Toncoin (TON) Price: What Pavel Durov’s Telegram Takeover of TON Foundation Actually Means

TLDR

Toncoin (TON) surged over 30% after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said Telegram will replace the TON Foundation as the blockchain’s main driving force. Telegram will become TON’s largest validator, with Durov saying the focus shifts to “technological excellence.” TON transaction fees dropped sixfold to near zero, increasing appeal for users and developers. Trading volume exploded 600%, reaching over $630 million in 24 hours, with market cap hitting $4.5 billion. TON-based meme tokens also rallied sharply, with Dogs up over 90% and Notcoin up 26%.

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Toncoin (TON) posted one of its biggest single-day gains in months after Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov published a post on X outlining a major shift in how the TON blockchain will be governed.

Toncoin (TON) Price

In that post, Durov wrote that Telegram would “replace the TON Foundation as the driving force behind TON and become its largest validator.” The message was short and direct, but its effects on price were immediate. TON climbed from $1.37 to as high as $1.84 within 24 hours, a gain of roughly 34%.

Fees in TON have dropped 6× — to nearly zero.

Next step — Telegram replaces the TON Foundation as the driving force behind TON and becomes its largest validator.

The focus shifts to tech superiority.

New https://t.co/Me0w683UiK, new dev tools, new performance upgrades.…

— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 4, 2026

Crypto analyst Sam Cooling noted that the real story behind the announcement goes beyond a governance reshuffle. With 950 million monthly active users, Telegram is now formally tying its platform to a single blockchain—creating what he describes as “structural demand for TON that didn’t exist under a community-run foundation.”

Trading volume backed that up. Volume jumped 600% to more than $630 million in a single day, and Toncoin’s market capitalization reached $4.5 billion.

Durov also highlighted that TON transaction fees have fallen sixfold, dropping to nearly zero. He said upcoming upgrades—including a revamped ton.org website, new developer tools, and performance improvements—are expected within two to three weeks.

Telegram becoming TON’s largest validator means the company will directly confirm transactions on the network, earn staking rewards, and hold influence over protocol decisions. It also ties Telegram’s own business model more directly to TON.

What the Telegram-TON Connection Means in Practice

One concrete example is the Telegram Ad Platform. Advertisers purchase placements using Toncoin, and channel owners receive a 50% revenue share paid in TON. Telegram plans to expand this through Telegram Stars by Q3 2026. Each ad purchase creates buying demand for TON, and each payout recirculates it through the ecosystem.

$TON pic.twitter.com/lGlBBz5d8G

— Don (@DonWedge) May 4, 2026

The network already processed 1.5 billion transactions in Q1 2026 alone. Total value locked on TON reached $1.2 billion by April 2026. The TON v4 upgrade in March 2026 introduced sharding capable of handling over 100,000 transactions per second.

Durov also personally invested $5 million in TON liquidity pools in late 2024.

Meme Token Surge Across the TON Ecosystem

The rally spread beyond TON itself. The combined market cap of TON-based meme tokens rose 67% in a single day, according to CoinGecko.

Notcoin, a tap-to-earn token popular through Telegram mini-apps, gained 26%. Dogs, a community meme token on TON, jumped over 90%—though it remains around 96% below its all-time high. Smaller-cap tokens saw sharper moves, with Morfey up nearly 1,000%, Resistance Duck up 645%, and Cubigator up 390%.

At the time of publication, TON was trading near $1.44, up approximately 6% on the day, with daily trading volume at $232 million—a 235% increase from the day prior.

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