TON Society is beginning a new journey by becoming an independent organization. This strategic shift will elevate community engagement, enhance transparency, and democratize access to the operations and assets of TON community.

As an independent entity, TON Society will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the TON Ecosystem by focusing on three core goals:

1. Creating TON activists
2. Expanding awareness of TON ecosystem
3. Democratizing community assets

Making Progress

Over the past year, TON Society starting as a grassroots community program, has grown into real movement. Making giant leaps toward achieving our first two goals—empowering individuals and increasing the ecosystem's visibility. Through successful initiatives, including the Open League Hackathon, Local Hubs, Onchain Badges (SBTs), and the Ambassador Program, we have collectively proven that our community is not just active but capable of remarkable collective action. This is a testament to your dedication and the strength of the TON Community.

The Ambassador Program - TON Syndicate

The Ambassador Program opened the doors to the most active community members to become official TON Ambassadors and launch their own local initiatives with the support of TON Society.

• Over 100 ambassadors with 4 of them progressing to roles at TON Society
• We hosted over 50 global events and roughly 40 TON Breakfasts, totalling more than 5,000 attendees
• Our ambassadors hosted 2 bootcamps in Tbilisi, Georgia and Minsk, Belarus with both events being the best in terms of participating projects.

The Open League Hackathon - Hackers League

The biggest TON hackathon to date was a golden opportunity for emerging projects to receive major rewards and connect with millions of Telegram users.

• We hosted 13 bootcamps in with 1,970 attendees
• Over 1,000 projects applied and 3,664 hackers participated in the hackathon
• In total, we awarded $590,000 in TON rewards and $240,000 in Telegram Ads credits.
• The judges selected 28 winning teams, 14 of which came through the TON Society Bootcamps

TON Society - Local Hubs, Fun Events and Onchain Reputation

The Society took on an unprecedented growth over the past few months, capturing the attention of over 9M users and expanding to a total of 9 local hubs. In addition, TS launched a new platform designed to engage and encourage the TON Community.

• Launched TON Society platform that rewards active members with on-chain badges, Soul Bound Tokens (SBTs for short) that cannot be transferred and stay in your wallet as a permanent badge of honor.
• The total number of active members of TS grew by 700% and Activist members increased by 17,000%.
• TS platform issued and distributed over 600,000 SBTs to more than 500,000 unique wallets.

Simultaneously, TON Community and TON Society channels have seen skyrocketing growth, attracting individuals from highly diverse and multicultural backgrounds around the globe. The TON Community represents the inclusivity and reach of the TON Ecosystem. Our diversity is our strength, and it serves as a powerful testament to the worldwide appeal and impact of The Open Network. As we move forward, TON Society will continue to build on this foundation, ensuring that our community remains vibrant, engaged, and empowered to shape the future of TON.

How do you properly represent a diverse community?

While TON community has achieved so much in such a short period, this brings up a logical question: how do we accurately represent a community as diverse as ours?

With individuals from all around the world with various perspectives and ideals, achieving a consensus seems impossible. It’s difficult enough to find consensus among a team of ten individuals, let alone a community that will eventually grow to hundreds of millions of people.

Simply, you can’t. Our conclusion is you don’t try to force consensus. Instead, you find a way to identify the majority opinion within the community and empower it to represent TON Ecosystem. Let the community decide the direction of The Open Network. To give the community a seat at the table, we must ensure that their voices are heard—not just symbolically, but in a way that influences the direction of TON. While many decentralized communities claim to do exactly that, they more often than not fall short in organizing these voices or achieving a community-wide consensus.

For these reasons, TON Society is going independent, with a clear focus: the further decentralization of TON. As an independent group of TON contributors, we can serve as the storyteller of the TON Community. TON Society will not represent a single entity or a board of directors. Our objective is to create structures and processes that enable and encourage community consensus, ensuring that you, our community, set the direction of TON. We can all look forward to this future with confidence and optimism.

The Plan.

To realize our goals, we put together a comprehensive plan that builds on our past successes and introduces new initiatives to bootstrap TON community to new heights. This plan revolves around three key pillars: creating TON activists, raising awareness of TON ecosystem, and decentralizing TON’s community assets.

Goal 1: Creating TON Activists.

At the heart of TON Society's mission is our belief that activists drive a strong and active community. A Web3 community without active contributors risks stagnation, taking from the community more than it gives back. On the other hand, a community rich with activists will sustain itself and thrive, contributing more than it takes. We focus on transforming passive members into active contributors—TON Activists who are engaged, motivated, and ready to drive TON Community forward.

Key Initiatives:

• TS onchain badges (SBTs): This platform will recognize and reward community members for participating in TON Ecosystem through onchain badges that nurture a culture of achievement.
• TS Hackers League with boot camps and hackathons: These events will create a hands-on environment for developers and builders to collaborate and build within TON ecosystem. Together, we will turn ideas into projects with real impact.
• TON Ecosystem Portal: As a TON Activist, this will be your home, a hub where you can find resources and tools to help you support the ecosystem.
• TON Nest: This dedicated space for builders and developers will help you network and collaborate with other participants in the Builders Community and drive innovation.
• Syndicate Ambassadors Program: The Ambassador Program will focus on community activists who represent TON in their regions, spread awareness, educate others, and build local TON Society communities and hubs.
• User onboarding programs: Through these programs, we want to introduce new users to the TON Ecosystem and arm them with the knowledge and tools required to become active participants.

Goal 2: Raising TON Ecosystem Awareness.

All of the above is for nothing if no one knows about TON. Building awareness of TON Ecosystem is the key to its growth. TON Society will begin to operate all official TON Community channels, creating consistent, high-quality communication across the board. As an ecosystem journalist, TON Society will gather and publish the community’s best stories, helping them reach a global audience and inspiring more people to join the movement.

Key initiatives:

• Content production & publishing: TON Society will create and distribute impactful content that promotes TON Community’s innovations and stories.
• TON events: We will organize and promote major events like The Gateway that draw attention to TON Ecosystem and highlight its achievements and potential.
• TON public relations: Our PR team will build and maintain strong relationships with the media to achieve global coverage of TON developments and community.
• TON Voices: We will amplify the voices of community members by giving them a platform to share their experiences and ideas with a broader audience.
• Creators program: This program will support content creators within TON Ecosystem and incentivize them to create impactful content.
• Advertising: We will run advertising campaigns to onboard new audiences, primarily through the Telegram Ads platform.
• TON merch store: The new TON merch store will create and sell TON merchandise so everyone can show their support for the TON Community.

Goal 3: Democratizing TON’s Community Assets.

A democratized ecosystem can only be built by deeply engaged individuals with a strong sense of agency. TON Society is committed to developing transparent processes that allow the community’s opinions to be heard, organized, and acted upon. By creating structures that promote consensus and collective action, we can ensure that the TON Community’s assets are managed to reflect the true will of its members.

Key initiatives:

• Monthly community reporting & quarterly community town halls: TON Society will produce regular updates and host town halls to ensure transparency and allow the community to stay informed, share their feedback, and participate in decision-making.
• Onchain reputation protocol: We will establish a protocol that tracks and verifies the contributions and reputation of community members, setting positive examples incentivizing participation and leadership.
• Onchain debate & governance platform: To decentralize governance, we will launch a platform that allows community members to debate and come to a consensus onchain, thereby influencing decision-making.

These are just the main initiatives we’re working on, and we will make changes and improvements as we move forward. Through these initiatives, we’re committed to empowering the TON Community and giving it a voice.

Finding consensus in opinions.

We will soon reveal more details about the process and the upcoming governance platform. This platform is designed to address one of the most pressing challenges in any decentralized community: finding a true consensus of opinion onchain.

Our focus is to find and organize community consensus in a way that is transparent, equitable, and representative of the majority. We will introduce a method for community members to earn and build their reputation onchain. This reputation will not only serve as a badge of trust and engagement but will also play a role in the weighting of opinions during debates and decision-making.

You will accumulate a reputation as you contribute to the community through participation in debates, development efforts, attending events, completing quests, participating in partner campaigns, or other forms of engagement. As you spend more time and contribute to the ecosystem, your reputation will grow, and you'll earn recognition as a respected member of the community. This recognition serves as a 'badge of honor,' and with it, your influence and voice will become more powerful over time.

Independence is just the beginning.

TON Society’s move toward independence is the beginning of the evolution of TON Ecosystem. TON Society is co-founded and led by Jack Booth and Ekin Tuna experienced and proven ex-directors of TON Foundation, who are now shifting their focus to decentralization as a key objective while staying true to putting crypto in every pocket.

TON Society is committed to:

• Creating Activists: We will engage the community through onchain achievements and reputation-building. By publishing our plans, reporting on progress publicly, and actively inviting community input, we aim to build a network of contributors deeply engaged in TON’s success.
• Raising Ecosystem Awareness: Acting as the ecosystem's storyteller, TON Society will boost the community's most important voices and projects. Through our media channels across Telegram, X, YouTube, and the web, we will spotlight the stories that matter the most and help them reach a global audience.
• Democratizing TON: We aim to develop an onchain reputation, rewarding activity with influence. With influence, comes the responsibility to shape the direction of TON. Beyond just decentralization in theory, it’s about giving the community the power to shape the future of TON and allowing your voice to be heard.

The vision for TON is ambitious, and there will be challenges, but with TON Community leading the charge, we’re confident we'll achieve our goals by 2028.

Together, we will put crypto in every pocket by building a global Web3 ecosystem within Telegram and empowering over 500 million users to truly own their digital assets. Achieving this goal will require a highly active community that acts in symbiosis, with a real stake and ownership in TON’s future.

TON Society is proud to participate in this journey, and we invite you to get involved. Build your onchain reputation and shape the future of TON. There’s much more to come, and we’re just getting started.