💀 Decentralization for show
⚫️ Between the third and fourth steps of MTONGA, Pavel Durov reminded everyone that TON is one of the most decentralized blockchains in the world. The claim quickly spread: crypto influencers picked it up on X, and the updated ton.org even briefly featured a section saying TON ranked second in decentralization.
⚫️ The basis for this claim is the Nakamoto coefficient. In simple terms, it shows how many validators would need to coordinate to gain critical control over the network. For PoS blockchains like TON, this comes down to stake weight: if one group gains more than one-third of the validation weight, it could potentially halt the network.
⚫️ On paper, it does look decent: the largest validator, Telegram, controls around 17% of the weight, which is below the critical one-third threshold. But once you look a little deeper, that argument starts to fall apart.
⚫️ The problem is that a significant share of the remaining validators also appears to be controlled by a small circle of actors, including “early miners” whose coins had not appeared on the open market for years. At the same time, only around 23% of the total GRAM supply is currently staked, which means several large anonymous wallets could, in theory, take control of the network if they wanted to.
⚫️ The much-touted geographic distribution does not help much either. Yes, validators are spread across five continents, but 80% of nodes are located in just a handful of countries: the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Telegram, by the way, has all of its nodes in just two countries: the United States and the Netherlands.
⚫️ The Nakamoto coefficient can be a useful metric if validators are backed by truly independent capital owners. As a marketing claim, it works well enough. But when it comes to the network’s actual decentralization, it does not say much at all.
@thedailyton