TON DNS / .ton domain

TON DNS maps human-readable names like pavel.ton to on-chain identifiers — wallet addresses, ADNL endpoints for TON Sites, TON Storage bag IDs, and arbitrary text records. It is built into the protocol via a tree of smart contracts rooted on the masterchain.

What a domain can resolve to

A single .ton name can hold several record types:

• dns_smc_address — a TON wallet address. Lets users send TON to friend.ton instead of an EQA… string.
• dns_adnl_address — an ADNL endpoint, used by TON Sites and other peer-to-peer services.
• dns_storage_address — a TON Storage bag ID for files.
• dns_next_resolver — delegation to a sub-resolver, enabling subdomains like blog.alice.ton.
• dns_text — arbitrary UTF-8 text (Twitter handles, descriptions, etc.).

Domains are NFTs

Each .ton domain is implemented as an NFT under TEP-81. That has practical consequences:

• You hold the domain in any NFT-compatible wallet (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, Wallet).
• Transfers happen as standard NFT transfers — list, sell, gift on Getgems or Disintar.
• Loss of the wallet means loss of the domain, with all the usual self-custody trade-offs.

Auctions and renewals

Auction model:

• A new domain can be claimed via a one-time auction — there is a starting price (the longer the name, the cheaper) and bidders can outbid each other for a week.
• Once claimed, the domain costs a fixed renewal fee — 0.015 TON per year in 2026.
• If the owner does not renew, after a grace period the domain returns to auction.

Premium short names (3–4 characters) trade at thousands of TON. Long descriptive names usually settle near the starting price.

What it’s used for

1. Wallet aliasing. vasya.ton is easier to share than EQDc…. Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, and Wallet all resolve .ton names natively.
2. TON Sites. Decentralised websites use .ton as their hostname; the domain’s dns_adnl_address record points the TON Proxy at the right node.
3. Identity. Some Mini Apps use a verified .ton domain as a username, similar to ENS profiles on Ethereum.
4. Subdomains. A project can buy project.ton and hand out team.project.ton to staff via dns_next_resolver.

Differences from ENS

• TON DNS lives in the masterchain config; ENS is a smart-contract product on Ethereum.
• TON has a single TLD .ton; ENS has .eth, plus integrations with traditional DNS.
• TON DNS resolution can be done off-chain by a light client because the resolver tree is part of the masterchain state — no third-party indexer required.

Practical caveats

• Spoofing risk. Visually similar names (Cyrillic look-alikes, dashes vs underscores) get used in scams. Always check the explorer.
• Indexers. dApps that resolve names should cache and re-fetch — domains expire.
• No reverse resolution by default. EQDc… does not automatically map back to name.ton; that requires a separate index lookup.