Six weeks ago we walked through TON’s 2026-2027 roadmap — what the foundation and the broader community had communicated for network upgrades, Telegram integration, DeFi and infrastructure work. Since then some items have moved from “planned” to “shipped”, several have slipped right, and a few directions picked up unexpected momentum. This is an independent snapshot as of mid-May 2026: what actually progressed, what got stuck, and the realistic outlook through the end of Q3 2026.
A note on framing: TON Foundation has deliberately moved away from hard public dates in 2026. Instead of “release in July” the language has shifted to “in development”, “active work”, “testing on testnet”. Everything below is analytical reading of on-chain activity, GitHub commits, open dev discussions and public interviews — not an official plan.
iThis is forward-looking analysis. TON Foundation has not officially confirmed all timelines mentioned. Treat this as orientation, not as investment or operational advice.
What happened to the network since March
The main TON Foundation front for 2026 has been gradual decentralization of the validator layer, mempool optimization for peak loads (primarily Telegram mini-app and Gifts marketplace bursts), and maturation of gas-abstraction mechanics.
Based on public communications and commit activity through April-May:
- Validators. The validator-set expansion programme is progressing, but slower than the January framing suggested. Full decentralization is a multi-year direction, not a quarterly deliverable. The blocker is economic more than technical: at the current Toncoin price and network fee level, smaller validators struggle on margin.
- Mempool and throughput. The team is working on batched processing of mini-app transactions (one logical action inside a Telegram app often expands to several TON transactions). The goal is to smooth peaks rather than chase TPS records. Rollout is staged, without a single loud announcement.
- Gas abstraction. Tonkeeper Battery (paying fees from an embedded balance instead of separate Toncoin) has expanded beyond one wallet — similar mechanics are appearing in MyTonWallet and in several mini-apps. Sponsor-paid transactions (where the dApp covers the fee) are becoming a de facto standard for UX-critical paths: Stars transfers, NFT-Gifts moves, P2P USDT.
None of this is fireworks. It is incremental improvement. For end users it shows up as “fewer weird errors” and “I no longer need to keep Toncoin around for fees if I only hold USDT”.
Telegram integration: Stars, Gifts and @wallet
The most visible growth has been on the Telegram surface, not on the base layer. Several meaningful shifts since March:
- Stars have settled in as the default in-app currency. Stars to Toncoin conversion is live through @wallet, and the fee flow from that conversion is now a notable share of network activity metrics.
- Gifts (upgraded TON-anchored Telegram gifts) have grown into a real secondary market. Portals, Tonnel, MRKT and Getgems moved out of beta into mature venues with their own liquidity, floor-price listings and Tonkeeper / MyTonWallet integration through TON Connect.
- Mini-app framework. The SDK shipped several iterations: better Stars payment flows, hooks for TON transactions without context switches, simpler TON Connect 2.x wiring. This lowers the entry barrier for non-fintech builders — games and content apps.
- USDT-on-TON. Growth continues. Stablecoin TVL on the network remains one of the defining TON 2026 narratives, especially in markets where USD banking rails are constrained. @wallet and its in-app P2P market are the dominant on-ramp.
DeFi: TVL, perps, NFT lending
TON DeFi in Q2 2026 is not in a hyper-growth phase, but it is not contracting either. By segment:
- DEX layer (STON.fi, DeDust). Volumes are growing organically alongside USDT-on-TON and Stars conversions. STON.fi keeps the lead on aggregate TVL; DeDust leads on certain pair-level volumes. Both venues are iterating on swap optimization and slippage reduction on larger orders.
- Perpetuals (Storm Trade, TONCO). The segment is maturing: user base up, open interest up, but still far from Hyperliquid or dYdX scale. The main growth driver is the mini-app trading format pulling in new Telegram-native users.
- Lending and yield (EVAA, DAOlama). EVAA remains the baseline money market on TON. DAOlama is pushing NFT-collateralized lending — using Telegram Gifts and other valuable NFTs as collateral. At end of Q1 this was experimental; through Q2 origination volumes have visibly grown.
- Liquid staking. Tonstakers and peers hold their share of network TVL; direct growth is yield- and APR-driven.
One Q2 surprise has been the NFT-collateral lending uptick on the back of a maturing Gifts market. When you hold an upgraded gift with a stable floor price, borrowing USDT against it becomes a reasonable move — and DAOlama is positioning for that.
What slipped — and that’s fine
Every roadmap slips. TON is no exception. By mid-May 2026 a number of January-era line items have moved right:
- Full validator decentralization. Not “this year”. This is a 2-3 year direction with staged reductions of entry thresholds and staking economics.
- A subset of mempool optimizations. Items framed as “first half of the year” are landing piecemeal with eyes on late Q3 or early Q4. The team clearly prefers not to ship raw.
- Several fancy mini-app SDK features (richer payment flows, deeper Stars integration into game economies) are partly shipped, partly still in flight.
- Next-generation NFT tooling. Early-year hints about mutating or dynamic NFT formats are still in research, with no clear production horizon.
This is normal infrastructure-project behaviour. Better to defer than to ship and roll back. The community by and large takes this calmly — TON does not market itself as a “ship loud” chain.
Realistic Q2-Q3 2026 outlook
What is likely to land by end of September 2026, with an honest confidence label:
- Broader Tonkeeper Battery / sponsor-paid TX coverage across wallets and mini-apps — high confidence. The trend is established; the open question is coverage.
- Further USDT-on-TON TVL growth — high confidence. The drivers (Telegram, P2P, banking-constrained markets) are not going away.
- Staged mempool upgrades — medium confidence. The commit work is visible, but releases will be quiet and dateless.
- A mature Telegram Gifts secondary market with stable floor prices — medium confidence. Depends on Telegram’s release cadence and speculative appetite.
- Launches of new DeFi protocols and meaningful perps growth — medium confidence. Market- and regulation-dependent.
- A material step toward validator decentralization — low confidence within Q3. More likely a 2027 milestone.
- Production launches of fundamentally new NFT formats — low confidence. Research phase; production within Q3 is premature.
Base case: end users will feel smoother Telegram mini-app behaviour, broader sponsored-fee coverage, growing USDT-on-TON volumes, and a maturing Gifts market. Big-bang base-layer releases are unlikely.
Risks worth keeping in mind
Any outlook must be measured against the risk surface. As of mid-May 2026, what matters most for TON:
- EU regulation. MiCA is the operating regime. Wallets and services touching EU users are bound to KYC/AML and travel-rule obligations. Not a TON ban, but operational load on CEXs and some DeFi frontends is up.
- US sanctions perimeter. Expansion of sanctions over crypto infrastructure continues. No direct restrictions on TON itself, but payment processors and fiat bridges are warier of ecosystems with high P2P-USDT share.
- Russia and CIS. Continued tightening of P2P operations; banks are more aggressive on suspicious-payment blocking. This hits the on/off-ramp layer rather than TON itself, but it is painful for end users.
- Market conditions. Toncoin price feeds into validator economics and DeFi incentive budgets. A prolonged bear tape would slow every plan.
- Validator economics. At current fee and yield levels, small-validator margins remain challenging. That is the direct ceiling on decentralization pace.
!Regulatory risk is not technological risk. The TON network keeps running in any of the scenarios above. What changes is the UX of accessing it through CEXs, on-ramp services and jurisdictionally exposed dApps.
Bottom line
In the six weeks since we published the 2026-2027 roadmap walkthrough, TON has done exactly what a mature infrastructure project should: quietly shipped a portion of the planned improvements, quietly slipped another portion, and kept focus on Telegram integration and USDT-on-TON as the main growth drivers. No fireworks, no surprise pivots. If you want a baseline for comparison, see our 2025-2026 retrospective and the TON Foundation primer.
Q2-Q3 2026 for TON looks, on balance, like a quarter of stabilization and incremental growth rather than loud releases. For long-horizon holders, that is usually the right backdrop.
