Telegram founder Pavel Durov has made a striking announcement about the performance of The Open Network (TON), claiming its blockchain can finalize transactions approximately 6,000 times faster than Bitcoin. According to reports from BeInCrypto and Coin Edition, the statement follows the recent implementation of the Catchain 2.0 upgrade, which cut block creation time to around 400 milliseconds.
Durov stated that TON achieves transaction finality in just 0.6 seconds. In contrast, Bitcoin transactions may take about one hour to reach a comparable level of irreversibility, while Ethereum requires roughly 13 minutes. These figures emerge from internal metrics, and while they underscore the network’s throughput advantages, they have not yet been independently verified by third‑party auditors.
TON’s speed stems from its sharded multi‑blockchain architecture and the Catchain consensus mechanism. The performance leap positions the network as a strong candidate for high‑frequency applications, such as micropayments, gaming, and decentralized finance (DeFi). Moreover, Toncoin (TON) serves as the exclusive currency for in‑app payments within the Telegram ecosystem, giving the speed advantage a practical use case for millions of users.
It is important to contextualize these numbers. Bitcoin’s slower finality is a deliberate trade‑off to preserve extreme security and decentralization. Ethereum’s design likewise prioritizes safety over raw speed. Therefore, while TON’s headline figure is impressive, the long‑term viability of any blockchain depends on a broader set of properties, including resilience, developer adoption, and network effects. Durov’s claim is a reminder that the race for scalability continues, but speed alone is not the sole determinant of a network’s success.
