On May 22, The Open Network (TON), a layer 1 blockchain previously created by Telegram, announced the launch of a $25 million fund for projects building out its ecosystem.
Dubbed the "TON Accelerator Program," the program will invest between $50,000 and $250,000 per project, with the collaboration and mentorship of TON employees. Justin Hyun, Head of Incubation and Growth at the TON Foundation commented: "Funding is part of our strategy to launch local hubs, and our ecosystem will focus on attracting new developers as well as successful repeat founders across key global locations."
The initial pool of funding recipients will be for projects participating in the recent TON Hackathon, with investments specifically focused on incubating decentralized finance or DeFi projects. In addition to having the prerequisites to build on TON, projects must have a minimum viable product (MVP) ready and require marketing, business, and technical support. “Proof-of-concept or prototype teams that need more technical support should apply for early funding,” notes the developers of TON.
Since 2020, TON has been operating as a community-led open source project. Its architecture is said to be able to scale significantly and handle millions of transactions per second. In April, TON received initial commitments of $250 million from major companies for its ecosystem TONcoin Fund. At launch, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo announced plans to adopt the TON blockchain.
