TLDR
- Toncoin surged over 35% on May 7, reaching $2.90 — its highest price since September 2025.
- The rally began May 4 at $1.35, representing a 114% gain in just three days.
- Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced upgrades for the TON Foundation and called TON the fastest blockchain by finality time.
- Open interest hit $569 million, a three-year high, while trading volume reached $3.31 billion.
- Analyst Javon Marks had predicted the move, spotting TON at $1.38 before calling a breakout toward $3.
Toncoin started May 4 at $1.35. By May 7, during the Asian trading session, it hit $2.90. That is a 114% move in three days, and it happened while the rest of the crypto market stayed quiet.
The price of $2.90 was the highest TON had traded since late September 2025. Toncoin’s all-time high remains $8.24, so there is still a long way to go before it tests that level.
Trading volume told a clear story about the scale of interest. Volume reached $3.31 billion, the highest ever recorded for Toncoin. On CoinMarketCap, daily volumes came in at $1.84 billion after rising 84%.
Fees in TON have dropped 6× — to nearly zero.
Next step — Telegram replaces the TON Foundation as the driving force behind TON and becomes its largest validator.
The focus shifts to tech superiority.
New https://t.co/Me0w683UiK, new dev tools, new performance upgrades.…
— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 4, 2026
The catalyst was Telegram founder Pavel Durov. He announced upgrades for the TON Foundation and stated that TON is now the number one blockchain for finality time — meaning transactions are confirmed faster than on any other chain.
Crypto analyst Javon Marks had been watching TON closely. He posted that he had originally spotted TON at around $1.38, right at the edge of a breakout, and predicted a major move toward $3. Since his call, TON surged nearly 84% to above $2.50, and Marks noted there could be more to come.
In our original analysis, we spotted $TON at ~$1.38 right on the edge of a breakout and watched for a major move towards $3!
Since then, TON has made a near +84% move, surging wildly to $2.50+.
More to come ⚡️…
(Toncoin) https://t.co/yVxQ5OYqyA pic.twitter.com/t4OAVBdtV8
— JAVON⚡️MARKS (@JavonTM1) May 6, 2026
Telegram and TON Move Closer Together
Durov also signaled that Telegram plans to progressively replace the TON Foundation as the main driving force of the network. This is a structural shift. Where TON had been positioned as a community-managed blockchain, it is now moving toward tighter coordination with Telegram’s infrastructure.
Telegram already uses TON in its advertising system. Advertisers pay in Toncoin, and channel owners receive a share of revenue through the TON ecosystem. The Telegram Stars project is expected to expand this further in the coming months.
In Q1 2026, the TON network processed around 1.5 billion transactions. The TON v4 upgrade reportedly pushed theoretical capacity beyond 100,000 transactions per second, with fees dropping close to zero.
Futures Market Reaches Three-Year High
Open interest in Toncoin futures climbed to $569 million, the highest reading in over three years according to Coinglass data. The funding rate sat at 0.0173%, showing that long positions are dominant.
High funding rates and record volume can sometimes signal that a move is overextended. The Bollinger Bands on the weekly chart are expanding, which points to continued volatility. The RSI sits at 67, showing bulls remain in control but the reading is not yet in extreme territory.
The $3 level is the key psychological resistance to watch. TON has not cleared it yet.
Toncoin-linked tokens also moved sharply. Notcoin and several smaller tokens on the TON ecosystem posted large gains in the same period.
