest my-token.
Local development. Write the contract, write tests in tests/MyToken.spec.ts.
Local tests. npx blueprint test — must be green.
Testnet deploy. npx blueprint run --testnet. The contract gets an address. From here you can connect to it with Tonkeeper on testnet.
Manual testing. Switch Tonkeeper to testnet, send transactions, inspect behaviour through TonScan testnet.
Audit. If the contract holds real funds — non-negotiable. TON audit firms: Certik, Trail of Bits, slowmist.com (TON-specialised), Tonbit.
Mainnet deploy. npx blueprint run --mainnet. Deployment costs 0.05–0.5 TON.

Field log · 2024–2026
In our team, the standard time from blank page to a production-ready jetton contract is 1–2 weeks for a developer with no TON experience. The bulk of that time isn’t writing code — it’s understanding the message model and testing edge cases involving bounce. Tolk + Blueprint in 2026 noticeably accelerated the cycle — earlier it took 3–4 weeks on FunC.

— TON Adoption

What to understand about the TON model

A few concepts that distinguish TON development from EVM:

Every account is a contract

Even an ordinary wallet is a smart contract (a wallet contract). It has code, state and a balance. When you “send TON”, you actually invoke a function on your wallet contract that emits a message to the recipient.

Asynchrony

Contracts do not “call” each other. They send messages, and the recipient processes them in the next block. There’s no “return value right now” — you have to design logic with callback messages.

Bounce

If the recipient cannot process the message, it bounces back with a bounced=true flag. The sender contract must know how to handle the bounce — otherwise funds get stuck.

Storage fee

A contract pays for storage out of its own balance. Leave a contract without TON, and over a few months its state is eaten by the storage fee and the contract becomes frozen.

Cells and Slices

All data on TON is stored in cells — structures with a fixed limit (1023 bits of data + 4 references to other cells). Large data becomes a tree of cells. Serialising into cells and back is its own skill.

More on the model — in the EVM-incompatibility article.

Frontend and dApp

If you’re not writing the contract itself but a dApp around it, frontend development is standard: TypeScript, React/Vue/Svelte, whatever.

Key libraries:

@ton/ton — official SDK for talking to the TON network from JS/TS.
@tonconnect/ui-react — a Connect Wallet button supporting every wallet. More — in the TON Connect article.
@ton/core — types and low-level cell operations.
@ton/crypto — cryptography (mnemonic, keys, signatures).

Where to learn

Free resources in 2026:

docs.ton.org — official documentation. Updated regularly, has tutorials.
tact-lang.org — Tact’s separate documentation.
TON Hello World — step-by-step “your first contract” tutorial.
GitHub TON-Foundation — repositories with examples and templates.
Telegram channels — @toncontests, @tondevchat, @TONresearch.

Paid courses exist, but free materials plus your own practice are enough to get started.

What next

If you’d rather start with the architecture — the full TON guide. If you’re curious about how dApps talk to wallets — TON Connect. For risk-free experimentation — the testnet guide.

Sources

Wallet in Telegram 2026: features and custodial limits

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:23 +0000

Wallet in Telegram is the largest entry point into TON. Per TON Foundation data, more users passed through this service in 2024–2025 than through every other TON wallet combined. That is both an advantage and a trap. In this piece — what Wallet can do, what it cannot do by design, and where the line is past which Tonkeeper makes more sense.

What Wallet in Telegram is

Wallet is a custodial crypto wallet built into Telegram via the @wallet bot and the official mini-app. Launched in 2022, the operator is Wallet by The TON Foundation Inc. (despite the name, this is not the TON Foundation), licensed in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

“Custodial” means: the service holds the keys, not the user. Architecturally Wallet is closer to an exchange than to Tonkeeper. It has its own APIs, its own balance ledger, its own AML procedures. When you send TON via Wallet, a transaction between two Wallet users does not hit the blockchain — it is an internal book entry. Only withdrawals to external addresses go on-chain.

What it can do in 2026

Custody and transfers

Supported assets (as of 2026):

TON (native),
USDT (jetton on TON),
BTC (via integration),
NOT (Notcoin) and a curated set of popular jettons.

Internal Wallet transfers are instant, by @username. That is the main reason many people use Wallet at all — sent a colleague $30 USDT by username in 2 seconds, no fees.

External transfers are normal blockchain transactions with the standard network fee. Wallet’s withdrawal commission is 0% for TON and USDT, fixed for BTC.

P2P market

In 2024 Wallet launched fiat P2P trading for TON and USDT. It is a built-in exchange where Wallet users buy and sell crypto from each other and the service provides escrow. Supported fiat currencies: USD, EUR, regional ones (UZS, KZT, AMD, GEL) plus RUB in Russia.

Strengths:

Quotes are competitive with external exchanges.
No need to register on a separate exchange and pass another KYC.
Convenient escrow — funds leave the seller only after confirmation.

Limits:

Volume caps without verification (usually $200/day).
Full KYC required past a few thousand dollars per month.
Regional access — in some countries the feature is restricted.

Card purchase

Direct purchase of TON and USDT with cards via third-party providers (Mercuryo, MoonPay). Provider fee 3–5%. Fastest, but not cheapest.

Hidden Wallet

A separate mode added in 2024. Creates a second wallet protected by a password and invisible by default in the UI. Useful if the phone ends up in someone else’s hands — the main balance shows empty, the hidden one is inaccessible without the password.

What Wallet cannot do

TON Connect and DeFi

Wallet does not support TON Connect 2.0. That means:

you cannot connect to STON.fi or DeDust;
you cannot stake via Tonstakers / Hipo / bemo;
you cannot use complex mini-apps that require wallet signatures.

For all of that you need a full non-custodial wallet. Detailed comparison — best TON wallets 2026.

Full key control

You have no seed phrase. That is convenient (recovery via Telegram support) but creates fundamental dependence on the service. If Wallet decides tomorrow that your account is suspicious — access is closed pending review.

Arbitrary jettons

Wallet supports only a list of pre-approved tokens. Receiving a random jetton from a friend will not surface — the transaction reaches the internal address but does not show up in the UI. To receive arbitrary jettons you need Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet.

NFTs in full

Telegram usernames and anonymous numbers are visible in Wallet in a limited way — for trading them, the dedicated Fragment integration is used. NFT collections (Telegram Gifts, Anonymous Numbers, third-party Getgems collections) are better held in Tonkeeper.

!
Wallet is a service, not a sovereign wallet

Legally you do not own crypto inside Wallet — you hold a debt claim against the service. That works in most cases, but for serious balances it creates the same risk class as keeping funds on an exchange.

Security: where Wallet is fine and where it is not

Where it is fine:

Account protection. Tied to a Telegram account with 2FA, biometrics and cloud password — robust if configured properly.
Internal transfers. Do not hit the blockchain, leave no public trace, cannot be hijacked by a wrong address.
Regulatory cover. SVG license, AML procedures — for a retail user this is a plus when defending transactions to a bank.

Where it is not:

Counterparty risk. If Wallet runs into regulatory or technical trouble — your funds are unavailable until resolved.
Telegram coupling. Hijacking a Telegram account = hijacking Wallet. And vice versa.
No insurance. Unlike banks, no guarantee fund. Decisions are entirely with the service.

Wallet vs Tonkeeper: when which

Scenario	Wallet	Tonkeeper
Send $20 to a friend in chat	Perfect	Overkill
Buy TON via P2P	Excellent	Cannot
Stake TON	Cannot	Perfect
DeFi: STON.fi, DeDust	Cannot	Perfect
Hold $50,000	Not recommended	With Ledger — fine
NFT collection	Basic	Full
Receive a random jetton	Will not show	Will show

Full Tonkeeper review — in the Tonkeeper review.

When you need a real wallet

Tonkeeper is non-custodial, supports Ledger and TON Connect. Free, no KYC.
→

Practical use case

What we actually do with Wallet:

Fiat on-ramp. Buy TON or USDT via P2P in your local currency — the most convenient route in many regions in 2026.
Microtransfers and tipping. Send $5–50 in chat — instant, by @username.
Buffer account. Keep $50–500 “in circulation” — for subscriptions, mini-apps, small purchases.
Sweep to Tonkeeper. As soon as the balance grows, withdraw to your own Tonkeeper. Takes 5 seconds and costs pennies.

What we do not do:

Do not keep savings in Wallet.
Do not use Wallet for DeFi (it cannot).
Do not send arbitrary jettons to Wallet — they get lost.

The “switch to Tonkeeper” threshold

Simple rule: once the balance is more than two average monthly incomes, you are in the zone where spending 10 minutes installing Tonkeeper and writing down the seed is a no-brainer. Less — Wallet is OK. More — the question is not “do I need a non-custodial wallet” but “how soon”.

Bottom line

Wallet in Telegram is the best “zero-effort entry point” into TON in 2026. It is instantly available, has built-in P2P, is convenient for microtransfers. But it is not the main wallet — it is a service with its own limits.

Use Wallet as a fast on-ramp/off-ramp tool. For everything else — non-custodial TON wallets.

Sources

wallet.tg — official site.
help.wallet.tg — help center.
TON Foundation — general ecosystem documentation.

Multi-sig on TON 2026: security for corporate funds

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:22 +0000

Multi-sig (multisignature) means distributing the right to spend funds across several keys, with the requirement that some of them co-sign. For teams, DAOs and serious individual savings on TON, it’s a baseline practice. This article covers how it works under the hood, how to deploy it, what configurations are sensible, and where the pitfalls are.

Why multi-sig

A single key is a single point of failure. Compromise the seed → lose all funds. Multi-sig removes that:

Protection against single-device compromise. An attacker who gets one key cannot move funds.
Protection against insider risk. No single team member can move funds alone.
Protection against your own mistake. Lose one of your own keys — funds are still accessible through the rest.
Transparency. Every operation requires explicit approval from a defined number of participants, all visible on-chain.

The trade-off — higher operational complexity and more time to gather signatures.

Multi-sig implementation in TON

In TON, multi-sig is a smart-contract wallet, not a separate protocol feature. The canonical implementation is multisig-contract-v2 by the TON Core team, version 2.0 from April 2024.

Audits

The contract has passed two independent audits:

Zellic — report published in the repository.
Trail of Bits — security review completed in March 2024.

Both audits confirmed the logic is correct; there are no publicly known vulnerabilities in the stable version.

Architecture

The contract stores:

Signers list. Any TON address — a regular wallet, a Ledger account, another multi-sig, a smart contract.
Proposers list (optional). Addresses that can propose orders but cannot vote on them.
Threshold. Minimum number of signatures k required to execute an order.
Wallet ID. Unique identifier so you can deploy several multi-sigs with the same set of keys.

Order lifecycle

Creation (propose). Any signer or proposer creates an order: “send X TON to address Y, call Z”. The order is sent to the contract.
Signature collection. Signers post their approvals via transactions to the contract. Each signature is recorded in the contract state.
Expiry. If k signatures aren’t collected within the configured window (hours) — the order expires and cannot execute.
Execution. Once k approvals are in — the order auto-executes (or can be triggered by any signer).

Configuration changes (add or remove a signer, change the threshold) are themselves orders requiring k signatures. That means you cannot quietly hijack a multi-sig — any change to the signer set is recorded on-chain.

Typical configurations

2-of-3 — for individuals

Three Ledger keys distributed geographically:

Key A — at home.
Key B — in a bank deposit box.
Key C — with a lawyer or trusted partner.

Any two are enough to sign. Losing one is not critical. One compromised — also not critical.

Suitable for long-term storage of $50k–500k.

3-of-5 — for teams

Five signers, three required. Common layout:

CEO,
CFO,
CTO,
a trusted investor / advisor,
a “secure resource” (a cold device in a deposit box).

This is “team plus insurance”. Any three can sign during normal operations, but no two can move funds.

2-of-2 — for paired control

Often used between two key figures with equal rights. Not fault-tolerant (losing one key permanently locks the funds), so it requires either an additional recovery key or extremely robust seed backup.

3-of-7 — for a DAO

Extended team with granular control. Harder to maintain — makes sense once a DAO treasury is above $1M.

Tools for multi-sig

multisig.ton.org

Web interface from the TON Foundation for creating and managing multi-sig contracts. Supports:

contract deployment with chosen signers and threshold;
order creation;
signature collection via TON Connect;
monitoring state and order history.

Suitable for most cases. Connection — through Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet.

Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet

There is no native in-wallet multi-sig management yet, but both work well as signers — through TON Connect to multisig.ton.org or other interfaces. Each signature shows up in the wallet’s UI as a regular transaction.

Self-hosted UI

Technical teams can stand up their own UI on top of the open multisig-contract-v2 source and the TON Foundation SDK. This gives full control over interface and logging behaviour, but requires engineering effort.

Tonkeeper as a multi-sig signer

Connects to multi-sig interfaces through TON Connect. Supports Ledger for an extra layer of protection.
→

Deploying a multi-sig: step by step

Suppose you want to deploy a 2-of-3 multi-sig across three Ledger accounts.

1. Key preparation

Buy three Ledger Nano S Plus or X devices.
Set each up separately (independent seed on each, stamped onto a steel plate).
Install the TON app on each.
Get the public address of each via Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet.
Test transfer of $5 to each Ledger — confirm the devices work.

2. Contract deployment

Open multisig.ton.org.
Connect the wallet that will pay for deployment (~0.5–1 TON in gas).
Enter the three signer addresses.
Set threshold = 2.
Optionally — set the Wallet ID, if multiple multi-sigs are planned.
Confirm the deployment transaction.
You’ll get the multi-sig address — public, ready to receive funds.

3. Testing

Don’t fund with the main amount right away.

Send $50 to the multi-sig address.
Create an order — send $10 to one of your own addresses.
Sign with two of the three Ledgers.
Confirm the order executed.
Create a configuration-change order (e.g. temporarily change the threshold) and verify.
Only after a full cycle — fund with the main amount.

4. Documentation

Write down:

the multi-sig address;
all signer addresses;
who owns each key;
threshold;
key rotation procedure;
recovery contacts for each signer.

Store this document somewhere safe and accessible to all signers. Without it, recovery during an incident becomes a nightmare.

!
A test order is mandatory

Every time you change the signer set or threshold — run a test order on a minimal amount before doing anything with the main balance. Multi-sig is harder than a single-key wallet; configuration mistakes are usually discovered the moment you change configuration, not at initial deployment.

Use cases

Corporate treasury

A company holds operational treasury in TON / USDT-jetton. A 3-of-5 multi-sig across CEO, CFO, COO, advisor and a cold backup. Anything above a certain threshold goes through multi-sig; small operational expenses go through a capped single-key wallet.

DAO treasury

Community votes define orders, a multi-sig of delegates executes. Threshold is usually high (e.g. 5-of-7) to defend against collusion of a delegate subset.

Family treasury

Family wallet split across family members. Threshold tends to be low (e.g. 2-of-4 — two parents and two adult children), but with a documented inheritance path.

Project grant treasury

A project receives a grant from the TON Foundation into a 3-of-5 multi-sig that includes a foundation representative. Every spend is transparent and visible to donors.

Field log · 2025–2026
Twice, a 2-of-3 multi-sig saved us from incidents. First — a phone with one of the keys turned out to be compromised by a phishing app; the attacker couldn’t push a single transaction because they didn’t have a second key. Second — a Ledger lost on a business trip; the wallet kept operating on the two remaining keys, the lost one was rotated out via the standard signer-change procedure.

— TON Adoption

Downsides and pitfalls

Operation speed

Collecting signatures takes hours or days in a distributed team. Multi-sig is not suitable for active DeFi — that needs a separate operational wallet with small caps.

Higher gas

Every multi-sig operation is more expensive than a regular transaction (gas for signature verification). For small transfers it’s overkill.

Usability

Every signer must understand the process and have an active wallet and device. In a team, somebody is always “didn’t sign in time”, blocking an urgent payment.

Recovery complexity

If a key is lost and the remaining count is below threshold — funds are locked forever. 2-of-2 without a recovery key is a time bomb. Always leave headroom on the threshold.

Version mismatch

Multisig-contract-v2 is the current standard. If you deploy old v1 — some tools may not support it. Use only v2 from TON Core, not custom forks.

Multi-sig vs a regular Ledger

Scenario	Single Ledger	Multi-sig 2-of-3
Single-phone protection	Sufficient	Overkill
Team protection	Not suitable	Ideal
Operation speed	Seconds	Hours–days
Gas cost	Low	High
Amount $5k–50k	Sufficient	Possibly overkill
Amount $50k+	Minimum	Standard

For more on cold storage broadly — TON cold storage: strategies and tools.

Bottom line

Multi-sig in TON in 2026 is mature technology. The multisig-contract-v2 contract has been audited, the infrastructure (multisig.ton.org, TON Connect, Ledger as a signer) works. For individuals, multi-sig makes sense from $50k–100k; for teams it’s the right tool from any meaningful corporate balance.

The main rule: always leave threshold headroom (never 2-of-2 without a recovery), always test orders before funding, always document the process.

Sources

github.com/ton-blockchain/multisig-contract-v2 — multisig from the TON Core team.
Audits by Zellic and Trail of Bits — reports in the repository.
docs.ton.org — general TON documentation.
multisig.ton.org — the official TON Foundation web UI.

Reading TON transactions in TonScan: 2026 guide

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:20 +0000

The Ethereum world has Etherscan — the universal tool for transaction inspection. In TON, the same role is filled by TonScan and its newer competitor Tonviewer. This guide walks through how to read data in both: what every field means, how to parse a chain of messages and where to find errors.

Which explorers exist on TON

As of 2026, the main five:

tonscan.org — classic, the historical first.
tonviewer.com — newer, by the Tonkeeper team.
ton.cx — lightweight and fast.
toncenter.com — official API + minimal UI from the TON Foundation.
explorer.toncoin.org — simple and topic-focused.

For end-user purposes, tonscan.org and tonviewer.com cover 99% of cases. We’ll work on those examples below.

What a TON transaction is

Before reading the explorer, you need the transaction model. In Ethereum a transaction is one atomic action: a function call with all nested calls in a single bundle.

In TON it’s different:

A transaction is the execution of one smart contract in response to one incoming message.
If contract A sends contract B a message, you get two transactions — one on A (where it sent it) and one on B (where it received and processed it).
They’re linked via the chain in_msg → tx → out_msgs → next_tx → ....

In explorers this shows as a message tree.

i
A simple TON transfer is one transaction? Not quite

Sending 1 TON from Tonkeeper to another wallet is 2 transactions on TON: tx-1 on the sender (deducted 1 TON, sent the message), tx-2 on the recipient (received 1 TON minus gas). A jetton (USDT) transfer is 3–4 transactions, because both sides’ jetton-wallets are involved.

Lookup by hash

The most common case: you have a hash and want to see the transaction.

Open tonscan.org (or tonviewer.com).
Paste the hash into the search bar — it looks like a long hex string 9f8d7e6c....
Press Enter.

You’ll see the transaction page with fields:

Hash — the hash itself.
Block — which block (with workchain, shard, seqno).
Time — when it was processed.
Status — success (green tick) or error (red cross).
In message — who sent what.
Out messages — what was sent outward.
Total fees — how much TON was spent on fees.
EXIT_CODE — contract exit code.

Lookup by address

The second common case — viewing the history of your or someone else’s wallet.

Copy the EQ…/UQ… address.
Paste into search.
The address page opens with:
- Balance — current TON balance.
- Jettons — list of jetton tokens with balances.
- NFTs — NFT list.
- Transactions — feed of all operations.
- State — contract state (uninitialized / active / frozen).

Tonviewer also shows an activity chart — handy for spotting transaction spikes.

Reading a normal TON transfer

Example: Alice sends 1 TON to Bob.

In the explorer you’ll see two transactions:

Transaction 1 — on Alice’s address:

In message: empty (or signed by an external request from her wallet).
Out messages: 1 message to Bob, value = 1 TON.
EXIT_CODE: 0 (success).
Total fees: ~0.005 TON.

Transaction 2 — on Bob’s address:

In message: from Alice, value = 1 TON.
Out messages: empty.
EXIT_CODE: 0.
Total fees: ~0.001 TON (deducted from value).

Bob received 0.999 TON, because 0.001 TON went to forward fee and storage fee on his side.

Reading a jetton transfer (USDT, NOT, any token)

A jetton is a separate smart contract per user, not a “balance entry”. So a transfer is more involved:

Alice sends 100 USDT to Bob. The chain in the explorer:

Tx 1: Alice’s wallet → her USDT jetton-wallet (message “send 100 USDT to Bob”).
Tx 2: Alice’s jetton-wallet deducts 100 USDT, sends a message to Bob’s jetton-wallet (creating it if it doesn’t exist).
Tx 3: Bob’s jetton-wallet credits 100 USDT, sends a notification to Bob’s main wallet.
Tx 4: Bob’s main wallet processes the notification (optional).

Tonviewer renders this as a single tree with a clean “Alice → 100 USDT → Bob”. TonScan shows it as a classic list — you click through related transactions.

Fields that scare beginners

EXIT_CODE

The TVM exit code from contract execution. Standard values:

0 — success, normal completion.
1 — alternative success (rollback succeeded).
2 — Stack underflow.
3 — Stack overflow.
4 — Integer overflow.
5 — Range check error.
8 — Cell overflow.
9 — Cell underflow.
10 — Dictionary error.
13 — Out of gas.
32 — Action list invalid (typical when sending an incorrectly formed message).
34 — Action invalid (e.g. wrong mode).
37 — Not enough TON.
38 — Not enough extra-currency.

Contracts can also define their own exit codes in the 256+ range. For example, a jetton-wallet throws code 706 “not authorized” when somebody tries to spend tokens not as the owner.

Full table — docs.ton.org/develop/smart-contracts/guidelines/error-handling.

Compute phase / Action phase

A TON transaction has phases:

Compute — contract code execution in the TVM. EXIT_CODE lives here.
Action — handling of the actions the contract accumulated (sending messages, code change). It has its own action_result_code.
Storage — storage fee deduction.
Bounce — bounce handling (rollback on error).

If a transaction “failed”, check compute-phase EXIT_CODE first. If it’s 0 but something still went wrong — check action_result_code.

Bounce

If contract A sent a message to contract B and B couldn’t process it (failed with an error), the message bounces back to A. TonScan and Tonviewer mark this as “Bounced”. This doesn’t mean funds were lost — they returned to the sender.

!
Bounceable vs non-bounceable

EQ… addresses are bounceable (if the recipient is inactive or errors, funds return to the sender). UQ… are non-bounceable (sent and forgotten, funds settle even on a “broken” address). Exchanges and P2P often require UQ for deposits to avoid bounce issues.

Common debugging cases

”I sent it but the recipient didn’t get it”

Open your address in the explorer.
Find the outgoing transaction with the right amount.
Check status: success or error.
If success — follow out_messages to the recipient’s address.
The recipient’s page should have an incoming transaction with the same parent hash.

If there’s no transaction on the recipient side — network delay (wait 1–2 minutes). If it’s there but the balance hasn’t updated — refresh the app or cross-check in another explorer.

”I paid a huge fee”

Open the transaction, look at total_fees. If it’s above 0.05 TON, something unusual is going on. Possible causes:

Contract deployment (first transaction of a new dApp).
Large forward_fee due to payload size.
Long-tail storage_fee (contract not used for a long time).

For more on how fees are computed — a separate article.

”I don’t understand why the contract failed”

Open the transaction in Tonviewer (better for debugging). Fields:

compute.exit_code — the main hint.
compute.vm_log — execution log (if enabled).
action.result_code — if compute itself succeeded.

If exit_code = 13 — out of gas. Codes around 700+ are typically custom contract codes (jetton, NFT). Google by the specific number and contract.

Small tricks

Tonviewer shows a dApp preview if the transaction maps to a known project (STON.fi, DeDust). Useful to confirm “did I swap on the right curve”.
TonScan has a public API for batch data processing. Useful for analytics or bots.
Tonviewer offers OnchainAPI for each transaction — JSON via query.
Both explorers give permanent links to specific transactions — easy to share in a Telegram chat.

What’s next

If you want to understand what makes up that fee and why it’s so low — the TON fees guide. If you work with testnet — how to switch and verify. If you’re just starting — creating a wallet.

Open TonScan

The universal TON network explorer for any transaction, address, token or NFT. Free, no signup.
→

Sources

Tonkeeper full review 2026: features, security, weak spots

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:19 +0000

Tonkeeper is the best-known non-custodial wallet on TON. Per TON Foundation data at the end of 2025 it processed more unique transactions than any other wallet on the network, except the in-Telegram Wallet. In this review — what is inside in 2026, where Tonkeeper is strong, and where it has real weak spots.

TL;DR — who it fits

Active TON user — DeFi, mini-apps, NFTs, transfers — Tonkeeper covers 95% of scenarios.
Long-term storage — Tonkeeper plus Ledger, or Tonkeeper Signer mode.
Team / corporate wallet — better as a multi-sig signer than “one phone with a million TON”.
Beginner not yet committed — install is fine, but it makes sense to first try the in-Telegram Wallet on $20–50 to minimise friction.

What Tonkeeper is

Tonkeeper is a family of apps from a team of former TON Labs engineers. Available builds:

iOS — App Store, active release cadence (every 2–4 weeks);
Android — Google Play and a direct APK from tonkeeper.com;
Web (Tonkeeper Web) — web build with TON Connect and Ledger;
Tonkeeper Pro — desktop app for macOS/Windows/Linux;
Chrome extension — for browser DeFi.

The extension and web build are open source, the mobile clients are partially closed (the cryptography and signing layer is open). That is the typical “open core” architecture — the sensitive crypto is auditable, the marketing UX is not.

Key features in 2026

TON Connect 2.0

The protocol that links the wallet to dApps, the analogue of WalletConnect on Ethereum. Per TON Foundation, more than 30 wallets and hundreds of apps support it. Tonkeeper is the reference implementation — if an app supports TON Connect, it almost certainly works with Tonkeeper.

Scenario: open STON.fi or DeDust, click “Connect Wallet”, scan a QR in Tonkeeper — the dApp can request signatures from you. Each transaction is a separate confirmation, no “approve all” by default.

Ledger support

Direct integration with Ledger Nano S Plus and Nano X via the TON app in Ledger Live. Tonkeeper becomes the interface, signing happens on the device. This is the minimum sensible defence for serious amounts — phishing via QR or a fake dApp will not steal funds in this setup, because Ledger displays the recipient and amount physically.

Detailed walkthrough — How to connect Ledger to a TON wallet.

Signer mode

A TON-specific feature: Tonkeeper on one phone works as a hardware wallet for another device. You sit at a laptop with Tonkeeper Web, hit “sign transaction” — Tonkeeper on the phone shows a pending transaction, you confirm with biometrics. This is a cheap Ledger alternative if you keep the phone reasonably isolated.

Multi-account

Up to ten wallets with different seed phrases inside one app. Useful for separating “hot DeFi”, “cold savings” and “corporate”. Each account can be hidden behind its own password or Face ID.

Address versions

Tonkeeper defaults to W5 — the fifth wallet contract version (released in 2024). It supports gasless USDT transfers and batch operations. When importing an old seed you can pick V3R2 / V4R2 / W5; all versions appear in one UI, balances on every non-zero version are listed separately.

i
W5 vs V4R2 — which to pick

Default — W5: lower fees and gasless USDT transfers. If you need maximum compatibility with older dApps or multi-sig tooling, leave it on V4R2 — it is time-tested and supported by every TON tool.

Built-in swap and on-ramp

Buy TON — via MoonPay, Mercuryo and Neocrypto. Provider fee 3–5%, EU and UK cards work, others are region-dependent.
Token swap — via the STON.fi and DeDust APIs. For a power DeFi user the DEX websites are nicer, but for quick TON to jUSDT swaps the built-in flow is enough.

NFT and Telegram usernames

Full TON NFT standard support — collections show with previews, you can send, list on Getgems or Fragment. Telegram usernames and anonymous numbers appear in a separate section.

Install Tonkeeper

Mature, time-tested wallet with Ledger and TON Connect. Free, no KYC.
→

Security: under the hood

Tonkeeper builds its threat model on three layers.

Local keys. Seed is generated via the system CSPRNG, encrypted with AES-256 keyed by the PIN, stored in the OS secure enclave (Keychain on iOS, Android Keystore). Decryption only happens on-device.
Biometrics. Face ID / Touch ID do not replace the PIN — they are a second factor unlocking the already encrypted store. After a biometric reset the PIN is required.
Phishing protection. TON Connect prompts show the domain and icon — a fake site with a similar name is visible. Transaction signing displays a simulation result — you see that you would lose 100 TON and gain 0 jUSDT before signing.

What Tonkeeper does not do (and that matters):

No server backups. Lose the seed, lose the account.
No counterparty address screening. It is not an AML service.
It cannot save you from social engineering. If you typed your seed into a phishing site, the funds will leave.

Weak spots

Plainly and without marketing varnish — where Tonkeeper loses or raises questions.

Closed mobile code

Part of the mobile client is closed. For most users this is fine (trust in the dev team), but if you are the “compile it yourself” kind of paranoid, look at MyTonWallet — it is fully open source.

dApp ad pressure

Mobile Tonkeeper periodically shows partner dApp banners on the home screen. They can be hidden but are active by default. This is typical paid discovery in crypto wallets, but some users find the UI cluttered.

Newcomer friction

Tonkeeper is a powerful tool, and its UX sometimes leans toward “feature over simplicity”. For example, picking the wallet contract version (W5/V4R2/V3R2) on import can confuse — most need the default, but the picker is visible. For total beginners the in-Telegram Wallet is simpler.

TON-only

If you need one wallet for TON, Ethereum, Solana and BTC, Tonkeeper does not fit. It is a specialised TON app. MyTonWallet, conversely, has been moving multi-chain (8+ networks as of 2026).

Tonkeeper vs alternatives

Quickly — who wants what.

Scenario	Best pick
TON-only active user	Tonkeeper
Paranoid / open source	MyTonWallet
Multi-chain in one wallet	MyTonWallet
Simplicity for newcomer	Wallet in Telegram
iOS only, minimal features	Tonhub
Cold storage	Tonkeeper + Ledger / MyTonWallet + Ledger

Full comparison — best TON wallets guide.

Practical setup

Field log · April 2026
In our team setup Tonkeeper runs on three devices simultaneously. On the main phone — a hot account for daily transfers and DeFi. On a second phone (an old one, no SIM) — a Signer account that signs transactions from a laptop. On the third — Ledger Nano X via Tonkeeper for long-term storage. Once a quarter we rotate wallets and verify the Signer device still works.

— TON Adoption

A minimum safe setup for a private user:

Install Tonkeeper from the official store.
Create a new wallet, write the seed on paper (no cloud, no screenshot).
Enable biometrics plus PIN.
If the balance is more than a couple thousand dollars — add Ledger.
Do a test transfer of $1 to every new counterparty.

Bottom line

Tonkeeper in 2026 is best-in-class non-custodial wallet for TON. Mature, supports Ledger and TON Connect 2.0, has thoughtful features like Signer mode. Downsides — partly closed code and dApp ad pressure, but for most users that is not critical.

If you want fully open source — read the MyTonWallet vs Tonkeeper comparison. If you need maximum security — add a hardware wallet via the Ledger guide.

Sources

tonkeeper.com — official site.
TON Connect overview — protocol docs.
docs.ton.org — wallet contract version specs (V3R2/V4R2/W5).

.ton domains: how to register, sell and use them in 2026

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:17 +0000

.ton is the native domain naming system of the TON network. Each name lives as an NFT on-chain, can be sold, gifted, attached to a wallet address or to a website. By 2026 the .ton ecosystem has become one of the most liquid NFT segments on TON: short names sell for tens of thousands of dollars, while a regular medium-length registration still costs 1 TON.

This guide is for anyone who wants to register a domain for themselves or simply understand how the market works.

Why .ton matters

Technically a .ton domain solves three things:

Human-readable address. Instead of EQDrjaLahLkMB-hMCmkzOyBuHJ139ZUYmPHu6RRBKnbdLIYI you write durov.ton. Wallets and DEXes resolve the name to an address automatically.
A site on TON Sites. A domain can point to an ADNL address of a TON node, and the site becomes accessible through TON Proxy — without classic DNS, without traditional hosting.
Identity. A .ton name is a unique public identifier that’s harder to steal than a @username (because Telegram usernames are a separate product — don’t confuse them).

Beyond utility, it’s also a speculative asset. Short, snappy names (a.ton, tg.ton, eth.ton) are a real NFT category with sizeable trades.

How registration works

Every .ton domain is allocated through a public auction at dns.ton.org. There’s no centralised registrar — a smart contract on TON accepts bids and decides the winner.

The rules:

The name must be between 4 and 126 characters. Names shorter than 4 are unavailable (to avoid clashing with regular domains).
Starting price depends on length:
- 11+ characters — from 1 TON;
- 10 characters — from 100 TON;
- 9 characters — from 300 TON;
- 8 characters — from 1,000 TON;
- and so on, scaling for shorter names.
Auctions last 7 days from the first bid.
Each new bid must be at least 5% higher than the previous one.
Whoever placed the last bid at auction end wins.

If no one bids above the starting price within 7 days, no auction triggers and the name stays unavailable.

i
Long names — almost free

If you need a functional name (e.g. for receiving transfers or hosting a site), not a short “brand”, consider 11+ character domains. They start at 1 TON and most go uncontested.

Buying a domain step by step

Registration takes 5–10 minutes plus a 7-day auction wait.

Step 1. Visit dns.ton.org

Open dns.ton.org in any browser (desktop or mobile — same thing). Connect a wallet via TON Connect (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, any compatible wallet).

Step 2. Search for a name

Type the desired name without .ton into search. The site shows:

whether the name is free;
if taken — the owner and the renewal date;
the starting auction price.

Step 3. Place a bid

If the name is free — click “Place a bid”, choose an amount (minimum is the starting price), confirm in the wallet. Gas is the standard TON few cents.

The first bid starts a 7-day clock. During that time anyone can outbid you (minimum +5%). If outbid, your stake returns automatically — no loss.

Step 4. Wait for the auction to end

After 7 days without further bids the name is yours. The NFT-domain arrives at your address — it now appears in the wallet as a regular NFT.

Step 5. Configure the bindings

A bare NFT-domain is just a name. To make it work as a transfer alias (username.ton → your address), you set up resolvers:

Go to dns.ton.org → My domains.
Open the domain → Settings.
Bind a wallet address (your current wallet).
Optionally — TON Site (for a website), Telegram (link to profile), TON Storage.

After that any wallet that resolves .ton (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, all major ones) accepts your name in the recipient field.

Renewal

A domain renews once a year via a manual transaction: send 0.015 TON to the domain’s smart contract. It’s a routine operation, usually done with one click in the dns.ton.org UI.

If you forget to renew — the domain goes back to auction. The previous owner fully loses their rights. There’s no DNS-style grace period; it’s a hard expiry.

!
Set a reminder

0.015 TON is less than a dollar, but precisely because renewals are “pennies”, domains slip through more often than you’d think. Set a calendar reminder a month before expiry, or use services that automate it (some wallets can).

Selling a domain

A domain is an NFT — sellable on any TON NFT marketplace.

The main venues in 2026:

getgems.io — the largest general TON NFT market.
dns.ton.org → Marketplace — built-in venue for direct sales.
webdom.market — domain-specialised marketplace.
Fragment.com — Telegram’s separate product. Not for .ton domains — for usernames and anonymous numbers.

Sales are like ordinary NFT trades: list at fixed price or open auction, the marketplace takes its cut (typically 5%), TON arrives at your address.

Fragment vs .ton — not the same

This is the most common confusion. Side-by-side:

Parameter	.ton domain (dns.ton.org)	Telegram username (Fragment)
What it is	Domain name with TON resolver	Telegram username @nickname
Auction venue	dns.ton.org	fragment.com
Where it’s used	TON wallets, TON Sites, ADNL	Only inside Telegram
Min characters	4	5
Storage	NFT on TON	NFT on TON (separate collection)
Renewal	0.015 TON per year	Free (one-time purchase, kept forever)

Both products are NFTs on TON; both sell via auction; but they’re different collections with different goals. A .ton domain doesn’t grant a Telegram username, and vice versa.

What domains actually cost

Mid-2026 prices, drawn from getgems.io and dns.ton.org:

3-character — not registerable; only exist from early reservations; rare on the market, $50k+.
4-character — typical 5,000–50,000 TON ($30,000–300,000+).
5-character — 500–5,000 TON.
6–7 characters — 50–500 TON.
8–10 characters — 5–50 TON.
11+ characters — auction starts at 1 TON, most are free.

That’s the secondary market. The primary auction is cheaper if you’re quick and willing to monitor.

Field log · 2024–2026
In our case we picked up a 12-character name on dns.ton.org for the 1 TON starting bid — no one outbid us in 7 days. In parallel we watched a 6-character auction: in a week the price climbed from 50 TON to 320 TON, and finally sold at 410 TON. Long, functional names rarely see contention; short ones almost always do.

— TON Adoption

How to use a domain

Beyond “receive transfers under a pretty name”, several practical scenarios:

TON Sites — your own site without hosting

Bind the domain to a TON node ADNL address running a website. Open the site through TON Proxy — built into Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet, or via gateways like myname.ton.site in a regular browser.

It’s a niche: no SEO, low traffic, but ideologically real Web3.

Brand for a project

If you run a project on TON, a .ton domain simplifies onboarding: “go to ourapp.ton” beats a long HTTPS URL.

Speculation

A real segment. Buy a short name at auction; sell it higher in a year or two. Risks — broad crypto drawdown plus trend shifts. Not financial advice: approach it like a collectible NFT purchase.

Where to start

If you want your own .ton:

Install a wallet — Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet.
Buy 5–10 TON for registration and renewal.
Visit dns.ton.org and find a free 11+ character name.
Bid 1 TON, wait 7 days.
Bind your wallet to the domain.

After that — depending on interest: spin up a TON Site, sell speculatively, or just enjoy a clean resolver.

Sources

Why TON is not EVM-compatible and what it means for users

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:15 +0000

The single most common question from someone meeting TON for the first time: “Why doesn’t Solidity work here?” Fair question — the Ethereum Virtual Machine has become the de-facto standard for most L1s and L2s, from Polygon to Arbitrum. TON went the other way and built its own virtual machine. Here’s why, and what it means in practice.

What EVM is and why everyone copies it

EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is the instruction set (opcodes) and execution model for smart contracts originally designed for Ethereum. Since 2015 it has become the standard: Solidity compiles to EVM bytecode, and that bytecode runs on any EVM-compatible chain.

The advantages of EVM compatibility are obvious:

Contracts port over. Uniswap, Aave, Curve — deployed on Polygon, BNB Chain, Arbitrum without rewrites.
Toolchain reuse. Hardhat, Foundry, MetaMask, Etherscan — one stack for dozens of chains.
Easy developer migration. A Solidity engineer from Ethereum starts shipping on Polygon within an hour.
Liquidity moves. Through bridges or token duplicates.

That’s why most L1/L2 chains after Ethereum chose the EVM-compatible path — even when it isn’t the best engineering choice.

Why TON went a different way

When Nikolai Durov designed TON in 2017–2018, the goals were different:

Millions of TPS — scalability significantly above Ethereum (then ~15 TPS).
Sharding by default — dynamic subdivision of the network into parallel shards.
Tied to Telegram — capable of supporting tens of millions of messenger users.

EVM doesn’t fit those goals well. Here’s why.

Synchronous vs asynchronous

EVM is a synchronous model: contract A calls contract B, waits for the result, and the value flows back into the original transaction. The transaction is atomic — either it all goes through, or all of it reverts.

TON is an asynchronous, message-based model: contract A sends a message to contract B without waiting for an answer. B will execute in the next block (or later, if it lives in another shard). There is no “return-value” atomicity.

i
Why asynchrony

Synchronous calls work poorly with sharding. If contract A in shard 1 wants to call contract B in shard 7, you need cross-shard synchronisation — expensive and slow. Asynchronous messages give sharding genuine parallelism.

Account model

EVM: one global state, all accounts live together, any contract can read any state during a transaction.

TON: each account is its own smart contract with its own storage, and you cannot “read another contract’s state” inside a transaction. If contract A needs data from contract B, A has to send a request message and wait for the reply.

That’s a fundamental design difference.

Gas model

In EVM the transaction initiator pays gas for the entire transaction, and atomicity means “all or nothing”. In TON each inter-contract message is a separate sub-transaction with its own gas, debited from whatever contract is currently executing.

TON has the concept of “the contract pays for its own work” — and that complicates the design versus EVM, where “the user pays gas for everything”.

What it means for the user

From the perspective of a regular user buying TON and sending it to a friend:

Different address shape. EQ…/UQ… instead of 0x… You can’t copy addresses across networks.
Different wallets. MetaMask doesn’t support TON. You need Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet or another TON wallet.
Separate tokens. USDT on TON is a jetton, distinct from ERC-20 USDT on Ethereum. To move between them — bridge.
Different DeFi. No Uniswap; STON.fi and DeDust instead. No Aave; EVAA instead. The contract curves are different, but the logic is similar.

It’s not scary, but it requires a separate orientation to the ecosystem. A user comfortable with MetaMask + Uniswap can’t do “the exact same thing” on TON one-to-one — a new toolkit is required.

What it means for the developer

For a developer used to Solidity:

Solidity does not work. Contracts are written in FunC (low-level), Tact (high-level) or Tolk (newest, recommended in 2026). Details — in the developers’ guide.
Different toolchain. Hardhat does not work. Blueprint from TON Foundation is the standard framework for development, testing and deployment.
Contract storage. In EVM you use storage slots; in TON — a special structure with explicit serialisation into Cells.
Think asynchronously. Any inter-contract call is a message. Every “call Pool.swap() and check the return” pattern has to be rewritten with different logic.

Migration time for an experienced developer is a few weeks. Not “an hour to learn Polygon”, but not “learn from scratch” either.

What TON gained and lost

Parameter	TON (TVM)	Ethereum (EVM)
Throughput	~1k–3k TPS basechain, theoretically more	~15 TPS L1, ~1k–3k via L2
Fee	~$0.005	$0.16–0.50 (mainnet, 2026)
Ecosystem (projects)	Dozens in the ecosystem	Thousands (across the EVM family)
Language standard	FunC/Tact/Tolk	Solidity (Vyper marginal)
Contract portability	Impossible from EVM	Trivial between EVM-compatible
Audit firms	A handful (Certik, Trail of Bits)	Hundreds
Telegram tie-in	Native	None

Gains: speed, cost, scalability, exclusive access to the Telegram audience. Losses: isolation from the EVM ecosystem, harder developer entry, fewer ready-made building blocks.

Bridges: how tokens move between TON and EVM

Since there’s no native compatibility, the ecosystem developed cross-chain bridges. The principle is the same: lock the token on the source network and mint a wrapped version on the destination.

The main bridges in 2026:

Symbiosis — multi-chain bridge supporting TON ↔ Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Arbitrum.
Orbit Bridge — TON ↔ Ethereum, Klaytn, Polygon.
TON Bridge (official) — for USDT and a few other key tokens, supported by TON Foundation.
LayerZero integrations — through wrapped tokens.

Crossing time is usually 5–15 minutes plus block times. Fees depend on the bridge and amount, typically 0.1–0.5%.

!
Wrapped tokens are IOUs

When you move USDT from Ethereum to TON you receive wrapped USDT on TON — a jetton issued by the bridge. If the bridge breaks or is exploited, the wrapped token can lose its peg to the original. That’s a real risk of any bridge, not just TON’s.

Could EVM compatibility happen later

Technically — yes, through EVM translators or sidechains. The idea of “EVM as an L2 on top of TON” is discussed in the community, but as of 2026 there are no real production projects.

The alternative — universal standards: tokens via the jetton standard (the ERC-20 analogue), NFTs via TON NFT (the ERC-721 analogue). Not EVM-compatible, but the ideas transfer.

What to do as a user

The practical answer:

If you’re in the EVM family and don’t want to learn anything new — use bridges, USDT transfers take 10 minutes. Inside TON you’ll still need a TON wallet.
If you’re new to crypto — TON is an excellent entry point: cheaper and faster than Ethereum, and tied to Telegram.
If you’re a developer — invest a couple of weeks learning TON. The Telegram audience is worth it, especially for consumer products.

Ecosystem context — in the TON full guide. Practical migration from Ethereum to TON — in a separate piece.

Sources

TON cold storage: strategies and tools for 2026

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:14 +0000

Cold storage is a strategy in which private keys are never connected to the internet at the moment of signing. For TON it becomes critical once the balance crosses the “I wouldn’t mind losing it” threshold. This guide is practical setups for different amounts and threat models — no theory and no marketing.

What cold storage means in TON

Basic definition: the key is generated and held on a device that is physically not connected to the internet. The transaction is signed on the device; an online wallet (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet) only receives the already-signed transaction and broadcasts it.

In TON, cold storage is implemented through:

Hardware wallets (Ledger Nano S Plus, Nano X, Stax) — the mainstream option.
Air-gapped phone — an old smartphone with no SIM and no Wi-Fi, running Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet, brought online only when needed.
Multi-sig contracts — protection through distributed authority, see Multi-sig in TON.
Paper / steel seed backups — not a wallet on its own, but a way to back up any of the three options above.

Protection levels by amount

Amount in TON-equivalent	Minimum setup	Target setup
< $500	In-Telegram Wallet	Tonkeeper with biometrics
$500–5,000	Tonkeeper / MyTonWallet	Same + paper seed backup
$5,000–50,000	Tonkeeper + Ledger	Ledger + steel seed backup
$50,000–500,000	Ledger + steel backup in two locations	Multi-sig 2-of-3 on Ledgers
> $500,000	Multi-sig 2-of-3 minimum	Multi-sig 3-of-5 distributed geographically

This is a guideline, not dogma. If you’re paranoid, tighten it at any level.

Strategy 1: Ledger + steel backup (the mainstream standard)

This is the gold standard for individual storage in the $5k–500k range. The logic:

Ledger Nano S Plus or X — generates and stores keys in a secure chip.
Tonkeeper / MyTonWallet — interface for viewing balance and initiating transactions.
Steel plate (Cryptosteel Capsule, Billfodl) — the only physical backup of the device’s seed phrase.

The procedure:

Buy the Ledger directly from ledger.com.
Unbox, inspect the packaging (in 2026 the seals are sticker-style — check the photos on the Ledger site before buying).
Power on, choose “Set up new device” (never restore from someone else’s phrase).
Stamp the 24 words onto the steel plate immediately, not paper.
Install the TON app via Ledger Live.
Connect to Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet.
Send a $10 test transfer in both directions.
Only then move the main funds.

!
Never use a Ledger seed anywhere except the Ledger

The 24-word seed of a Ledger is created inside the device’s secure chip. If you type it into Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet or any software wallet, you destroy the entire point of hardware protection. Every account derived from that seed becomes “hot”.

Strategy 2: air-gapped phone

The alternative to a Ledger is an old smartphone that is physically disconnected from the internet and only used for signing. The advantage — no extra device to buy. The downside — more failure modes and less “protection from yourself”.

Setup:

Old smartphone (Android or iOS, not used for daily life).
Do a factory reset, do not log into any accounts.
Enable airplane mode, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Install Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet via APK or App Store, on a separate Apple ID without iCloud.
Create the wallet, stamp the seed onto steel.
Turn on Wi-Fi only when you need to sign a transaction or check the balance.

Less robust than a Ledger because the phone has the OS attack surface. Cheaper, and works if you don’t trust shipping or sourcing of a Ledger.

Strategy 3: multi-sig

Distributes risk by requiring k of n signatures. In TON, multi-sig is implemented through the smart contract multisig-contract-v2 by the TON Core team, audited by Zellic and Trail of Bits in 2024.

Typical configurations for an individual user:

2-of-3 — three keys, two needed to sign. Lose one — funds stay accessible. One compromised — funds stay safe.
3-of-5 — for larger balances or teams. More fault tolerance and finer-grained access.

Each key can be a separate Ledger. Ideally — geographically distributed: one at home, one in a bank deposit box, one with a trusted lawyer.

Details — Multi-sig in TON: team security.

Tonkeeper for managing a cold account

Supports Ledger over USB and Bluetooth, simulates transactions before signing.
→

Seed phrase backup: how to do it right

What NOT to do

Don’t photograph the seed with your phone. The cloud syncs the photo within seconds.
Don’t save it to a password manager. A password manager is an online service with the same risk profile as an exchange.
Don’t send it to your Telegram Saved Messages. Worst option — Telegram is cloud-based, the account can be hijacked.
Don’t print it on a printer at the office. Networked printers cache print history.
Don’t write it in the same notebook as your card PINs. Find the notebook — find everything.

What to do

Steel plate — Cryptosteel Capsule, Billfodl, Hodlr Disk. Costs $50–150, survives fire, water, impact.
Two or three copies in different locations — home + bank deposit box + relative or lawyer.
Test recovery once a year — take one of the copies, restore on a new device, confirm it works, then wipe. Critical step — far too often people discover an error in their seed only when they actually need to recover.

Ledger Nano X and Stax support Shamir backup — the seed is split into 5 shares, recovery needs any 3. Advantages:

no single share reveals the seed on its own;
losing one or two shares is not critical;
shares can be distributed to different people without disclosure.

Downside — higher complexity, higher chance of error during recovery. Makes sense from $50k or for teams.

Operational security: what not to miss

Receiving on the public address

A cold wallet should only receive — incoming transfers don’t need a signature. The address can be shared freely; a public address is public by design.

Verification: every time you copy the address from the Ledger via Tonkeeper, compare the last 4 characters on the device itself. Clipboard substitution attacks are known.

Sending from a cold wallet

Every outgoing transfer requires physical confirmation on the device. Visually check:

recipient address (last 4 characters);
amount;
fee.

If the Ledger screen shows something different from the wallet — don’t sign.

Periodic device check

Every 3–6 months:

Power on the Ledger, unlock with the PIN (which you must not have forgotten).
Open Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet, connect the Ledger, see the current balance.
Confirm the firmware doesn’t need an urgent update.

No test transfer needed each time. Just confirm device and setup work.

Seed-based recovery

Once a year — a full restore drill. Take one copy of the seed, restore on a clean Ledger or a clean MyTonWallet (on a separate device), and verify the address matches. This is the only way to confirm the seed phrase is recorded correctly.

Details — How to recover a TON wallet from a seed phrase.

Real-world setups by tier

Tier 1: $1,000 in TON

Tonkeeper on the main phone.
Seed on paper, kept with personal effects.
Biometrics + PIN to unlock.
Enough. A Ledger is overkill.

Tier 2: $20,000 in TON

Tonkeeper for DeFi and small transfers on the main phone (hot, $500–1,000).
Ledger Nano S Plus for the main balance, connected to MyTonWallet on a laptop.
Ledger seed on a steel plate, two copies in different locations.

Tier 3: $200,000 in TON

Multi-sig 2-of-3 across Ledgers.
One Ledger at home, one in a bank deposit box, one with a trusted partner.
Each seed on a steel plate.
Balance check via any Tonkeeper watch-only mode.

Tier 4: team / DAO

Multi-sig 3-of-5.
Each team member — a Ledger.
Signing through a dedicated multi-sig interface.
All operations logged in an internal system.

Field log · 2024–2026
Our working setup has three tiers: a hot Tonkeeper account with $200–500 for daily ops; a mid-tier on a Ledger Nano X for five-figure savings; strategic balances in a 2-of-3 multi-sig across three Ledgers. Three years, zero incidents, two full recovery drills, one Ledger Nano S Plus lost — and calmly restored on a new device.

— TON Adoption

What not to do

Don’t trust “secure” services that promise Ledger-level storage without a device. Either custody in disguise or fraud.
Don’t photograph the seed “just in case”. “Temporary” doesn’t apply to crypto.
Don’t use a generated seed from a sketchy source. Only the device or an official wallet.
Don’t store the seed in the same place as the Ledger. A thief finds both at once.
Don’t run “cold storage” on a phone with a saved cloud password. That’s a hot wallet in disguise.

The bottom line

Cold storage is not about complexity — it’s about separating roles. A hot wallet for daily ops (small money, convenient), a cold wallet for savings (large money, inconvenient by design). Ledger remains the standard for individuals in 2026; multi-sig — for teams and large balances.

The main rule: test setup first, transfer second. Most losses happen exactly at the migration moment from hot to cold, when the seed hasn’t been validated yet but the amount is already large.

Sources

docs.ton.org — wallet versions and multisig spec.
ledger.com — Ledger Live and original devices.
github.com/ton-blockchain/multisig-contract-v2 — TON Core multisig with Zellic and Trail of Bits audits.

How to recover a TON wallet from a seed phrase (2026)

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:12 +0000

The seed phrase is the only way to recover access to a non-custodial TON wallet if you lose your phone, the device dies or you forget the PIN. This guide walks through the process step by step, the gotchas, and what to do in non-standard situations.

What a seed phrase is

A seed phrase (recovery phrase, mnemonic) is a sequence of words from which the wallet’s private key is deterministically generated. The BIP39 standard defines a dictionary of 2,048 English words; TON wallets use 24 words.

A single seed produces an infinite number of private keys via derivation paths. That’s why the same seed can be imported into Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet or Tonhub and they’ll all show the same balance — they work with the same underlying key, just through different UIs.

The core rule: seed → key → address. If you have the seed, you own the wallet. If somebody else has it, they own it too.

When recovery is needed

Typical scenarios:

Lost the phone. Bought a new one, need to restore the wallet.
Device broken. Ledger doesn’t power on, phone went underwater.
Forgot the PIN. Seed remembered, PIN not.
Switching wallet apps. Moving from Tonhub to Tonkeeper without an on-chain transfer.
Recovery drill. Yearly check that the seed is still readable.
Emergency migration after suspected compromise (in this case you create a new seed, not restore the old one).

Recovery in Tonkeeper

From the official mobile app (iOS / Android)

Install Tonkeeper from the App Store or Google Play.
On the start screen choose Import existing wallet.
Choose 24 words (TON standard).
Enter the 24 words in the correct order. Tonkeeper suggests BIP39 candidates as you type.
Set a new PIN to unlock the app. This is a local PIN, not part of the seed.
Enable biometrics (optional, recommended).
Done — balance shows up immediately.

If the seed belongs to an older wallet version (V3R2 / V4R2 / W5), Tonkeeper will display all non-zero versions in a unified list. You can keep them or migrate to W5 for gasless USDT transfers.

Through Tonkeeper Web

Same process at tonkeeper.com. Useful when you don’t have a smartphone right now but need to check the balance urgently.

If 1–2 words are missing

Without the words there’s no recovery, but if a single word at a known position is missing and the other 23 are intact, there’s a chance via brute force (utilities like BIP39 Recovery, btcrecover). It’s hard to do safely on your own; paid services exist, but they always carry the risk of compromise — never give the 23 known words to anyone.

Tonkeeper for recovery

Supports every standard seed format and automatically recognises the wallet version.
→

Recovery in MyTonWallet

From the mobile app

Install MyTonWallet.
On the start screen choose Import wallet → 24-word secret phrase.
Enter the words; autocomplete from BIP39 kicks in as you type.
Set a PIN, enable biometrics.
Optionally — turn on anti-scam alerts to defend against fake jettons.

Browser extension

Install the extension in Chrome / Firefox / Edge.
Open it, choose Import wallet → 24 words.
Enter the seed.
Set a master password.
Done.

Desktop

Same as the extension, on macOS / Windows / Linux. Useful if your main workflow is on a laptop.

MyTonWallet with 8+ networks

Open source, audited by CertiK. Importing a TON seed automatically opens every relevant address.
→

Recovery in Tonhub

Install Tonhub on iOS or Android.
On launch — Restore wallet from existing seed phrase.
Enter the 24 words.
Set a PIN.

Tonhub’s UI is more minimal, but the logic is identical to Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet. The same seed in all three opens the same base address.

Ledger recovery

If the Ledger is lost, broken or you need to migrate the seed to a new device:

Buy a new Ledger (Nano S Plus, Nano X or Stax) only from ledger.com or an authorised retailer.
Unbox, inspect the packaging.
Power on, choose Restore from recovery phrase.
Set a new PIN for the device.
Enter the 24 words on the device itself with the buttons. Never type the Ledger seed into a computer or phone.
After that the device runs with the same set of accounts.
Install the TON app via Ledger Live.
Connect to Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet.

All previously configured addresses appear as before. No on-chain migration needed.

!
Never type a Ledger seed into software

The 24 words from a Ledger were generated inside its secure chip. Type them into Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet or any software wallet and the entire hardware-protection model collapses. Every address derived from that seed becomes “hot”, and any compromise of the computer or phone where the seed was typed means losing funds.

Pitfalls

Older wallet version

TON has several wallet contract versions — V3R2 (2022), V4R2 (2023), W5 (2024). The same seed opens different addresses in each version. If you remember sending TON to an address starting with UQ… but after recovery you see 0 on EQ… — that’s most likely a different version. In Tonkeeper / MyTonWallet settings, enable display of all non-zero versions.

Wrong word order

The 24 words must be in the correct order. If you input it incorrectly, the BIP39 checksum fails and the wallet reports an error. Cross-check carefully against your written copy; the most common mistake is swapped neighbouring words.

Slang abbreviations

The BIP39 dictionary contains words with similar prefixes (e.g. add, addict, address). On paper you might have abbreviated, and on input you can’t tell which one it is. Use the first 4 letters — they uniquely identify the word in BIP39.

Typos

The most common cause of “I can’t recover my wallet” is a single-letter typo when writing it down. For instance winter written as wintet. The BIP39 dictionary is strict — verify every word against the official list if in doubt.

Custom derivation paths

Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, Tonhub and Ledger all use standard TON paths. In rare cases (older exotic wallets, manual generation through third-party tools) custom paths may have been used — then a standard import returns an empty address. Solution: import into the same wallet type the seed was generated in.

Wrong network

If the seed was created in a TON wallet, only import it into a TON wallet. Importing into a Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet technically works but yields an empty address — there’s nothing on it. Not a loss of funds, just the wrong network.

What to do after suspected compromise

If you entered the seed on a suspicious site or app, or you suspect the seed was seen by someone else — act immediately:

Create a new wallet with a fresh seed phrase. Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, any of them.
Stamp the new seed onto a steel plate. The old one — you don’t use it again.
Open the compromised wallet — the one you legitimately imported the seed into.
Move every asset to the new wallet. Including jettons, NFTs, stTON and other tokens.
The transfer takes minutes. The attacker also knows the seed, so timing matters.
After everything is moved — treat the old address as dead. Never send anything there again.

This is not “recovery” in the usual sense — it’s an emergency migration. For more on how to avoid this — TON cold storage.

Prevention: where to store the seed

Field log · 2024–2026
Two stories from our practice. First — a user wrote the seed in pencil on a kitchen sticky note; eighteen months later, when recovery was urgent, the sticky note had faded; partial recovery via brute-forcing the missing 3 words succeeded after a day and a half of stress. Second — a Cryptosteel plate survived a fire at a country house with no losses, while the laptop, phone and paper documents all burned. Steel works.

— TON Adoption

Basic rules:

Don’t photograph the seed. Not even “for a second — I’ll delete it later”. The cloud copies faster than you can.
Don’t save it in a password manager. A password manager is an online service.
Don’t send it to Telegram. Saved Messages is cloud-based.
Don’t print it. Especially on a network or office printer.
Hand-write it on paper — minimum acceptable.
Stamp it on steel — the recommended standard.
Keep it in two different physical places. Home + bank deposit box. A single source can burn or be stolen.

Detailed setups — TON cold storage.

Recovery drill — a non-negotiable habit

Once a year, take a backup copy of the seed and recover the wallet on a clean device (or a Ledger in restore mode). Goals:

Confirm the seed was recorded correctly.
Confirm you remember the recovery procedure (under stress, you forget).
Confirm the device works.

After the check — wipe the test recovery, reset the device. It doesn’t open the wallet “twice”, it just confirms the seed works.

Bottom line

Recovering a TON wallet from a seed phrase is a 5-minute operation if the seed is recorded correctly and at hand. In Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet and Tonhub the procedure is the same: install the app, choose Import, enter 24 words, set a new PIN. Ledger is a separate path — Restore on the device itself.

What matters: the seed must be recorded correctly, stored in a safe physical location, and pass a regular recovery drill. Without that, even the most secure wallet turns into lost funds the first time something goes wrong.

Sources

docs.ton.org — TON wallet specification and contract versions.
BIP39 — seed phrase standard.
tonkeeper.com, mytonwallet.io, tonhub.com — import procedures per wallet.

How to create a TON wallet in 5 minutes: step-by-step

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:10 +0000

Creating a TON wallet is the first practical step for anyone who wants to work with the ecosystem. It does not take long, but almost every beginner mistake happens right here — a badly recorded seed phrase, an install from a non-official source, sloppy approvals. Below are three working scenarios and how to avoid the most common pitfalls.

Which wallet to pick

For your first TON wallet it is reasonable to limit yourself to three options:

Wallet in Telegram — custodial, built into the messenger. Suitable for very small amounts and a quick “what is this even” test.
Tonkeeper — the most popular non-custodial wallet on TON. Mobile, Chrome extension, web version.
MyTonWallet — open-source alternative to Tonkeeper. Extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge plus desktop builds.

A detailed feature comparison lives in the wallet guide. Here we focus on installation.

i
Custodial or non-custodial — the difference in one line

In a custodial wallet (Wallet in Telegram) the service holds the keys: you log in like a bank account. In a non-custodial one (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet) the keys are only yours — the wallet generates a 24-word seed phrase and stores it nowhere else.

Scenario 1. Wallet in Telegram — 30 seconds

If you have Telegram, the wallet is almost ready. Open Telegram, search for @wallet, hit Start in the bot.

The bot offers to create a TON Space — that is your address inside Telegram. Confirm.
Verify your phone number.
You receive a working TON address with a 0 balance.

That is all. You can receive TON and USDT-jettons. Limitations:

No seed phrase — only Wallet knows your key. If your Telegram account is suspended, access to funds may be lost.
No TON Connect — mini-apps and DEX integrations work only partially through Wallet.
KYC kicks in past withdrawal limits (~$1000 a month without verification in most regions).

It is a fine “pocket” wallet up to a couple of hundred dollars. For everything else, move to Tonkeeper.

Scenario 2. Tonkeeper — 5 minutes

Tonkeeper exists as a mobile app (iOS, Android), a Chrome extension, and a web build. If you plan to use the wallet regularly — install it on your phone, that is the primary interface.

Step 1. Download

iOS — App Store, Tonkeeper page.
Android — Google Play.
Extension — official site tonkeeper.com then Get Tonkeeper then Chrome.

!
No search engines for downloads

The most common loss in TON is installing a phishing wallet from an ad or a “mirror” with a similar domain. Use only links from tonkeeper.com or the official store pages listed in this guide.

Step 2. Create a wallet

In the mobile app pick “Create new wallet”. Then:

The app shows 24 secret words — that is your seed phrase.
Write them on paper, in the correct order. No notes on the phone, no screenshots, no cloud notes.
Tonkeeper asks you to enter 3 random words out of 24 to confirm you wrote them down.
Set a PIN code for app access.
Done — you have a TON address.

Step 3. Verification

Right after creation, do a test transfer — ask a friend to send you 0.1 TON or buy 1–2 TON via an exchange on-ramp. When the transaction lands, you see a balance — that means the wallet works.

Install Tonkeeper

The most mature non-custodial wallet on TON. Ledger support, TON Connect, built-in fiat on-ramp. Free.
→

Scenario 3. MyTonWallet — when open source matters

MyTonWallet is great because the entire codebase is open and verifiable — a fit for users who want to check what the app actually does.

Go to mytonwallet.io (only the official site).
Pick a platform — Chrome/Firefox/Edge extension, mobile app, or desktop build for Windows/macOS/Linux.
After installation pick “Create new wallet”.
Write down 24 seed words (the same BIP-39 standard as Tonkeeper).
Confirm a few words and set a password.

The address is created instantly. Functionally it mirrors Tonkeeper, but with a fully verifiable codebase.

What to do right after install

These three actions sharply lower the chance of losing the wallet:

Backup the seed phrase. Paper, a metal plate, or two independent copies in different physical locations. Not SMS, not Telegram, not the cloud.
Test recovery. Delete the wallet, restore from seed, verify the address matches. This proves the seed was recorded correctly.
Test transaction. A small transfer (0.1 TON) to a friend, to confirm sends work too.

Field log · 2024–2026
Out of a dozen “lost wallet” cases we worked through with reader chats, eight were a wrong seed phrase (a missing word, mixed-up order, Cyrillic font instead of Latin). The other two were phishing apps. A test recovery catches both before serious money lands on the address.

— TON Adoption

TON address — what to watch for

A single TON wallet can have several address formats:

EQ... — bounceable, the standard for smart contracts.
UQ... — non-bounceable, recommended for top-ups from exchanges and P2P.

From the user side it is the same address — but if an exchange asks for “non-bounceable”, copy the UQ... version. Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet show both options in settings.

Activating the wallet

A freshly created TON address is “uninitialized” until the first incoming transaction. That means:

The address is valid, you can share it.
The wallet contract auto-deploys on the first send or receive.
Deployment costs around 0.005 to 0.01 TON in gas (deducted from the incoming transfer).

That is why the first top-up is often slightly less than the sent amount — that is normal.

What not to do

Never enter the seed on third-party sites. Any “enter your 24 words to claim airdrop” prompt is a scam.
Do not connect the wallet to an unverified mini-app. TON Connect shows what the dApp asks for — read and think.
Do not keep everything on one address. A “hot” DeFi/mini-app wallet should be separate from a “cold” savings address.

Wallet ready — time to fund it. The general rule: use a regulated exchange (OKX, Bybit, MEXC) or the wallet’s built-in on-ramp. If you want to first understand what TON is — read the TON guide.

Sources

TON Connect: what it is, why it matters and how it works

ton-adoption — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:31:09 +0000

TON Connect is the technical “handshake standard” between a wallet and an app. Without it, every TON dApp would have to either implement support for each wallet by hand or ask the user to export private keys (which is a non-starter). With it, any dApp works with any wallet through the same one-step flow.

If you have ever opened STON.fi, DeDust, getgems.io, or any mini-app with a “Connect Wallet” button — you have already used TON Connect, you just did not know.

Why a protocol like this is needed

A wallet’s private key must never leave the wallet. That is axiomatic. But a dApp needs three things from the user:

Discover the address — where to send tokens, whose NFTs to show.
Get a signature on arbitrary data — to authenticate the user without a password (signed message), for example.
Send a transaction — assembled by the dApp but signed and broadcast by the user.

TON Connect is a set of messages that the dApp and the wallet exchange to handle all three, without ever sharing the key. The analogy: the dApp and the wallet are two apps “talking” through an encrypted bridge. The user sees the request inside the wallet, taps confirm, and the signature flows back to the dApp.

What this looks like for the user

A simple scenario — swapping on STON.fi:

Open STON.fi in the browser.
Click “Connect Wallet”.
A list of wallets appears: Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, OKX Wallet, Bitget, etc.
Pick Tonkeeper.
Tonkeeper opens on your phone with the prompt “STON.fi is requesting access to the address. Allow?” — tap Confirm.
The site shows your address and balance.

When you go on to make a swap:

Click “Swap”.
Tonkeeper opens with the transaction laid out — what you send, what you receive, the expected fee.
Confirm.
The site receives a success notification and refreshes the balance.

This is the basic loop that repeats inside every TON dApp.

i
What the user sees and does not see

TON Connect surfaces all the important transaction parameters — recipient, amount, message body. But humans should not rely on the wallet UI alone. For critical operations (a large swap approval, for example) sanity-check the simple things — does the amount match expectation, is the recipient the one you meant.

Architecture: how it works under the hood

TON Connect 2.0 uses a three-tier model:

dApp — the app to be connected.
Bridge — a centralised or decentralised relay server through which the dApp and the wallet exchange encrypted messages.
Wallet — the wallet that holds the key.

The connection flow:

The dApp generates a connect request and a connect-link (ton://... or an https deep link).
That request reaches the wallet — either via a click on the link (if the wallet is on the same device) or via a QR code (if the wallet is on a phone and the dApp is in a desktop browser).
The wallet connects to the bridge, validates the request, and shows it to the user.
The user confirms — the wallet returns the public address and establishes an encrypted session.
Subsequent transactions flow through the same session — the dApp sends a “request-transaction”, the wallet shows it, the user confirms, the wallet broadcasts it and replies with the result.

All messages between the dApp and the wallet are encrypted with the public key — the bridge sees only encrypted traffic.

How it differs from WalletConnect

The Ethereum world has a similar protocol — WalletConnect. TON Connect was built separately, because TON’s architecture is fundamentally different:

Parameter	TON Connect	WalletConnect
Target network	TON only	EVM chains, multi-chain
Transaction model	Async (TON message-based)	Sync (EVM tx)
Signing methods	TonProof, sendTransaction	personal_sign, eth_sendTransaction
Bridge	Multiple public + custom	WalletConnect Cloud
2026 version	2.0	2.x

On TON only TON Connect is used. WalletConnect is not supported because architecturally it does not cover TON’s async semantics.

Which wallets support it

The main TON Connect 2.0 wallets in 2026:

Tonkeeper — full support, the flagship.
MyTonWallet — full support, open source.
Tonhub — supported but on a legacy branch.
Bitget Wallet, OKX Wallet, Binance Web3 Wallet — exchange-grade multi-chain wallets with TON support.
SafePal, Trust Wallet — partial support.
Wallet in Telegram — support via the Wallet Pay SDK, not full TON Connect.

The full registry of supporting wallets lives in the wallets-list repository under TON Foundation.

Where you will meet TON Connect

In 2026 TON Connect is used almost everywhere across the ecosystem:

DEXs — STON.fi, DeDust, Megaton.
Staking — Tonstakers, Hipo, bemo.
NFT marketplaces — getgems.io, Disintar, mrkt.app.
Games and mini-apps — all of them, except purely custodial flows through Wallet.
Lending — EVAA, DAOLama.
Cross-chain bridges — Orbit Bridge, Symbiosis.

There is no serious TON dApp without TON Connect.

Get a wallet with TON Connect

Tonkeeper is the most popular non-custodial TON wallet, supports all the major dApps via TON Connect 2.0.
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Security: what to keep in mind

TON Connect does not turn bad transactions into good ones. If a dApp asks you to sign a drain function, the wallet will show it but will not be able to know it is an attack.

What to remember:

Read the transaction body. Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet show parameters — how much TON you send, to which address, what is in the payload. An unfamiliar payload plus a large amount is a reason to refuse.
Check the dApp URL. Phishing through Telegram ads constantly pushes fake DEXs. The browser address bar is the only real defence.
Disconnect unused sessions. Tonkeeper has “Connected dApps” in settings — that is the list of active connections. After using a dApp, disconnect.
Separate wallet for DeFi. Active wallet with $100–500 USDT for swaps and mini-apps; main funds on a cold wallet without TON Connect sessions.

!
Connecting a mini-app is connecting a wallet

When a Telegram mini-app prompts “Connect Wallet”, it uses TON Connect through the bridge. There is no “magical Telegram-only connection” — it is the same standard flow. All security rules apply.

For developers — briefly

If you build a TON dApp, integration takes a day. The main SDKs:

@tonconnect/ui — drop-in vanilla JS UI kit.
@tonconnect/ui-react — React wrapper.
@tonconnect/sdk — bare SDK, no UI (for custom integrations).

Minimal React code is about a dozen lines to add a “Connect Wallet” button supporting the entire wallet registry.

If you want to install a wallet that supports TON Connect — see the comparison of major wallets. General context — the full TON guide.