Author: Dr. Awesome Doge, early member of TON core team; Translation: Golden Finance xiaozou

TON Fund Everyone may know the name Hui, but few people know the story of its early contributor-NEWTON team (TON core team).

Through voluntary technical contributions, NEWTON was recognized by the Telegram official team in 2021, achieving the greatest "community takeover" technology transfer in the history of blockchain .

As an early member of NEWTON, let me tell you this story.

1. Introduction: Joining the NEWTON team and team mission

When I joined the NEWTON team , our main mission is clear: maintain the stability of TON testnet2 code while enhancing development tools.

Since we do not directly control the TON blockchain GitHub repository, but need to constantly update the code, we created a new organization called NEWTON. In order to ensure smooth network updates, we encourage the community to use the validator developed by NEWTON as the standard version.

From its establishment to June 2021, the NEWTON team has completed several breakthrough development and infrastructure projects. Let’s take a deeper look at the 10 key contributions that impacted TON’s early development.

(1) mytonctrl: automated node management tool

Our first major contribution is mytonctrl, a powerful automation tool for node installation and validator setup.

It provides some basic functions, such as wallet creation, contract deployment, transaction history retrieval, and even DNS registration system - interestingly, DNS at the time was not related to The DNS of modern NFT packages we see today is different.

mytonctrl is OKTo configure validator, liteserserver and litclients to make node data access and parsing easier. In 2021, we added CPU-based mining scripts and automated power tests to simplify TON minting.

(2) tonmon: Visualizing the operation status of the blockchain

Having nodes and getting data is not enough; we need more visual tools to monitor the health of the blockchain.

To better monitor the health of the blockchain, we created tonmon. Key metrics tracked by the tool are: block creation time, shard status, dPoS election schedule, validator count and weight, and mining contract status. We can react quickly to any network anomaly.

This network is very small in the early stages, with only about 80 validators worldwide.

(3) tonmine: Monitor Giver contract

We developed tonmine to track TON mining activities. Although the initial givers of the TON blockchain range from large to small, by 2021 there will only be 10 small givers left. tonmine shows daily mining statistics for each contract, with an average of 20,000 TON per contract per day - 200,000 TON total for all contracts.

Mining difficulty varies greatly between different givers, depending on the number of miners - some givers have lower difficulty due to fewer miners, while Others are extremely difficult.

(4) Cross-chain bridge

Before TON has jetton or NFT standards, we recognize the importance of cross-chain compatibility. The NEWTON team developed a TON native bridge for ERC-20 tokens on EVM-compatible chains and successfully tested it on bridge.ton.org. This makes TSeamless transfers between ON, Ethereum and BSC are possible.

(5)@cryptobot: Telegram Bot wallet

In 2021, before Telegram’s mini app existed, a team member developed the @cryptobot Telegram wallet. It initially supports BTC, TON, BNB, and USDT. After the launch of Telegram’s mini app, the wallet was completely updated.

(6) toncenter: Simplifying blockchain data access

With toncenter, developers no longer need to set up full nodes, study liteclient or liteserver, or worry about serialized data formats. toncenter provides a public API that greatly simplifies on-chain data access for various wallets and block explorers.

While TON's infrastructure has evolved to have more API provider options, such as tonxapi.com today, toncenter continues to serve developers , which proves the power of its design.

(7) explorer.toncoin.org: TON’s first block explorer

The first TON blockchain explorer is built into the core code base of explorer.toncoin.org. While incredibly fast, its data representation is too technical for most users.

(8) ton.sh: a new generation browser

To solve the complexity of explorer.toncoin.org, we created ton.sh. After solving the challenge of deserializing blockchain data, we released it using a public API.

ton.sh focuses on basic functions: wallet balances, transactions, and especially memos. Memos were crucial for early TON users. Before the advent of TON Connect or complex DeFi contracts, memos were command operations. Especially for exchange deposit operations

Although new browsers like TONScan and TONViewer appeared later, ton.sh is still under development by TON. A historic milestone.

(9) TonWeb: Basic JavaScript SDK

Because TON smart contracts use Fift and Func, two challenging languages, the NEWTON team developed TonWeb, a JavaScript SDK that simplifies wallet creation, deployment, and transactions.

(10)ton wallet: my first TON wallet

This TON wallet can be traced back to the Telegram era and is my first wallet , and I am still using it now

2. Historical recognition: NEWTON gives. An open letter from Telegram’s official team

By June 2021, the NEWTON team has made significant contributions, including running public liteserver, DHT server, and archive nodes to maintain network stability. Then, toya-yanot wrote an open letter to the TON-blockchain team , documenting our year of work and requesting institutional permission from GitHub

The letter lists NEWTON's two leaders and key team members.

Yes, I (Dr.Awesome Doge) is also on the list.

At the time, I thought it was just an open letter—a good one way to demonstrate our contribution to the network without expecting any response.

But to our surprise, the official Telegram team responded on June 30, 2021.

This marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the TON blockchain.

3. Looking back on the past and looking forward to the future: Builder notes

Looking back on this incredible journey, the NEWTON team’s early contributions went far beyond code. Every line of code, every tool we develop, every sleepless night of maintenance work - all these efforts have laid the foundation for what TON is today.

TON's explosive growth in 2024, with thousands of builders joining the ecosystem, validates our commitment in those challenging early stages. Belief - TON's potential is worth fighting for.

NEWTON members are all over the world, and each member supports TON in their own way. My focus remains on developer needs and development in Asia (I am the only team member who speaks Mandarin). My team TONX and I are building the necessary infrastructure for the TON ecosystem:

TONX API: Powerful RPC & API for all dapps

Tonkey App: a multi-signature wallet that manages 400 million assets

TonStake: the largest pledge pool

TON Hacker House activities span Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Taipei

Stay tuned for the future.

NEWTON’s spirit lives on forever. This is just the beginning. Let’s build TON together.