One more thing - we forgot to explain the system itself.
We spent quite a bit of time thinking through the design, so here is a simpler overview.

At first, we considered making every transaction anonymous. But that would create noticeable computational overhead on the user’s device, which is unacceptable for us. We aim for the same level of optimization as Telegram and TON. That means cryptographic operations must be cheap for the CPU on any device. Because of that, we even decided to support both current cryptographic standards and post-quantum-ready ones.

That said, the topic here is not encryption but anonymity. So what is the solution?

When a user joins a chat, the blockchain sees it as an anonymous entry. You are assigned an internal chat ID, and that is the identifier that appears in the blockchain history. Using a zero-knowledge proof, the blockchain can verify that it was indeed you who joined the chat, without learning your real identity. As a result, instead of generating a zk-proof for every message, we only require it once at the moment of joining.

After introducing this approach, we had to revisit the models for rate limits, moderation, and several other parts of the messenger. Fortunately the migration did not significantly alter the core domain model, so we were able to adapt quickly.

Building a decentralized messenger on top of a custom blockchain is quite a quest.

Behind the scenes of building the messenger

We believe that everyone in the crypto space values data privacy. Message metadata can reveal just as much as the content itself. Attackers can build social graphs from almost any signal, even timing patterns. For example, if 2 new IDs send short messages to each other in quick succession, it is likely a greeting exchange.

In TON, everything is public. However, networks such as Monero and Zcash have implemented transaction anonymity. While this may partially conflict with the ideology of blockchain transparency, our research suggests that stronger security is preferable to weaker security. Unlike financial transactions, communication has a strong case for being anonymous.

What does this mean for a messenger?

For an average user, nothing changes. The client UI can look like anything, even similar to Telegram, since most messengers share nearly identical functionality. But the difference becomes clear when you look at the network as a whole.

Without anonymity, it is visible that A sent a message to B.
1. This reveals the exact time of last activity, which is often undesirable. In Telegram, for example, this can be partially hidden.
2. It exposes the fact that you are communicating with a specific person, as well as the intensity of that interaction.

In practical terms, your partner could see that you message a friend more often than you message them. Or a malicious actor could identify everyone you have communicated with and impersonate you to contact them. This kind of information is valuable to many different actors.

If cryptocurrency were used in everyday life, demand for anonymity would likely be much higher. For example, if someone buys medication at a pharmacy, the transaction amount alone could reveal what was purchased and link it to a specific person. That would expose medical information, which is private in the real world.

In the future, the world may move toward greater openness, which could potentially reduce crime, as these factors are correlated. Or it may remain as closed as it is today.

I hope for the first scenario and would like to contribute to a more open world. However, at this stage, we don't believe we can take that level of risk. If a crime were committed using publicly visible A-B social graph data, media headlines would likely read something like "TON Messenger Is Not Private" which would seriously damage its reputation.

Overall, this was not an easy decision. Most users will feel safer this way. The only thing we sacrifice is the possibility of accelerating the transition toward a more open global infrastructure, which might, in theory, lead to a better world.

At the moment, we are conducting several research efforts, which is why our activity in the channel has been limited

We decided to correct this misleading impression by creating a dedicated chat

@+zmUdW2PlZQ44MDlk

Hello everyone 👋
A quick update and some news

Earlier, we released our TON Browser for Linux and later asked you which platforms you would like to see it on next.

Yesterday, we met with a developer who had been independently working on a similar browser, and today he announced it. In our opinion, this browser truly deserves attention and the status of the main TON Browser in the ecosystem.
Key features of new browser include:
- Custom TON-style UI
- Based on Chromium rather than a Firefox fork
- Already available for all platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Garlic routing
- Downloads from TON Storage
...and much more
Link: @resistancetools73

Our project is not going anywhere. We are continuing development, but under a new name - TON Firefox

Thank you for being with us
We will be sharing more news and updates soon

The contest has ended
Thank you to everyone for your interest

Unfortunately, we have to announce that there are no winners, as no participants took part in the contest

Was the prize amount insufficient? Or was the submission period too short?
We would appreciate your feedback so we can improve next time

After identifying the reason, we may relaunch the contest in the future

We were going to write a long technical post, but decided to keep it simple
We've done a lot of work to design a decentralized network

A large part of our audience lives in countries with heavy Internet restrictions. That's why we planned ahead for the worst case: a full shutdown of a country's access to the global Internet.
We built an alternative approach that allows the messenger to keep working even under a complete block. We believe this gives us the highest possible level of reliability.

For comparison with Telegram:
- Telegram's MTProto can resist Layer 4 (L4) blocking
- We are working toward resistance at the Layer 3 (L3) level

Thanks for staying with us

FYI. Internet Censorship: A Map of Internet Censorship and Restrictions (2025)
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/internet-censorship-map/

You ask - we build

The idea author @brazo has approved the implementation of the inheritance feature in TON Messenger.
Smart-contract-based? Of course!

In the future, we will add pages for ideas, feedback, and acknowledgements
Just know this: we listen and remember every single idea and suggestion you share
Want to submit an idea? Get in touch with us

Just a guess:
Theoretically Cocoon could implement software-based confidential compute via tensor masking. This would cut performance by about 5x but would allow models to run almost in "home" on RTX cards. You'd need a server-grade CPU with TEE support for this, but such a setup costs around $2-3k, unlike NVIDIA Hopper series GPUs (H100, H200) that go for $20-30K.

Hey community
We are facing a choice and we need your help.

As you already know, the key features of our messenger are:
- End-to-end encryption
- No spam bots
- Integration of blockchain functions
- Decentralization

Let us briefly explain which core development components these features involve:
- End-to-end encryption is part of the protocol (completed)
- The absence of spam bots is a characteristic of the registration system (in development)
- Integration of blockchain functions is implemented on the client side (planned after server-side completion)
- Decentralization is an application architecture that implies high availability and cryptographic verification of the integrity of distributed data (current stage)

We have made progress in developing the protocol, and the next stage for us is developing the backend.

While working on the server-side architecture, we realized that we have two paths:
1. Follow our original plan and, for v1, build a centralized solution with partial decentralization (using Web3 TON DNS), and after launch proceed to implementing v2.
2. The new plan: implement a fully decentralized solution right away.

Advantages of the new plan:
- The first decentralized messenger in the world - this will attract significant attention to the TON ecosystem and to the project itself
- True decentralization: while TON DNS increases availability, it does not eliminate the possibility of blocking or failure of a centralized system
- Open source: this will allow other developers to contribute not only to the client-side development but also to the server-side
- Increased user control over future releases: similar to how TON validator consensus accepts updates. Anyone will be able to run a part of the messenger themselves
- Eliminating double work: in the v1 -> v2 scenario we would have to heavily modify the architecture built in v1
- Interesting features: new developers also bring spontaneous brilliant ideas

Disadvantages:
- Time. This will shift our deadlines: the launch of the first client will be postponed. However, in the future this should positively affect the parallelization of client application development (more on this below)
This is likely the main disadvantage, as we do not want to break initially promised deadlines or disappoint user expectations.

Our main challenges:
At the moment, our primary difficulty lies in developing client applications, particularly designing a pleasant UI/UX experience aligned with each platform.
In fact, we specialize more in backend development rather than in software development as a whole.
Because of this, we encounter a paradox: it is easier for us to build a sophisticated server architecture than to create relatively simple or traditional interface layouts.

If we follow the second plan and deliver a robust backend architecture, it may attract more experienced frontend/software open-source developers. This should improve the future interface quality and therefore increase competitiveness.
Let us put it somewhat bluntly: do not try to do what you are not sufficiently good at.
It is better to join forces with other talents than to build everything on your own.

For comparison, take Telegram: the development was led by the Durov brothers. Nikolai Durov created the protocol, and Pavel Durov handled everything else.
We are inclined toward the second option, because we believe that product quality > marketing. We are competing with giants and geniuses, so we cannot afford to be "not good enough"
But we will trust your choice: the direction of our development is in your hands!

🎨 Contest for designers

Prize: 500 USD (1 winner)
Deadline: 23:59 Dec 31, 2025 (London time)
Minimum number of participants: 10

❄️ TON Messenger is launching a contest for vector animation artists.

Task
Create an animated vector brand character for TON Messenger.

How to prepare
Design the character and animation in Adobe After Effects using the Bodymovin plugin, or create it in any vector editor with subsequent export to Lottie.

Submission formats
Animation file: Lottie (.json)
Preview render: .mp4 (MP4 render)

Rules
- The number of submissions per author is unlimited
- Only high-quality, original works will be accepted

Send your work here
Good luck 🍀

A TEE vulnerability was found and is theoretically applicable. The risk is low since infrastructure runs on GCP with strong physical security. Our job is to warn.

In the future, the protocol plans to return some of the calculations to the local device.
This eliminates this vulnerability.
We will keep you updated.

We've been reported serious translation errors when using the Telegram translator feature.
Please also read the original version.

What is TON Messenger?

We talked a lot about separate parts of the messenger, but never summarized all key advantages in one post. Let's fix that.

1. Integration with TON
- Built-in wallet
- Voting through smart contracts
- Fundraising (convenient decentralized crowdfunding)
- Wallets for users, channels, and groups
- And much more

In short: the native messenger currency is $TON, not centralized "stars". 
Its functions have decentralized alternatives implemented through smart contracts. For example, decentralized voting or giveaways. 
You no longer need to trust the results. Now you can verify them. Cryptography is a mathematical guarantee of truth.

Useful posts:
- Fundraising concept

2. Fighting scammers and spam

This is our main priority. We are implementing a special algorithm for this.
Spam bots are the main weapon of fraud actors. We aim to remove this attack surface entirely.
No need to rely on paid access to messages to limit spam - we solve the root problem, not invent ways to live with it.

Useful posts:
- How we fight scammers
- Updated approach to improve user privacy
- Fighting advertising spam

3. No personal data

Registration works through a seed phrase. No emails, no phone numbers, no "anonymous numbers" that actually require KYC. 
Only 24 words - this is your key to your account. From any device, from any type of internet connection.

Useful posts:
- Integration of projects that share our privacy values

4. Post-quantum cryptography and end-to-end encryption

Popular decentralized private messengers like Session and Matrix inspired our direction, but we go further:
TON Messenger adopts post-quantum cryptography to future-proof message integrity. Why it matters for everyday users?

Today's encryption can become breakable once large-scale quantum computers arrive - not just future messages, but even your archived chats could be decrypted years later.

Whether that happens in 10, or 20 years is unknown - but we already know this: your messages remain protected for 30+ years ahead, beyond today's computing limits.

Useful posts:
- About post-quantum cryptography
- Why Telegram is not a private messenger

5. Community-oriented and open-source   

We listen to the community. We believe this is our strong side. 
We don't build corporate walls. We are part of the TON ecosystem. 
You are as much a part of TON Messenger as we are.
We will also have open-source code - everyone will be able to participate in development and audit it.

Useful posts:
- Our history
- Our weaknesses
- Our strengths
- Our stance on laws
- Our decentralization vision
- TON Browser announcement
- Our Web3 vision

You can always contact us if you have questions.
Your TON Messenger Team

I'll just leave this here for those who want automatic translation
@boost

P.s. We'll pin a couple of important messages now, sorry for the spam.
It was difficult to choose, but we did it.
We have created some "anchors" next to which there are also important messages.

Web3-world Statistics

According to our data, around 144,000 .ton domains have been minted in total
Shortest ones: 2,600 pieces (4 characters long)
Most popular: 11-character domains (32,000 pieces)
Total spent: about 1 million $TON (based on current domain prices)

But these are just domains. What about websites?
We counted around 500 active websites, including interesting developer profiles and promising projects.

You might ask: Telegram has the largest crypto-related developer community, so why are there so few websites?
We asked ourselves the same question and tried to find the reason.

Imagine you're an regular user. How do you use the internet?
1. Open a browser (pre-installed on the device)
2. Enter a search query or URL

What do you need to use Web3?
1. Find a proxy and verify its trust level
2. Install the proxy
3. Enable the proxy
4. Open a browser
5. Enter the URL, or
6. Search for a .ton website list in Google
7. Find the needed website
8. Close the unsafe connection warning

Every day Google processes 10 billion search queries. Brave Web3 browser has already been installed over 100 million times.
These statistics show a real demand for such tools. The lack of these tools in TON Web3 pushes users away. If there are no users, there will also be no developers building websites.

Once developers know that users will be able to discover their websites, they will start creating them.
If we want TON's vision of a free internet to grow, we need those essential tools.
While Web2 websites get blocked, the hundreds .ton websites keep working 24/7.

How to lose your client

Recently, X integrated displaying the account's country. One day, your private information was leaked into public access.

What are the downsides of public geolocation?

1. Enables region-specific fraud schemes
2. Improves attack targeting using language and popular local services
3. Narrows OSINT search area, increasing chances of deanonymization
4. Allows localized social engineering scenarios  
5. Turns the internet into a playground that continues real-world problems

There are no borders or countries on the internet
Web3 proves it

Recently X restored privacy. But it will never restore trust.