Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov announced a significant upgrade to the Toncoin (TON) blockchain, which is set to be activated on the mainnet on April 10, 2026. The core of the upgrade is the new Catchain 2.0 consensus mechanism, which dramatically reshapes the network's performance.
The update slashes block production time to approximately 400 milliseconds, a six-fold increase in speed. This leads to transaction confirmation times dropping from around 10 seconds to about 1 second, achieving what the TON Foundation calls "sub-second accuracy" as the new standard. The improved data flow layer allows applications to receive updates almost instantly, virtually eliminating the delay between a transaction and its confirmation for end-users.
This technological leap also brings significant economic changes. With blocks being produced much faster, validator rewards will increase substantially, strengthening staking incentives. As a result, TON's annual inflation rate is projected to rise from approximately 0.6% to 3.6%. The TON announcement notes that "more blocks mean more validator rewards, which create stronger staking incentives and bring more TON into the network." It is predicted that rewards will settle into a new equilibrium over time as staking participation increases.
The upgrade builds upon the original Catchain consensus algorithm first proposed in 2020. It brings near-instant settlement to a blockchain network that is integrated into Telegram, an application with over 1 billion users worldwide. This integration allows Telegram users to send crypto payments directly within the messaging app.
Following the announcement, TON's price reacted positively, trading up 2.3% to $1.28 with a 24-hour trading volume of $130.1 million, representing an increase of more than 35%.
