On July 3, the TON Foundation, the developer of the Open Network (TON), announced the release of an on-chain encrypted messaging feature. This new functionality enables TON users to send private messages to one another. TON is a blockchain network that originated from code developed by the team behind the Telegram instant messaging app. While Telegram discontinued its involvement with the project in July 2020 without launching a mainnet, it open-sourced the code, enabling others to continue its development.

The TON Foundation has built the current network known as "TON." According to the foundation, TON offers improved scalability and transaction throughput compared to other options in the Web3 ecosystem, all while maintaining decentralization.

Previously, TON users could send messages within transactions, but these messages were publicly visible. With the newly introduced feature, users can encrypt their messages end-to-end, ensuring that only the intended recipient can read them.

Anatoly Makosov, a core developer of TON, stated that the purpose of this feature is to facilitate the "personalization" of transactions:

Makosov further emphasized the potential usefulness of TON in case of an "apocalypse" scenario where traditional messenger servers fail. In such circumstances, TON can serve as a reliable and safeguarded method for private communication.

Currently, several retail wallet apps such as MyTonWallet, OpenMask, and TON Wallet offer encrypted messaging functionality. Additionally, the upcoming updates of the mobile wallet Tonkeeper will also incorporate this feature, as mentioned in the announcement.

To encourage application developers to build on the network, the TON Foundation launched a $25 million accelerator program in May. Furthermore, an independent development team created a Telegram trading bot in November to facilitate user onboarding to TON.