@durov calls TON "one of the most decentralized blockchain networks on the planet". The front page of
ton.org says "#2 Nakamoto coefficient". I traced the foundation's own staking dashboard wallet by wallet - all 100% of it. It shows the opposite
Two owners hold 47% of all staked TON: TON Strategy (27.7%) - the NASDAQ vehicle chaired by
@ManuelStotz, the TON Foundation's ex-president - and
@telegram own treasury wallet (19.4%). Two entities are enough to control a third of this network. They move as one circle, so the honest Nakamoto coefficient is 1.
The trace makes it worse. Telegram's real footprint is 30.3%, not 19.4: in May 2025 its treasury sent 6.86M, 5.43M, 5.03M and 4.76M TON to fresh wallets that staked straight into "independent" Kiln, and an unlabeled depositor group is 82% funded by the same treasury (11.1M direct top-up visible on-chain).
Add
@tonstrat,
@topdotco (the company holding practically all of TON: top DEX
@ston_fi, NFT marketplace
@getgemsdotio,
@tonkeeper,
@wallet_tg,
@tonstakers and
ton.org itself) and Vy Capital of
@atamas - an anchor in Stotz's TONX. Tamas was a registered person with significant control of TOP's UK entity from its 2023 incorporation until Dec 2024, when Vy's own CFO Katja Lake took the slot - she holds it today. Kingsway, Stotz's own fund, is also a TOP backer per the Abu Dhabi registry. One orbit owns 67.9% of the staked money. Stotz and Telegram alone hold 58%.
Another ~8% of the staked TON - 81.4M across 29 staking entities - is funded by a single 2020 PoW miner cluster: 10 wallets. I scanned the complete history of every one. Not one of the 10 has ever sent anything to an exchange - zero, across six years. Five of them wire straight into the foundation's reserves: the pair behind the Kiln flow sent 8M to the Ton Ecosystem Reserve and 1M to TON Foundation, then pushed ~42M through one hub into Kiln validators - the same Kiln that is 37% miner-funded. Money that never cashes out and flows into the foundation's own treasuries is not independent capital. Orbit plus this miner-funded stake: 76%. Genuinely independent money: 8.6%.
Durov's claim:
t.me/durov/510
Foundation dashboard:
dune.com/ton_foundation/stak…
Telegram treasury:
tonviewer.com/0:8c397c43f9ff…
May 2025 tranche example (4.76M):
tonviewer.com/0:7862AC5291D4… Treasury-funded group (11.1M):
tonviewer.com/0:D328EDDAFE11…
Miner 1 (8M to Ecosystem Reserve):
tonviewer.com/-1:7D1E147B303…
Miner 2 (1M to TON Foundation):
tonviewer.com/-1:D48FA185439…
Kiln hub (~42M):
tonviewer.com/0:740DF3552064…
TOP UK PSC register (Vy CFO Lake active, Tamas 2023-2024):
find-and-update.company-info…
Vy Kingsway among TOP's backers (per the Abu Dhabi registry):
fortune.com/crypto/2025/07/0…
ADGM public register (search TOP GROUP LTD, entity 0015q00000LBv7MAAT):
adgm.com/public-registers