TON x Chainlink

The TON Core team was happy to help Chainlink integrate their product with TON.

Chainlink smart contracts are written in our new programming language, Tolk.

Meanwhile, we contributed to 3 more big upcoming releases — all starting or ending with “C.”

Node Update TON 2025.10, TON 2025.11

— Optimistic collation & validation: nodes can generate and verify block candidates before the previous block is fully finalized.

— New block compression algorithm.

— Enhanced overlays, peer discovery, and sync.

— Various improvements and fixes.

Full Changelog »

Blockchain configuration updated

The following improvements to the TON blockchain configuration were made by a network-wide vote of validators:

1. The parameter for launching BTC Teleport has been updated.

2. Updated system configuration smart contract code:

— Removed code related to an unused configuration key. Note that the configuration key itself was reset back in 2023.

— Added custom slot functionality that will be useful for stablecoins.

TVM 12

— Bounced messages can now include the full message body, error code, and additional data.

— New low-cost TVM instructions.

— Various improvements and fixes.

Full Changelog »

Tolk 1.2 Programming Language

— Rich bounced messages support (TVM 12).

— Cheaper smart-contract deployment thanks to new TVM 12 capabilities.

— Redefined address type.

— Improved compilation errors.

— Anonymous functions (lambdas).

— Borrow checker to catch undefined behavior.

Read more »

Node Update TON 2025.12

CellDB 2.0 and the Fast State Serializer are now enabled by default.

The validator engine gains parallelism, network traffic compression is improved, along with various fixes and enhancements.

Full Changelog »

The R&D phase has been completed — research and development of the task of speed up operations in the TON blockchain to less than 1 second while maintaining scalability, security, and decentralization.

During the work, three key areas were identified that, taken together, will allow the desired result to be achieved.

1. L1 and Node improvements

1.1. New Catchain 2.0 consensus

The current Catchain + BCP consensus stack has been replaced with a new protocol — Catchain 2.0, based on Simplex / Alpenglow algorithms adapted to the TON architecture.

The consensus protocol determines how validators share data, verify and accept blocks with transactions.

Simplex and Alpenglow are modern open consensus protocols that are characterized by high speed and relative simplicity.

Catchain 2.0 allows blocks to be finalized in 200–400 milliseconds while maintaining the same level of security. Previously, the block finalization time was about 2.5 seconds.

An additional advantage in terms of security is the widespread knowledge of these protocols, which greatly simplifies their audit.

1.2. New block broadcast protocol — "two-step" broadcast

Blocks are transferred between network nodes using the broadcast protocol. We have redesigned this network protocol, reducing the block delivery delay from approximately 700 ms to ~100 ms.

1.3. Additional optimizations

A number of additional optimizations have also been made to the C++ implementation of the TON node, including:

— block compression during transmission;

— parallelization of validation;

— the ability to exchange data between validators not only via the RLDP2 protocol, but also via TCP or QUIC. Based on the test results, it may be possible to switch to one of these protocols.

In addition to the main solutions, the internal statistics system was refined, as well as the internal tools for benchmarks and measurements for nodes, validators, and API.

2. API

2.1. Reduced API latency

The Toncenter API has been optimized, resulting in a latency of 30–100 milliseconds for obtaining the status of an operation via the Streaming API V2.

2.2. New functionality

Streaming API V2 in Toncenter now returns two statuses of operation instead of one:

confirmed — the block has appeared in the shardchain;

finalized — the block has been accepted into the masterchain.

Previously, only the finalized status was supported.

3. UX

A new UX approach has been proposed. Since an operation with the confirmed status has a rollback probability of less than 1%, applications can display it to the user at this stage. The user can then immediately perform the following operations without waiting for finalization.

At the finalized stage, the application can additionally mark in the UI that the operation is completely finalized.

This is similar to the confirmation model in other blockchains, where the operation is displayed after being included in the first block, and final finalization occurs after several block confirmations — at the same time, the user can immediately continue interacting with the blockchain.

This is a solid addition to last year's UX and kernel updates.

All of the above components have been completed separately. Component integration is underway, followed by testing on the TON test network.

Progress of Sub-Second update deployment on the TON mainnet

TON is gradually transitioning to an architecture where operation times are measured in milliseconds rather than seconds.

The Sub-Second update is one of the biggest technological improvements to the network in recent years.

New API and UX already on the main network

— Toncenter API has released a new accelerated Streaming API V2 for all users on the main and test networks.

— The first products — MyTonWallet and tonscan.org — have already switched to Streaming API V2 on the main and test networks.

This has already nearly halved the operation time in these products, even though the blockchain itself is still operating in the same mode.

— Other products and services in the ecosystem can already connect to the new API and implement the updated UX approaches.

Blockchain update

— On February 12, the main network validators were updated to the new accelerated network layer code and Catchain 2.0 consensus.

— The new functionality has not yet been enabled and will be activated after testing is complete.

Progress of Sub-Second update testing on the test network

The TON test network has been running stably for over a month since the January 23 update with the activation of Sub-Second mode:

— On average, 2-3 blocks are created per second.

— The network is operating under real organic load.

— Various validators are participating.

Load testing

During testing, tests were conducted under relatively high load. The results showed that with 1,000 transactions per second in a single shardchain, the operation time remains less than a second.

For comparison, even during periods of high load on the main network during the minting of Notcoin, DOGS, and Hamster Kombat projects, the average TPS did not exceed ~500.

Improvements and fixes

During testing, the TON Core team made a number of improvements. Of particular note:

— Disk performance has been optimized so that nodes with slower disks can synchronize stably at the new block rate.

— The stability and performance of the new consensus has been improved, and the handling of scenarios where some validators are temporarily out of service has been improved.

In addition to working on Sub-Second, two service updates have been released with fixes and improvements to the stability of the main network: TON 2026.02 (February 12) and TON 2026.02-1 (February 24).