Telegram releases preliminary version TON Blockchain Lite Client

Instant messaging service Telegram has released the testnet for Telegram Open Network (TON), Cointelegraph reported.

Telegram has reportedly been working for the past one year on the blockchain project TON, which it describes as “a fast, secure and scalable blockchain and network platform offering smart contracts, upgradeable formal blockchain specifications, support for micropayment channels and off-chain payment networks.”

According to the TON white paper, the platform is capable of handling “millions of transactions per second if necessary, and both user-friendly and service provider-friendly.” It reportedly entered private beta testing phase last month.

Cointelegraph reported that two anonymous testers of the platform had said that the blockchain demonstrated an “extremely high transaction speed.”

Now, a new archive of files on test.ton.org suggests the release of TON testnet. According to the ReadMe file included in the archive:

“This archive is a distribution of a preliminary version of the TON Blockchain Lite Client along with the relevant portions of the TON Blockchain Library. It is not necessarily representative of the totality of the TON Blockchain code developed so far; rather it is a simplified stable version, containing only those files that are necessary for compiling the Lite Client, and sometimes outdated versions of these files sufficient for this purpose.”

The file further stated that once everything is successfully installed, the Lite Client will connect to a full node for the TON blockchain testnet and will send some queries to the server.

In addition to the Lite Client, users can also install a file for developing smart contracts, which will connect the lite client to a special server.

“You can create new smart contracts, examine the state of existing smart contracts, send external messages to smart contracts and so on,” it said.

Users can also use Fift, a new programming language for TON, to compile, execute, and debug smart contracts locally.

In April, TON Labs, the infrastructure and ecosystem developer for TON, partnered with European financial services provider Wirecard to develop a joint digital financial services, payments and banking platform.