TON glossary
From Jetton to Masterchain — short definitions with cross-links.
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115-FZ
Russia's anti-money-laundering federal law "On countering the legalisation of criminal proceeds and the financing of terrorism", adopted 7 August 2001. The primary AML statute in Russia; banks freeze suspicious transactions under its authority.
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152-FZ
Russia's federal law "On Personal Data" of 27 July 2006. Governs collection, storage, processing, and cross-border transfer of personal data of Russian citizens. Conceptually similar to the EU's GDPR, with its own regime.
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ABI
Machine-readable interface description of a smart contract — its accepted messages and get-methods. Unlike EVM, TON has no single ABI standard; the exact format depends on the contract language.
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Action Phase
Phase of a TON transaction that applies outgoing messages and storage updates. Runs immediately after the compute phase.
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Acton
Smart-contract framework for TON from TON Core team. Successor to Blueprint with native Tolk and FunC support, built-in 29-rule linter, and tooling for tests, mutation testing, and fuzzing.
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Address Format
Ways of writing a TON contract address: raw (0:hash), friendly base64 (EQ.../UQ...), or a ton:// URI. Each form serves a different purpose.
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Address poisoning
Attack where an adversary generates an address that looks similar to one the victim regularly uses and sends them a micro-transaction, hoping the victim will later copy the lookalike from history and send funds to the wrong place.
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ADNL
Abstract Datagram Network Layer — TON's peer-to-peer protocol. Uses 256-bit public-key-based addresses instead of IPs; the foundation for TON Sites, TON Proxy, and node-to-node messaging.
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Airdrop
Free distribution of tokens to wallet holders, product users or mini-app players. In the TON ecosystem airdrops were the main onboarding channel of 2024 — Notcoin, Hamster Kombat, DOGS.
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AML
Anti-Money Laundering — the set of rules, procedures and tools that oblige regulated financial intermediaries to detect, document and report suspicious activity related to illicit funds.
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AMM
Automated market maker: a smart contract that prices tokens via a mathematical formula over pool reserves instead of matching limit orders on an order book.
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Antarctic Wallet
Non-custodial TON wallet packaged as a Telegram mini-app. Keys are generated and stored locally in the mini-app's browser context, with no server-side seed-phrase storage.
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APR
Annual Percentage Rate — simple annual rate without compounding. The base rate that APY calculations are derived from and the most honest number for comparing offers.
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APY
Annual Percentage Yield — yearly return that includes the effect of compounding. With the same nominal rate, APY is meaningfully higher than APR over time.
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APY vs APR
The practical difference between simple annual rate (APR) and compound annual rate (APY). Over long horizons a small gap in the headline becomes a large gap in the wallet balance.
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ART (Asset-Referenced Token)
MiCA category for tokens pegged to a basket of currencies, assets or rights — anything other than a single fiat currency. Subject to strict reserve and issuer requirements.
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Basechain
Workchain with ID 0 — TON's primary working blockchain. Hosts user wallets, jettons, NFTs, and essentially all traffic an ordinary user touches.
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bemo
Liquid staking protocol on TON that issues stTON and wstTON tokens. One of the older pools in the ecosystem and a meaningful part of TON DeFi infrastructure alongside Tonstakers and Hipo.
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BFT
A class of consensus algorithms that keep working correctly even when some participants fail or act maliciously. In TON, the BFT family is realised through Catchain, a pBFT-derived protocol run by validators.
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Bidask
A niche DEX in the TON ecosystem focused on concentrated liquidity and advanced LP workflows. Aimed at experienced liquidity providers rather than casual swappers.
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BIP-39
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 39 — the standard describing how random entropy becomes a 12, 18, or 24-word mnemonic. Used by virtually every modern wallet, including all major TON wallets.
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Blueprint
Development framework from ton-org for writing, testing and deploying TON smart contracts. Supports FunC and Tact, in-memory sandbox testing, and Hardhat-style deploy scripts.
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BoC (bag of cells)
Serialisation format for a tree of TON cells. Used to ship contract code, message bodies, and proofs over the wire — both binary and base64-encoded forms exist.
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Bounce / non-bounce message
TON message flag that controls what happens on receiver failure. Bounceable — funds return to sender; non-bounceable — funds stay at the destination even if no contract is there yet.
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Bounce Message
Automatic refund of a message and its attached TON to the sender when the receiver fails to process it. Triggered by the bounce flag.
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Bounceable Address
TON address with the bounce flag set (EQ...). If the contract at that address fails to handle the message, the network automatically refunds the sender.
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Bug bounty
Reward programme for private vulnerability disclosure. TON ecosystem programmes exist at TON Foundation, STON.fi, DeDust, Tonkeeper, EVAA, and others, with payouts up to $500K for critical findings.
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Builder
TVM type for constructing a cell step by step. Bits and references are appended to a builder, then sealed into an immutable cell.
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Canonical bridge
The official bridge endorsed by a project or its DAO as the primary path for moving an asset across chains. The wrapped issuance of the canonical bridge is the one the market treats as 'real'.
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CASP
Crypto-Asset Service Provider — the supervised-entity category under the EU MiCA regulation (Reg. 2023/1114). Covers exchanges, custodial wallets, OTC desks, brokers and other professional crypto-asset operators.
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Catchain
TON's internal BFT consensus protocol. Validators inside a shard group exchange votes through Catchain to agree on the next block.
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Catizen
Play-to-earn Telegram mini-app built around merge-cats mechanics, with the CATI jetton. One of the first TON projects to combine real gameplay with in-app purchases.
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Cell (TVM data structure)
Atomic data unit in TON. Holds up to 1023 bits of data and up to 4 references to other cells. Every contract storage and message body is a tree of cells.
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Cell Hash
256-bit SHA-256-derived identifier of a TON cell. The cell hash backs contract addresses and data integrity checks.
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Collateral
An asset a borrower locks in a smart contract to back a loan. If the loan is not repaid the contract sells the collateral through liquidation.
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Collateral ratio
The ratio of collateral value to debt size. The headline health metric for a lending position — the lower it goes, the closer to liquidation.
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Compute Fee
TON fee component covering TVM execution: gas price multiplied by gas used during the compute phase. Two to three orders of magnitude cheaper than Ethereum gas.
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Concentrated liquidity
AMM DEX model in which an LP deploys capital into a narrow price range instead of `0 → ∞`. Boosts capital efficiency by 5-50x but requires active management and amplifies impermanent loss.
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Continuation
The primary computational primitive of TVM: a 'continuation' — pointer to a code segment plus execution context. Replaces conventional procedures and functions — every TVM control-flow primitive is built on continuations.
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Cross-chain bridge
A protocol that moves value or messages between two blockchains. TON has active bridges for USDT, ETH, BTC, jetton wrappers, and mini-app messaging.
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Crypto Bot
Telegram bot @CryptoBot for payments and custodial crypto storage. One of the earliest and largest payment bots in Telegram (TON, BTC, USDT, ETH), the de-facto standard for accepting crypto payments inside Telegram bots.
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Custodial wallet
Wallet in which the provider, not the user, holds the private keys. Access is through a login or a Telegram account, support can restore lost credentials, but funds effectively belong to the service rather than the user on-chain.
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DAOlama
An NFT-collateralized lending protocol on TON: users deposit NFTs and borrow TON against them. One of the largest NFTfi services in the TON ecosystem.
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DeDust
A leading decentralized exchange on TON. An AMM with a factory pattern for pools and native jetton support, deeply integrated into Tonkeeper and other wallets.
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Derivation path
The path through an HD wallet hierarchy that produces a specific private key from a master seed. The TON standard path is m/44'/607'/0', where 607 is TON's coin type in the SLIP-0044 registry.
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DEX aggregator
A service that pools liquidity from multiple DEXs and routes a user's swap across the best combination of venues to minimise slippage and maximise output.
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DEX on TON
Decentralised exchange running as smart contracts on TON. Lets users swap TON, jettons (USDT, NOT, ...) and LST tokens without intermediaries. Largest venues in 2026 — STON.fi and DeDust.
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Dictionary
TON-specific hash-map data structure built on a tree of cells. The standard way to store associative maps inside a TON contract.
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DOGS
Meme jetton on TON distributed via airdrop to Telegram account holders, with eligibility based on account age and activity rather than in-game farming.
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Drainer
A pre-built kit of scripts and contracts that scammers deploy on a phishing site to siphon as many assets as possible from a wallet through a single user signature. Sold as a service: the kit author keeps a cut of the stolen funds.
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Dusting attack
Sending tiny amounts ("dust") to many addresses to deanonymise their owners. By tracing how the dust later moves, the attacker links separate addresses into a single cluster and infers who controls them.
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Election Cycle
Lifetime of a single TON validator set, about 18 hours. At the end, the next round of elections runs and a new set is selected.
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Elections
TON's validator selection process for the next cycle: the elector smart contract collects stake bids and compiles a new validator set.
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EMT (E-Money Token)
MiCA category for tokens pegged 1:1 to a single fiat currency. Covers USDC, EURC, and USDT — including USDT-jetton on TON. Regulated as e-money.
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EVAA
An Aave-style lending protocol on TON. Supports deposits and borrows in TON, USDT, and LSTs with variable interest rates and a standard overcollateralized credit model.
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Exit Code
Numeric code returned by TVM after the compute phase of a transaction. 0 means success; any other value indicates a specific error class.
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External Message
A message that enters TON from outside the network — typically a transaction a wallet sends to its own wallet contract to kick off a chain of actions.
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FATF
International intergovernmental body that develops global standards against money laundering and terrorism financing. Its recommendations are implemented by member jurisdictions and any country wishing to remain in the international financial system.
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Finality
The property of a blockchain that a confirmed transaction can no longer be reversed without a public protocol violation. TON achieves finality in a single block, typically within a few seconds.
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Flashloan
Uncollateralised DeFi loan that must be taken and repaid within one atomic transaction. On TON it's implemented through sync-execution mode and is used in arbitrage and liquidations.
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Forward Fee
Fee paid for routing a message between shards on TON. Depends on the message's size and the number of shard hops, not on the receiver's logic.
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Friendly Address
Human-readable TON address in base64 (EQ.../UQ...) with CRC and flags. The form users see in wallets and on websites.
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Front-running
Attack where a bot spots a pending transaction in the mempool and pushes its own ahead with higher priority, profiting from the move the victim will cause.
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Full Node
A TON node that syncs full network state but does not validate. Used by indexers, exchanges, and services that need independent access to block data.
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FunC
C-like domain-specific language for writing TON smart contracts. The original mainstream language for TVM; now legacy — the official compiler stopped updating after v2025.07 in favour of Tolk.
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Funding rate
Payment between longs and shorts in a perpetual contract that pulls the perp price toward the spot index. Sign flips with the direction of position skew.
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Gas (transaction fee on TON)
Unit of TVM execution work used to price transactions on TON. Combined with forward and storage fees, a typical user transfer costs around 0.005 TON in 2026.
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Gasless transfer
Transferring a TON asset without holding TON to pay gas. The gas is paid by a relayer (taking a fee in the transferred jetton); the user just signs the message.
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Get-method
Read-only function on a TON smart contract. Runs locally on a node, costs no gas, does not produce a transaction. The basis for almost every wallet UI and explorer query.
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Getgems
The largest NFT marketplace on TON. Supports standard NFT collections, .ton domains and withdrawn upgraded Telegram Gifts.
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Hamster Kombat
Tap-to-earn Telegram mini-app framed as a crypto-exchange CEO simulator, paired with the HMSTR jetton — one of the most popular TON ecosystem projects of 2024.
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Hardware wallet
Physical device that stores private keys in an isolated chip and signs transactions offline. Protects funds from malware on the host computer and is considered the standard for cold storage of crypto assets.
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Hash
Output of a one-way function that maps arbitrary input data to a fixed-length string. TON uses SHA-256 throughout: hashes identify cells, blocks, transactions, and feed signatures.
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Highload Wallet
Special TON wallet contract for high-throughput operators (exchanges, payment processors). Replaces seqno with a query-id and timeout model — handles billions of messages per period.
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ICO
Initial Coin Offering — public token sale by a project before or right after launch. The dominant fundraising model in crypto during 2017.
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IDO
Initial DEX Offering — primary token sale via a decentralised launchpad. Largely replaced classic ICOs after 2020 across most crypto ecosystems.
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Impermanent loss
Conditional loss suffered by a liquidity provider when the prices of paired pool assets diverge. It is measured against the strategy of simply holding both tokens separately in a wallet.
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Inline mode
Telegram bot mode that lets users invoke the bot in any chat through an @username query. The bot returns results — articles, images, GIFs — and the user inserts the chosen answer into the conversation.
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Insider rug
A rug-pull scenario in which the attacker is the protocol's own author/team rather than an external hacker. Usually manifests through timelock-free admin functions: WIPE_VALIDATORS, UPGRADE_CODE, MIGRATE_FUNDS.
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Internal Message
A message sent between two smart contracts inside TON. The primary way contracts interact in the network's actor model.
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IVMS-101
Open inter-industry data standard for exchanging Travel Rule information between VASPs. Specifies the structure of messages carrying originator and beneficiary data for a crypto transfer.
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Jetton
Token standard on the TON network — TON's analogue of Ethereum's ERC-20. Used for USDT, NOT, and thousands of other fungible tokens.
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Jetton Master
Master contract of a jetton token on TON. Describes the token (name, symbol, supply), deploys per-holder jetton wallets, and serves discovery requests.
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Jetton Wallet
Per-holder jetton wallet contract that holds one user's balance of one token. Each user gets a separate jetton wallet per token — the cornerstone of jetton architecture.
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Ledger Nano
Hardware wallet line from French company Ledger (Nano S Plus, Nano X, Stax). Supports TON via the TON app in Ledger Live and via the Tonkeeper bridge. A CC EAL5+ secure element stores private keys offline.
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Lending on TON
On-chain credit markets on the TON network. Users deposit assets as collateral and borrow TON, USDT, or LSTs against them. The leading protocols are EVAA and Storm Trade.
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Leverage
Ratio of position size to posted margin. Amplifies P&L symmetrically; the main reason retail traders get liquidated in crypto.
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Limit order
An order to buy or sell at a chosen price or better. Doesn't guarantee fill but protects price; on DEXs it is usually executed by keeper bots.
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Liquid staking
Staking TON via a protocol that issues a transferable token representing the stake plus accrued rewards. Lets users earn validator yield while keeping liquidity.
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Liquidation
Forced unwinding of an undercollateralised position in a lending or perpetuals protocol. The contract sells collateral at a discount to repay the debt and avoid a bad-debt event.
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Liquidity mining
A protocol distributes its native token to liquidity providers as an incentive to grow TVL. The close cousin of yield farming, focused specifically on the emission boost.
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Liquidity pool
A smart contract holding two or more tokens in reserve. Traders swap against it at an algorithmic price while liquidity providers earn a share of the swap fees.
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Lite client
A TON client that does not synchronise the full blockchain but reads selective data from a lite server over ADNL. The lite-client model underpins most TON SDKs and wallets.
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Lite server
A public endpoint exposed by a TON validator or archive node that serves read-only blockchain state over ADNL. Wallets, explorers and SDKs use it as their entry point into the network.
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Lock-and-mint
Architectural pattern for a cross-chain bridge: an asset is locked on the source chain and a wrapped equivalent is minted on the destination. Reverse path is burn-and-release. The most common bridge architecture.
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LP token
A receipt token representing a provider's share of a liquidity pool. On TON it is implemented as a jetton — transferable, holdable, usable in farming or as collateral.
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lt (logical time)
Logical time on TON: a monotonic uint64 counter replacing physical timestamps in internal message semantics. The TON equivalent of a Lamport timestamp.
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Maker fee
Fee for a limit order that adds liquidity to the book. Usually lower than the taker fee — sometimes negative (rebate), so the exchange pays the maker for depth.
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Margin
Collateral a trader posts to open and maintain a leveraged position. The headline risk metric: small margin = quick liquidation.
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Market maker
Participant who quotes both bid and ask continuously and earns the spread. On AMM DEXs the role is played by passive liquidity providers.
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Market order
An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available price. Guarantees execution but not price — especially risky on a thin market.
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Masterchain
The head blockchain in the TON network. Stores network state — validator set, active shards, configuration. One masterchain per network.
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Merkle proof
Cryptographic proof that a given element belongs to a Merkle tree with a known root. On TON it's used in cell Merkle updates, lite-clients, and cross-chain bridges.
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Merkle tree
Binary tree in which leaves are hashes of data and each internal node is the hash of its two children. TON uses Merkle proofs so that a lite client can verify a fact without downloading full state.
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MEV
Maximal Extractable Value — the profit captured by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions in a block. The invisible tax on DeFi users.
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MiCA
European Union regulation governing crypto-asset markets, phased in during 2024-2025. Sets harmonised rules for token issuers and Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASPs) across all EU member states.
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Mini-app
Web app that runs inside Telegram and integrates with TON for payments, identity, and on-chain assets. Hosted at an HTTPS URL, opened from a bot or a button in chat.
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Mnemonic
Technical term for the word sequence that encodes a wallet's private key. Synonym for seed phrase, more common in documentation and wallet codebases and in the BIP-39 and SLIP-0039 standards.
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MRKT
Marketplace for upgraded Telegram Gifts with a focus on modern UX and granular attribute filters. One of the fastest-growing challengers to Portals and Tonnel.
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Multisig
Smart-contract wallet that requires several keys to sign a transaction under an M-of-N scheme. Common for DAOs, corporate treasuries, and hardened personal asset storage on TON.
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MyTonWallet
Non-custodial multi-form-factor TON wallet: browser extension, mobile apps, and desktop client. Open-source, with built-in staking, swap, jetton/NFT support, and Ledger integration.
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NFT Collection
Contract describing an NFT collection on TON and deploying individual NFT Item contracts per token. The NFT counterpart of a jetton master.
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NFT floor price
Price of the cheapest active listing in an NFT collection. The baseline metric for valuing collections on Getgems, Portals, and other TON marketplaces.
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NFT Gifts
Digital gifts in Telegram that exist as NFTs on TON. Launched in 2024: users gift them to each other, sell them on the Fragment marketplace, or keep them in a wallet like any other TON NFT.
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NFT Item
Single-NFT contract on TON. Deployed by the collection on mint, stores the owner, the index, and a pointer to per-item metadata.
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NFT on TON
Non-fungible tokens following the TEP-62 standard. Each NFT is its own smart contract, sitting under a collection contract — the architectural mirror of the jetton model.
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NFT royalty
A percentage of every secondary NFT sale that automatically flows to the creator or collection owner. On TON it is defined by TEP-66 and supported by the main marketplaces.
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Node
TON network participant: a process that connects to peers and processes blocks. Comes in validator, full-node, and lite-server flavours.
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Nominator
A TON holder who delegates Toncoin to a pool that runs validator nodes. Lets retail users earn staking rewards without the 300,000 TON validator threshold.
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Non-custodial wallet
Wallet where the private key and seed phrase are stored only by the user, never by the service provider. Transactions are signed locally on the device, and the app developer has no ability to access funds.
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Nonce
A number used once to prevent replays and order operations. In TON wallets the role of the nonce is played by seqno, a counter that increments with every outbound transaction.
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Notcoin
Tap-to-earn Telegram mini-app launched in 2024 and the associated NOT jetton, distributed to players in one of the largest airdrops in the TON ecosystem.
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OFAC sanctions
Financial restrictions imposed by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. They cover persons, entities, and addresses on official lists and effectively reach any transaction touching U.S. dollar infrastructure.
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OFAC SDN list
List of persons, entities and addresses blocked by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Transactions with anyone on the list are prohibited for US persons.
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Opcode
A 32-bit prefix at the start of a smart contract message body. The contract uses it to identify the request — jetton transfer, mint, burn, or a custom action — and dispatch to the matching handler.
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Oracle
A service or contract that brings external data on-chain. Without oracles, smart contracts cannot know prices, event outcomes, or fiat-payment statuses.
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Paper wallet
A seed phrase or private key written on a physical medium (paper, metal plate) with no electronic storage at all. One of the safest cold-storage methods if its physical security is sound.
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Pavel Durov
Russian-born entrepreneur, founder of Telegram and VKontakte, and initiator of the Telegram Open Network project in 2018. After Telegram exited the TON project he remains a major influence on the ecosystem through messenger-side product integrations.
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Perpetuals
Derivatives without an expiration date that track the underlying spot price via a funding rate. Let traders hold leveraged long or short positions indefinitely.
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Phishing
A class of attacks where a malicious site, bot, or message impersonates a legitimate service and tricks the user into surrendering keys, a seed phrase, or signing a malicious transaction. In TON it most often arrives as fake airdrop pages and Telegram impostor bots.
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Play-to-earn
A game model where players earn on-chain assets — tokens or NFTs — through gameplay. On TON it evolved from simple tap-to-earn clickers to richer mini-app games with NFT mechanics.
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Portals
Telegram-native marketplace for upgraded Telegram Gifts. As of early 2026, the venue with the deepest liquidity and tightest spreads among gift marketplaces.
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Price oracle
A specialised oracle that publishes asset prices on-chain. Foundational component for any lending protocol, perpetual, or delta-neutral strategy.
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Private key
Secret half of a key pair, giving full control over a wallet. On TON it is a 32-byte Ed25519 value derived deterministically from the seed phrase. Leaking the private key is equivalent to losing every asset at that address.
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Proof-of-Stake on TON
TON's consensus model. Validators lock around 300,000 TON, are elected per cycle (~18 hours), and earn rewards for signing blocks. Slashing punishes double-signing.
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Pruned Cell
TON cell whose children are replaced by their hashes only. Used in Merkle proofs and lite-server responses to keep payloads small.
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pTON
Jetton wrapper for native Toncoin. Lets AMMs and routers treat TON like any other jetton, removing the special case for the native asset and simplifying contract logic.
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Public key
The open half of an asymmetric key pair. TON uses Ed25519, with 32-byte public keys; the wallet address is derived deterministically from this key. Can be published safely without risking the private key.
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Raw Address
Full TON contract address in the form workchain:hash (e.g. 0:abc...) — the machine representation, without human-readable safeguards.
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Reentrancy
A class of smart-contract vulnerability where an external call re-enters the original contract before its current execution completes, letting the attacker repeat a sensitive action. TON's architecture makes classic reentrancy impossible.
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Replay attack
Attack where the adversary re-broadcasts a previously signed transaction in the hope it will execute again. On TON it is prevented by the seqno counter in the wallet contract — each signature is valid only at one specific value.
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Rug pull
A scam where a project team intentionally destroys token value by draining liquidity, dumping a reserved allocation, or quietly walking away. On TON it most often hits holders of low-quality jettons launched by anonymous teams.
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Sandwich attack
MEV attack where a bot buys an asset just before a victim's swap and sells right after, pocketing the price difference as profit.
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Season pass
A gaming model from major free-to-play titles ported into Telegram mini-apps: time-limited seasons with quests, rewards and often a paid premium track sold for Stars or TON.
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Seed phrase
Recovery sequence of 24 English words defined by the BIP-39 standard, from which a TON wallet's private keys are deterministically derived. The single source of truth for accessing a non-custodial wallet.
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Seed phrase leak
A situation in which a wallet's seed phrase becomes known to a third party — voluntarily (fake site, social engineering) or via malware / cloud sync. Compromises every address derived from that phrase.
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Send Mode
Bit-flag attached to an outgoing TON message that controls how it is sent: who pays the fee, whether to bounce on failure, whether to destroy the contract afterwards.
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seqno
Sequence number on a TON wallet: 32-bit counter / nonce the contract increments on every outgoing transaction to defend against replay attacks.
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Shardchain
A dynamic subdivision of a workchain in TON. The network splits and merges shardchains on the fly to absorb load — the foundation of TON's claimed throughput.
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Signature
Cryptographic proof that a message or transaction was authored by the holder of a private key. TON uses Ed25519 with 64-byte signatures, verifiable by any network node using only the public key.
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SIM-swap
Attack in which the adversary convinces a mobile carrier to port the victim's phone number onto their own SIM. Once in control of the number, the attacker intercepts SMS codes and resets passwords on exchanges, email, and Telegram.
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Slice
TVM type representing a read-only cursor over a cell, used for parsing. To read a cell's contents you turn it into a slice.
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Slippage
The gap between the expected swap price and the price actually executed. It comes from the pool price moving during the trade and depends on liquidity depth and order size.
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Smart contract audit
Independent review of smart contract code for vulnerabilities, economic flaws, and edge cases. The final report lists every issue found and confirms whether developers fixed it or accepted the risk consciously.
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Smart contract on TON
An on-chain account on TON with code, persistent storage and a TON balance. Communicates via asynchronous messages; gas costs a fraction of a cent per call.
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Social engineering
A class of attacks that manipulates the human, not the code. The attacker convinces the victim to surrender data, transfer funds, or sign a malicious transaction through deception, pressure, and emotional triggers.
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Sponsor relayer
Third party that pays the TON gas for a user in gasless scenarios. Technically — the on-chain sender of the internal message that the user authorises via a Wallet V5 extension.
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Stablecoin
Cryptocurrency designed to track the price of an external asset, usually the US dollar. On TON the dominant stablecoin is USDT issued natively as a jetton.
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StateInit
Serialised initial state of a TON smart contract: code (cell) + data (cell) + optional fields. The hash of StateInit becomes the contract's TON address inside its workchain.
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STON token
The governance token of the STON.fi platform. Used for protocol voting, staking inside incentive programs, and routing a share of exchange fees to holders.
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STON.fi
One of the largest decentralized exchanges on TON. An open-source AMM protocol supporting jetton swaps, LP pools, and its own governance token STON.
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Stop-loss
Conditional order that automatically closes a position when price drops to a trigger. Foundational risk-management tool in trading and DeFi.
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Storage Fee
TON's recurring fee for storing contract state on chain. Charged proportionally to data size and elapsed time, deducted from the contract's balance.
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Storm Trade
A perpetuals DEX on TON with leverage trading. Lets users trade TON, BTC, ETH, and other majors via oracle pricing without leaving the TON ecosystem.
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stTON / wstTON
Liquid staking tokens issued by the bemo pool. stTON reflects yield through a rebasing balance, while wstTON holds yield in the exchange rate and is easier to use across TON DeFi.
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Swap.coffee
DEX aggregator on TON: routes swaps through every liquid pool (STON.fi, DeDust, TONCO) and split-routes, returning the best price after gas and slippage.
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TAC
EVM-compatible L2 associated with TON. The TON↔TAC bridge runs a lock-and-mint architecture and in May 2026 became the source of a $2.5M+ drain attack due to missing on-chain validator signature verification.
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Tact
High-level statically typed programming language for TON smart contracts. Designed for readability and safety; compiles to TVM bytecode through FunC and Fift.
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Take-profit
Conditional order that automatically closes a position once a profit target is hit. Removes the 'sell now or hold longer' decision from the trader.
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Taker fee
Fee paid for executing a market order that 'takes' liquidity from the book. Typically higher than the maker fee — the venue subsidises whoever stands in the book.
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Tap-to-earn
Genre of Telegram mini-apps with primitive gameplay (tapping the screen, farming points), where the main motivation is qualifying for a future token airdrop. A viral phenomenon of 2024.
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TASM
TVM bytecode disassembler: converts a cell of compiled TVM code into human-readable mnemonics (PUSHINT, IFJMP, CHKSIGN, HASHCU, etc.). Standard tool for TON smart-contract audit and forensics.
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Telegram Ads
Telegram's official ad platform inside public channels, launched in 2021. Since 2024 fully priced in TON: the advertiser tops up a TON balance and pays per impression on a CPM model.
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Telegram Bot API
Telegram's HTTP API for bot and mini-app developers. Lets bots receive messages, send replies, manage buttons, launch web apps, and integrate TON payments via TON Connect or Telegram Stars.
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Telegram Gifts
In-chat digital gifts in Telegram bought with Stars; can be upgraded into NFTs on the TON blockchain. Once upgraded, they become tradable collectibles on the secondary market.
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Telegram Open Network
Historical blockchain project from the Telegram team (2018-2020). Halted after an SEC lawsuit froze the Gram token. Today's TON inherits the codebase but is legally independent of Telegram.
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Telegram Premium
Paid Telegram subscription that unlocks higher limits, exclusive stickers, advanced reactions, and priority on uploads. Paid with card, Stars, or TON via Fragment, priced around 5 USD per month in 2026.
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Telegram Stars
Telegram's in-app currency for digital goods and Mini App payments. Bought with cards or in-app billing; creators and developers can convert earned Stars to TON via Fragment.
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Telegram Username
Unique handle for a Telegram user or channel (@example). Since 2022 names can be auctioned on Fragment for TON; rare ones sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of TON.
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TEP (TON Enhancement Proposal)
Formal process for proposing changes to the TON protocol or interface standards. The equivalent of Ethereum's EIP. Major TEPs include TEP-62 (NFT), TEP-74 (jetton), TEP-89 (jetton wallets).
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TEP-62
TON's NFT standard. Defines the structure and behaviour of NFT Collection and NFT Item contracts — the basis of every NFT in the ecosystem.
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TEP-64
TON's token metadata standard: JSON layout with name, description, image, and attributes for NFTs and jettons.
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TEP-66
Royalty standard for NFTs on TON: the percentage of secondary sales marketplaces pay to the collection creator. Formalised through the royalty_params get-method.
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TEP-74
TON's jetton standard. Defines the master + per-holder wallet architecture, the transfer/mint/burn message layouts, and all required get-methods.
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TL-B
Type Language - Binary, TON's formal language for describing on-chain data structures. Used to define message schemas, contract storage, and all cell layouts.
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Tolk
New high-level TON smart contract language from TON Studio. Designed as the technical successor to FunC — typed, ergonomic, and ABI-compatible.
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TON Connect
Standard wallet-connection protocol for TON. Lets dApps and Telegram Mini Apps authenticate users and request signatures from any compatible wallet — analogous to WalletConnect on Ethereum.
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TON deep-link
URL scheme `ton://...` for passing operation parameters directly to a TON wallet: recipient address, amount, comment, optionally a payload. The base UX abstraction that unites different wallets.
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TON DNS / .ton domain
Decentralised naming on TON: human-readable .ton domains that resolve to wallet addresses, ADNL endpoints, TON Sites, or storage bags. Each domain is an NFT.
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TON domain
A name in the .ton zone bound to a TON wallet address or site. Registered through TON DNS as an NFT, traded on marketplaces. Used as a human-readable alternative to long EQ addresses and to address TON Sites.
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TON Foundation
Non-profit organization based in Switzerland that coordinates development of The Open Network after Telegram exited the project. Runs grants, ecosystem fund and developer programs.
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TON Payments
Built-in payment-channel system on TON. Lets two parties exchange any number of off-chain micropayments and settle the net result on-chain. Designed for streaming, gaming, and bot economies.
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TON Proxy
Networking layer of TON that routes traffic to ton-sites and the regular web through ADNL-based relays. Designed as a censorship-resistant, Tor-like overlay built into the ecosystem.
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TON Sites
Decentralised websites hosted on the TON network. Resolved via .ton domains and ADNL endpoints; accessed through TON Proxy or browsers with native TON support.
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TON Society
Community arm of the TON ecosystem: offline events, regional chapters, educational programs and DAO-style initiatives. Complements TON Foundation from the community side.
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TON Storage
Decentralised file storage layer of the TON ecosystem. Nodes hold and serve content over an ADNL-based, BitTorrent-like protocol, with optional on-chain payments for long-term hosting.
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ton.app
Official catalogue of apps, wallets, bots and channels in the TON ecosystem. Helps users find legitimate dApps and filter out phishing copycats.
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TONAPI
Public indexed API for TON from tonapi.io. Unlike raw Toncenter, it returns jetton operations, NFT history, and events in human-readable form — the go-to choice for DApp frontends and analytics.
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Toncenter
Public TON API gateway. JSON-RPC over a liteserver pool: getTransactions, runGetMethod, sendBoc, getAccount. Free tier with 1 RPS, paid tiers for production load.
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TONCO
TON DEX with concentrated liquidity (CL): LPs deploy capital into narrow price ranges, boosting capital efficiency by 5-50x versus a classic AMM.
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Toncoin (TON)
Native token of the TON blockchain. Used to pay gas, stake validators, and govern protocol parameters. Symbol: TON. 9 decimals (1 TON = 10^9 nano).
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Tonhub
Non-custodial mobile TON wallet built by the Whales Corp team. Best known for its tight integration with the Whales staking pool and standard TON Connect support.
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Tonkeeper
Non-custodial wallet for the TON network: mobile apps, a browser extension, Ledger support, TON Connect, jettons and NFTs. One of the most widely used wallets in the ecosystem.
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Tonkeeper Battery
Subscription feature in the Tonkeeper wallet where gas fees for transfers and dApp interactions are paid by a sponsor relayer instead of the user.
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Tonnel
One of the oldest upgraded Telegram Gifts marketplaces. Known for low fees and well-developed floor-price analytics across collections.
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TonScan
Long-running TON blockchain explorer at tonscan.org. Developer-leaning interface — contract verification, raw cell viewer, source-code uploads. The Etherscan equivalent for TON.
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Tonstakers
One of the largest liquid staking pools on TON. Accepts Toncoin deposits, stakes them through validator infrastructure, and issues the tradeable receipt token tsTON.
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TonViewer
End-user-friendly TON blockchain explorer at tonviewer.com. Operated by the TON API team. Optimised for clear address summaries and fast lookups.
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Tornado Cash
Open-source smart-contract mixer on Ethereum that anonymised transfers via zero-knowledge proofs. Sanctioned by OFAC in August 2022; the designation was partly overturned in court in 2024–2025.
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TPS
Transactions per second — a blockchain throughput metric, the number of transactions a network processes in one second. TON's theoretical ceiling is very high thanks to sharding; the real baseline is in the dozens of tps.
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Transaction Phase
Stage of TVM execution within a TON transaction: storage → credit → compute → action → bounce. Each phase mutates contract state under its own rules.
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Travel Rule
FATF requirement obliging VASPs to share originator and beneficiary data when crypto transfers exceed a threshold. The crypto-asset analogue of the SWIFT-era banking rule.
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TRP (Travel Rule Protocol)
Open Open-API specification for exchanging Travel Rule messages between VASPs. Uses IVMS-101 as the payload format and standardises a REST/HTTP transport.
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TVL
Total Value Locked — the aggregate USD value of assets locked in a DeFi protocol's smart contracts or across an entire network. The baseline metric for protocol size and market trust.
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TVM (TON Virtual Machine)
The stack-based virtual machine that executes smart contracts on TON. Operates on cells and slices, charges gas per instruction, and is fundamentally different from Ethereum's EVM.
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TWAP
Time-Weighted Average Price — average price over a window with equal time weights. Used both as an execution benchmark and as a manipulation-resistant on-chain oracle.
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txid (transaction hash)
TON transaction hash: SHA-256 of the serialised transaction body. The unique identifier used by explorers and APIs; format is 64 hex chars or a 44-char base64-url string.
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USDT in Telegram
USDT-jetton available to Telegram users through the in-app @wallet bot. Send, receive, swap, and pay without leaving the messenger — the first mass-market stablecoin integration into a crypto-agnostic messaging platform.
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USDT jetton
Tether's native USDT issuance on the TON blockchain, launched in April 2024. The dominant stablecoin in the TON ecosystem; transfers cost cents and settle in seconds.
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Validator
A TON network node that batches transactions into blocks, votes for their finalisation, and receives Toncoin rewards for the work.
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Vault (DeFi)
A smart-contract safe that automatically executes a yield strategy on behalf of depositors. The TON analogue of Yearn Finance. Live on TON in Tonstakers, bemo, and TONCO concentrated-liquidity managers.
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Verified collection
Marketplace badge (Getgems, Portals, MRKT, Tonnel) confirming an NFT collection is genuine and not a copycat clone. The main catalogue-level defence against fakes.
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VWAP
Volume-Weighted Average Price — average price over a window weighted by traded volume. The standard 'fair market price' metric and benchmark for large orders.
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Wallet contract
Smart contract that holds a user's TON and signs outgoing transactions. Versions v3R2, v4R2, v5R1 (W5) all exist; W5 is the current default with gasless and plugin support.
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Wallet contract version
Version of the smart-contract code that backs a TON wallet (v3R2, v4R2, v5R1/W5). The deployed code determines both the address and the available features, so upgrading the version changes the address.
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Wallet V3
Classic third-generation TON wallet contract. Supports seqno, time-bound validity, and up to four outgoing messages per external message.
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Wallet V4
Fourth-generation TON wallet contract. Adds plugin support — external contracts that can pull funds on a recurring schedule.
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Wallet V5
Fifth-generation TON wallet contract (W5). Adds gasless transactions via extensions, spending limits, and batched sends of up to 255 messages.
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Wallet V5 Extension
Wallet V5 extension mechanism: whitelisted helper contracts allowed to send messages on behalf of the wallet. The foundation for gasless transfers and on-chain subscriptions on TON.
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Watch-only wallet
Wallet mode where only a public address is added, without the private key. Lets the user see balance, transaction history, NFTs, and jettons but cannot send anything.
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Whales Pool
One of the earliest TON staking pools and the matching liquid staking brand from Whales Corp — the team behind the Tonhub wallet. Doubles as both validator infrastructure and a DeFi product.
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Workchain
An independent blockchain inside the TON network, with its own rules and address format. The protocol reserves up to 2^32 workchains; in practice, two are live — masterchain (-1) and basechain (0).
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Wrapped TON
Toncoin wrapper on another chain: a token backed 1:1 by TON locked inside a bridge. Used to access DeFi outside the TON network.