🐤 How can Telegram support TON builders?

⚫️ Since control of TON changed hands, we keep coming back to the same question: where are independent builders supposed to go for support now? With TON Foundation gone, there is still no clear answer.

⚫️ The problem is serious enough that it is already affecting basic infrastructure. EVAA Finance’s former CTO recently wrote that after Foundation disappeared, no one paid to keep the Pyth integration running on TON. Pyth provides external data such as live asset prices — the kind of price feeds that a large part of DeFi relies on. According to the developer, when projects asked what they were supposed to do next, they were basically told to figure it out themselves.

⚫️ Telegram already has one possible way to support builders: technical contests with sizeable prize pools. Back in early 2025, Telegram and TON Core launched a Blockchain Contest where developers were asked to optimize network validation and build a trustless bridge. The winners shared a $200,000 prize pool. Another round followed later with roughly $100,000 up for grabs.

⚫️ Telegram was running contests like these even back in the Telegram Open Network days. Quite a few developers who took part later joined TON Core, including Anatoliy Makosov. Independent builders participated too: Shiny Giraffe, for example, earned more than $50,000 across several contests. Some of his code is still running as part of TON DNS infrastructure today.

⚫️ We wouldn’t be surprised to see another Blockchain Contest after MTONGA. It won’t replace a proper grants program, but it would at least give independent builders a way to get paid for contributing to TON again.

@thedailyton