In a sweeping roadmap announcement, The Open Network (TON) revealed an ambitious plan to advance its blockchain technology through 2025.
With improvements ranging from an “Accelerator” mainnet upgrade to the launch of a Layer-2 Payment Network, TON aims to streamline transactions, improve overall efficiency, and reinforce its position among leading blockchain platforms.
Accelerating the Mainnet: Key Technical Upgrades
A primary milestone is the launch of the Accelerator Mainnet Upgrade, which will overhaul TON’s existing infrastructure.
According to TON Core’s roadmap, the upgrade focuses on optimizing shardchain tracking and introducing two specialized components to validate transactions: the collator (collecting transactions and generating block candidates) and the validator (confirming new blocks).
Source: Official TON on X
This separation is designed to enhance network stability and reduce hardware resource needs—paving the way for infinite sharding, a system that ensures the blockchain can handle significantly higher loads with consistent performance.
Accompanying these technical overhauls are new tools aimed at boosting validator efficiency. Administrators will benefit from MyTonCtrl’s backup restoration feature, Telegram-based notification bots, and a centralized dashboard that helps monitor network metrics.
In tandem, the TON Core team is strengthening its penalty mechanisms for negligent validators and refining TON Proxy to guard against DDoS attacks. These efforts underscore TON’s commitment to cultivating a robust ecosystem of reliable, well-equipped node operators.
Layer-2 Payment Network and Future Innovations
While TON’s Layer-1 infrastructure is structured for massive scalability—up to 500 million active users—its new Layer-2 Payment Network will target high-frequency use cases like instant on-chain trading and rapid-response gaming.
Leveraging payment channels reminiscent of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, the Payment Network promises micro-commissions, near-instant transfers, and seamless asset swaps. Though this Layer-2 solution is still in beta, the roadmap highlights ongoing testing, with future iterations adding support for jettons, multiple currencies, and advanced swap capabilities.
Beyond transaction speed, TON is also delving into sidechain research and building on its programming capabilities through TOLK 1.0, which will introduce a refined type system, pattern matching, and standardized smart contract interfaces. Meanwhile, the forthcoming TON BTC Teleport—developed by a third-party team with TON Core support—will bridge Bitcoin and the TON network in a trustless fashion, expanding TON’s interoperability in the broader crypto landscape.
