TON Foundation Launches ‘Tolk’ to Cut Smart Contract Costs and Boost Developer Efficiency

The TON Foundation has unveiled Tolk, a new smart contract programming language set to become the official development standard for The Open Network (TON). Designed to streamline on-chain development and cut gas fees by up to 40%, Tolk targets DeFi, gaming, and high-performance decentralized applications.

A Major Shift for Developers

Replacing the aging FunC language, Tolk is purpose-built for TON’s asynchronous actor model. It offers a modern, developer-friendly syntax while retaining the low-level control essential for advanced contract functionality.

“This is a turning point for TON developers,” said Anatoly Makosov, core developer at TON Core. “Tolk delivers the clarity and power developers expect, without sacrificing performance or efficiency.”

With improved structure and more readable code, Tolk aims to make smart contract development more accessible to new developers and more scalable for experienced teams building high-throughput apps. The TON Foundation also says Tolk-based contracts consume up to 40% less gas than their FunC counterparts — significantly reducing costs for users and developers.

Support and Ecosystem Strategy

Tolk ships with full tooling support, migration paths for legacy contracts, and integration with common development environments. The rollout is part of a broader TON initiative to modernize the ecosystem and remove friction points for Web3 builders.

The foundation hopes this update will accelerate adoption across key sectors such as DeFi, gaming, and social apps, positioning TON as a more attractive platform for developers.

Market Snapshot: TON Price Action

Despite the milestone, TON’s native token saw modest losses. As of writing, TON-USD was down 1.73%, trading at $3.1696, according to CoinDesk.

Technical analysis over the past 24 hours shows:

• TON fell 2.85%, from $3.26 to $3.17, between July 18 at 15:00 UTC and July 19 at 14:00 UTC.
• Intraday price ranged from a high of $3.31 to a low of $3.16 — a 4.73% swing.
• A sharp reversal at 20:00 UTC (on 6.18 million tokens traded) confirmed $3.23 as resistance.
• Buyers stepped in consistently near $3.16, establishing a key support zone, though momentum stalled between $3.20–$3.21.
• Final hour volume collapsed to just 90,006 tokens, suggesting seller exhaustion amid a bearish structure of lower highs and lows.
• From 13:09 to 14:08 UTC on July 19, TON slid another 0.81%, briefly touching $3.18 before returning to support at $3.16.

Looking Ahead

The TON Foundation sees Tolk as a long-term catalyst for ecosystem expansion, aiming to empower developers with better tools and lower operating costs. Whether that translates into sustained growth for TON’s price and user base will depend on adoption — and broader sentiment in the blockchain sector.