TON Foundation Launches Tolk to Boost Smart Contract Efficiency

The TON Foundation has unveiled Tolk, a new smart contract programming language designed to streamline development on The Open Network blockchain. Replacing the older FunC language, Tolk supports TON’s asynchronous actor model and aims to make blockchain development more accessible and cost-effective.

According to the foundation, Tolk features a modern syntax and structure while preserving the low-level control needed for high-performance applications. Developers can benefit from gas savings of up to 40% compared to FunC, helping reduce execution costs and improve scalability across decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, and social platforms.

“This is a turning point for TON developers,” said Anatoly Makosov, core developer at TON Core. “Tolk delivers clarity and power without compromising on-chain performance.”

The launch includes comprehensive tooling support, migration paths for existing contracts, and compatibility with widely used development environments. The foundation views Tolk as a key step in removing bottlenecks in the smart contract workflow and accelerating ecosystem growth.

Despite the upgrade, the TON token (TON-USD) declined 1.73% over the past 24 hours, trading at $3.1696. CoinDesk technical analysis showed a 2.85% drop from $3.26 to $3.17 between July 18 and July 19. Price action was volatile, ranging 4.73% intraday, with a sharp selloff at $3.23 resistance. Strong buying interest around $3.16 established it as a support level, though rallies were limited to the $3.20–$3.21 zone.

Trading volume fell significantly by session’s end, dropping from over 6 million to just 90,006 tokens, suggesting possible seller exhaustion. However, the prevailing downtrend continued, with lower highs and weakening support indicating caution for near-term traders.