TON Launches Tolk, New Smart Contract Language With Lower Costs and Faster Development

The TON Foundation has released a new smart contract programming language called Tolk, aiming to simplify development on The Open Network blockchain while cutting costs for builders.

Announced Thursday, Tolk replaces the older FunC language as TON’s new development standard and was designed specifically for the network’s asynchronous actor model. The foundation says Tolk will make smart contract development more accessible for newcomers and more efficient for experienced teams deploying high-throughput applications.

Tolk introduces a cleaner syntax and modern structure, while preserving the low-level control and performance required by advanced developers. According to the foundation, contracts written in Tolk can use up to 40% less gas than equivalent contracts in FunC, offering substantial savings in execution fees and improved scalability.

“This is a turning point for TON developers,” said Anatoly Makosov, core developer at TON Core, in the announcement. “Tolk delivers the clarity and power developers expect without sacrificing the performance, control, or efficiency needed to scale on-chain.”

The launch includes full tooling support, including migration paths for existing contracts and integration with widely used development environments. The Foundation framed the upgrade as a way to remove long-standing bottlenecks in the smart contract workflow and accelerate adoption across decentralized finance, gaming, and social applications.

Tolk’s introduction is part of a broader strategy by the TON Foundation to enhance the developer experience and drive ecosystem growth by aligning with more modern programming conventions and improving deployment efficiency.

Despite the milestone, TON’s native token was trading lower at the time of writing. TON-USD stood at $3.1696, down 1.73% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data.

Technical Analysis Highlights

• TON-USD fell 2.85% between July 18 at 15:00 UTC and July 19 at 14:00 UTC, sliding from $3.26 to $3.17 in a volatile 24-hour session, according to CoinDesk Research's technical analysis data.
• Price action ranged 4.73% intraday, swinging between a session high of $3.31 and a low of $3.16.
• A sharp selloff at 20:00 UTC on July 18, accompanied by 6.18 million tokens in volume, marked a major reversal and confirmed $3.23 as short-term resistance.
• Buyers consistently emerged near $3.16, establishing it as a key support level, while rallies stalled in the $3.20 to $3.21 zone.
• By the end of the session, volume had collapsed to 90,006 tokens, signaling potential seller exhaustion despite a prevailing bearish trend marked by lower highs and lower lows.
• In the final 60-minute window, from 13:09 to 14:08 UTC on July 19, TON fell another 0.81%, briefly spiking to $3.18 before retreating back to $3.16 as support levels weakened and volume continued to fade.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.

View Comments