Durov takes over as TON's largest validator and slashes fees 6x — is Telegram about to make TON the internet's payment rail?

Pavel Durov announced that transaction fees on The Open Network have already fallen sixfold, dropping to near zero, as Telegram steps in to replace the TON Foundation as the blockchain's primary validator and driving force. The move follows a 10x speed upgrade delivered in April — Step 1 of Durov's publicly stated "Make TON Great Again" roadmap — and arrives alongside a rebuilt ton.org, new developer tooling, and further performance upgrades expected within two to three weeks.

The strategic logic is straightforward: Telegram's nearly one billion users sitting on top of sub-second, near-feeless infrastructure creates a distribution moat no other blockchain can replicate. In-app payments, mini-apps, and DeFi flows that were previously friction-heavy become viable at consumer scale when fees approach zero.

Durov's framing is deliberately anti-speculative — everyday utility over token…