NFTs on TON are one of the ecosystem’s most active categories in 2026, outpacing EVM chains on relative metrics. This is the unvarnished explainer: what TEP-62 is, how Telegram Gifts work, where to trade, who actually earns.
Unlike Ethereum’s 2021 NFT mania, TON NFTs are utility-driven: most volume comes from Telegram integration (gifts, usernames, numbers), not speculative art markets.
Architecture: how TON NFTs differ
TEP-62 (NFT Standard)
Unlike ERC-721 on Ethereum, where all NFTs in a collection live in one contract, TON NFTs use a distributed architecture:
- Collection contract — administers the collection (royalty info, mint logic)
- Item contract — a separate smart contract for each NFT
This gives three advantages:
- Parallelism — operations on different NFTs run in different shards, no congestion
- Low fees — mint gas ~$0.30 vs $20–50 on Ethereum
- Scalability — millions of NFTs can be minted within an hour
And one downside:
-
Onboarding cost — deploying a collection takes
1 Gram ($5–7)
TEP-66 (Royalty Standard)
The standard for royalties on secondary sales. A marketplace must call get_royalty_params() on the item contract and forward % to the owner on every sale.
In practice not every marketplace complies — Getgems and Fragment are near-100% compliant, mid-tier roughly 70%, P2P 0%.
Metadata (off-chain)
Most NFT metadata (image, attributes) lives off-chain — in IPFS, TON Storage, or plain Cloudflare. The item contract only stores a URL or bag-ID.
2026 production practice:
- Fragment — metadata on TON Storage (with Web2 fallback)
- Getgems — IPFS + own gateway
- Telegram Gifts — TON Storage via Fragment
NFT categories on TON
1. Telegram Gifts (dominant category)
Since 2024, Telegram lets you upgrade ordinary in-app gifts into collectible NFTs via Fragment.com. After upgrading, the gift becomes a TEP-62 NFT on the TON network and is tradable across marketplaces.
2026 volumes:
- Telegram Gifts lifetime volume: $300+ million
- Top categories: Plush Pepe ($30M), Astral Shard ($20M), Diamond Crown ($15M)
- Active holders: ~500,000
Full guide in our Telegram Gifts piece.
2. Fragment NFT numbers and usernames
+888 numbers and anonymous Telegram usernames (@name) — both are NFTs on TON, minted via Fragment. Used as identity tokens for private Telegram accounts.
Prices:
- Premium usernames: $5,000–50,000
- 4-digit
+888numbers: $2,000–10,000 - Auction premium: $50,000+ for rare combos
3. Generative art collections
Standard PFP-style NFT collections. 2026 leaders:
- TON Whales — 10,000, floor 50 Gram
- TON Punks — CryptoPunks fork, 5,000, floor 30 Gram
- Notcoin Voucher — relic of the tap-to-earn era
4. In-game items
NFT items in TON games (Catizen, Hamster Kombat legacy, Notgames):
- Skins, weapons, characters
- Most are insubstantial, low-volume
5. Domain NFTs
.ton domains via TON DNS — formally NFTs (minted as TEP-62 on purchase). Premium domains (3-4 chars) sell for $5,000–100,000.
TON-NFT marketplaces
Comparison table:
| Marketplace | Specialty | Monthly volume | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fragment | Telegram gifts + usernames | $30M+ | 5% | Native Telegram |
| Getgems | Universal | $5M | 5% (taker) | Most diverse |
| Portals | Telegram gifts | $3M | 2–3% | TWA app, low fees |
| Tonnel | Premium gifts | $2M | 4% | On-chain escrow |
| MRKT | Auctions for upgraded gifts | $1M | 0% maker / 5% taker | Auction-focus |
| xGift | Data aggregator + escrow | $0.5M | 3% | Best price across markets |
Detailed comparison in our Telegram gift marketplaces piece.
Who actually earns on TON NFTs
Top earners 2026
- Telegram-gift traders — dozens of traders netting $20–100K/month via cross-marketplace arbitrage
- Top-collection creators — TON Whales, TON Punks earn $10–50K/month in royalties
- Fragment auction sharks — those buying early mints and flipping premium usernames
-
Cross-chain bridge brokers —
.ton→ ENS conversions (for ETH portfolios)
Costs / risks
- Drainer attacks — top threat. See our drainer-sites guide.
- Volatility — NFT floors can drop 50%+ in a day under broader bear sentiment
- Liquidity — for mid-cap collections (50–500 holders), sell pressure is hard when exiting big
- Royalty disrespect — some marketplaces / P2P ignore the 5% creator royalty
How to mint an NFT on TON yourself
Easy path (via Getgems)
- Register on getgems.io
- “Create Collection” — enter metadata (name, description, royalty %)
- Upload images (via built-in IPFS pinning)
- Set mint price + supply
- Deploy via TON Connect (pay ~5 Gram for collection + 0.1 Gram per mint)
- Promote via Twitter, TG channels, partnerships
Time-to-live: 2–4 hours, no coding.
Pro path (custom contract)
- Use TON-NFT-SDK (TypeScript) or TON SDK (Python)
- Write a custom collection contract (custom mint logic, allowlist, etc.)
- Deploy via
npm run deploy:collection - Mint via your own UI (mini-app) or script
Pricier, but gives full control over user experience.
Royalty discipline
In TEP-66, royalty is set in the collection contract. Can’t be changed post-deploy. Standard values:
- 5% — art-collection standard
- 2.5% — high-volume trader coins
- 10% — premium / utility collections
Too high (>10%) kills the secondary market. Too low (below 2.5%) strips creators of long-term revenue.
TON NFT vs Ethereum NFT — what to choose
If you’re a creator/investor deciding where to mint:
| Criterion | TON | Ethereum |
|---|---|---|
| Mint gas | $0.30 | $20–50 |
| Audience size | 500K active NFT holders | 5M+ |
| Speculative ceiling | Low | High (mania possible) |
| Tooling maturity | Mid | Mature |
| Marketplace choice | 6 active | 20+ active |
| Royalty enforcement | 70% | 30% (post-OpenSea Pro) |
| Volume / liquidity | Mid | High |
| Best-fit categories | Telegram-native, utility | Art, PFP, gaming |
| Cross-chain bridges | Few (Teleport coming) | Many |
Audience recommendation:
- Telegram-creator (usernames, sticker packs, mini-app items) — clearly TON
- Generative art — Ethereum (audience and markets richer)
-
Domain names — TON (
.tonvia Fragment) - Utility NFT (game items, identity) — TON (cheaper gas)
- High-end art — Ethereum (market more mature)
Future under MTONGA
After Toncoin → Gram and Durov’s MTONGA steps, TON NFT ecosystem can be boosted by:
- Step 5 (Telegram product integration) — possible native Premium stickers/avatars as NFTs
- Step 6 (scaling) — more shards = more NFT-minting throughput
- Step 7 (Teleport BTC bridge / AgenticKit) — unlocks cross-chain NFT collateralization, AI-agent NFT collections
See full MTONGA breakdown and steps 5–7 forecast.
Bottom line
NFTs on TON in 2026 are a mature ecosystem with real economics ($30M/month on Fragment + $10M elsewhere), dominated by the Telegram-native category.
For a trader — there’s money in gift arbitrage. For a creator — low entry cost ($5–10) and large potential audience via Telegram distribution. For a PFP speculator — go to Ethereum.
For depth:
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