TON Foundation Introduces DAO Governance To Curb Centralization Risk

• The TON Foundation says that the network is at risk of becoming centralized.
• Society DAO will comprise four distinct founding groups within the TON network.
• The DAO intends to publish key initiatives and expected H1 2025 results by January 2025.

The TON Foundation is doubling down on efforts to bring more decentralization to the network and is introducing a new governance model, Society DAO.

Whilst the TON network has experienced incredible growth, it has seen many of the network’s founders rely heavily on the foundation to see any success for their project.

This and other factors pose a centralization risk, and according to the TON Foundation, it’s time to enhance decentralization through community governance.

Curbing Centralization

As per a blog post co-authored by The Open Network Foundation President Steve Yun and TON Society co-founder Jack Booth, the TON community has grown and matured greatly over the year, and they believe it’s time to introduce community governance via Society DAO.

Whilst centralization has proven bountiful in the early stages, the ever-increasing ecosystem of participants is converging on the foundation. The foundation explains:

“Capital and resources—financial, social, human, and political— accumulate around the foundation, making it difficult for projects to succeed without its official support.”

This also creates operational inefficiencies, as projects allocate a lot of resources to navigating the foundation rather than building , which stifles innovation. So, it’s essential that decentralized open support is available for “incoming builders.”

Society DAO

In short, the TON Foundation will supply the grants, and the Society DAO will develop and execute the plans. Booth provided more detail on the DAO at the TON Gateway expo on Nov. 1 and explained that it is comprised of four founding members.

As the name suggests, the TON Core is where core network development takes place, including upgrades and maintenance of the blockchain. The initiative will see community proposals, ecosystem goals, and working groups brought to TON in a bid to become the “gateway to real-world crypto use cases.”

The TON Studio will control “the developer experience,” the TON Society will run the community operations, and Wallet in Telegram will be responsible for payment adoption.

The Society DAO intends to publish key initiatives and expected H1 2025 results by January 2025.