Encounter with TON: From a Mysterious Invitation to the Core Team

First Encounter: A Glimpse in 2018

I first came across the TON blockchain in 2018, but my understanding of it was limited back then. At that time, TON was still in its very early stages, with only a handful of developers and enthusiasts exploring its potential. However, it was a mysterious invitation in the spring of 2021 that truly drew me into the world of TON. This invitation changed my life and became a crucial turning point in my exploration of blockchain technology. It also answers the question many people often ask me: “How did you join TON?”

A Mysterious Invitation and the Start of My Journey

In the spring of 2021, a mysterious individual managed to find me. Why me? Because I had been studying Bitcoin since 2013, accumulating considerable experience, and was often asked by investors to help review papers and provide technical research. This time, the mysterious individual wanted to understand whether a blockchain called TON was a viable technology or just a scam.

He told me that TON was being revived and that this blockchain had never really stopped, but had simply never launched a mainnet. Now it was redistributing tokens through mining. This brought back memories of 2018, and out of curiosity and doubt, I decided to dive deeper into the project, revisiting the familiar website https://test.ton.org/ and reading through the original content again.

I learned that the core technologies of the TON blockchain included its unique multi-chain architecture, advanced consensus mechanism, and high-performance smart contract execution environment. These features piqued my interest, and I decided to explore the project further.

Diving into the TON Testnet

The mysterious individual also mentioned a website, toncoin.org, which provided an introduction and guide to TON. On that website, I discovered a GitHub organization named NewTON, which led me to learn more about its technical community and mining methods. Especially the invitation to join the community made me deeply interested in the TON Developers & Validators group.

Upon further exploration of the NewTON GitHub organization, I found a wealth of open-source resources, including the blockchain’s core code, tools, and documentation. These materials showcased the depth of TON’s technology and the vitality of its developer community, strengthening my trust and expectations for the project.

However, joining the TON Developers & Validators chat came with requirements. One had to be a service creator, a competition winner, or hold more than 100,000 TON. At that time, I hadn’t participated in competitions or developed any services, so my only choice was to meet the 100,000 TON requirement. There were no exchanges at the time, meaning I couldn’t purchase TON directly — the only option was mining.

The Testnet Challenge: Setting Up a Mining Environment

After reading the TestGrams-HOWTO document, I found that mining was possible. However, this wasn’t as simple as “clicking to download a mining pool”; it required retrieving mining challenges from a full node, calculating them through a custom script, and submitting the results back to the full node.

This was an exciting challenge for me because everything had to be set up from scratch — the full node, liteclient, mining script, and more. Each step of the mining process was filled with challenges, from obtaining the mining challenges to writing BOC transaction files, submitting them to the liteclient, and finally getting them verified by the testgivers contract for rewards. The entire process demanded a lot of time and effort.

Initially, I needed to understand the overall architecture of TON, particularly the interaction between the full node and liteclient. These tools provided access to the TON blockchain, and I needed to figure out how to communicate with them, as well as how to retrieve and submit data. Throughout this process, I gained a deeper understanding of TON’s network protocol, smart contracts, and data transmission.

After repeated code studies and experiments, I eventually succeeded in retrieving mining challenges from the liteclient and wrote a mining script to solve them. Mining required significant CPU power and precise control over every step of data transmission and processing. Finally, on May 14, 2021, I successfully mined my first TON.

This was a significant moment for me — not only did it prove the feasibility of the mining system, but it also greatly boosted my confidence in my technical abilities.

Officially Joining the TON Team: The 100,000 TON Challenge

After acquiring my first TON, I started researching cloud mining to quickly reach the 100,000 TON goal. I explored how to use cloud computing platforms to build mining environments, selecting cost-effective cloud servers for distributed computing to improve mining efficiency. Through continuous optimization and expanding hardware resources, I finally accumulated enough TON by the end of May 2021 to apply for membership in the TON team.

Anatoly Makosov requested proof of assets, so I sent a transaction on May 28, 2021, as proof. This was a symbolic proof-of-assets transaction.

Soon after, I received an invitation link to a Telegram group, entering a mysterious world. This group had around 30 members, most of whom were winners of the 2019 Telegram blockchain competition, https://contest.com/blockchain. The group’s logo was a portrait of Newton. Conversations were mostly in Russian, with occasional English messages, which I understood using Google Translate.

After joining, I quickly integrated into this small but close-knit community, where members were responsible for different technical areas, such as the JavaScript SDK, wallet development, technical documentation, and community operations. It was a highly technical team, and everyone demonstrated incredible talent and professionalism in their respective fields.

The Birth of the TON Core Team

The TON Developers & Validators chat, which later became the NewTON team, was essentially the precursor to the TON Core Team, which is now called TON Contributors. I feel very honored to have been part of this team, and the 100,000 TON challenge was not just a proof of work — it was a testament to my abilities.

After joining the team, I continued to participate in various technical projects, including optimizing the TON network’s performance, improving the smart contract system, and refining the TON mining mechanism. I also had opportunities to collaborate with other team members on technical challenges, which deepened my understanding of blockchain technology.

In 2023, at the Gateway Conference, NewTON founding member Kirill Emelianenko looked back at this history and mentioned our early efforts and struggles, making me realize how far we’ve come in pushing TON forward. Seeing old partners at the conference and recalling those moments filled me with emotions, and it reinforced that our efforts were indeed worthwhile.

Conclusion: Challenges and Glory Go Hand in Hand

The journey to join the TON team was full of challenges but also incredibly rewarding. From the mysterious invitation to understanding TON’s technology and setting up the mining environment myself, this experience gave me a deeper understanding of blockchain technology and laid a solid foundation for my career in the field. It was not just a technical challenge, but a journey of personal growth.

Throughout this process, I have come to appreciate the charm of the blockchain world: it is decentralized, open, and everyone has the opportunity to achieve something through effort. I hope that this experience can inspire those curious about the blockchain world to take the first step in exploration, for every challenge is a chance to attain glory.