Emerging altcoin projects bring innovation into the market through unique use cases and technologies, such as smart contracts or energy-efficient mining methods. While Bitcoin is slowly but steadily driving adoption, projects like Ethereum have had an impact in the real world through tokenization, automation, and developing resources.
Some of these interesting projects include Toncoin, a mid-cap cryptocurrency, and Solana, a large-cap coin. Both are somewhat undervalued on the market since they have significant potential to become more popular and drive investor interest, but they have evolved significantly recently. In 2024, Solana hit its all-time high, while the Telegram-based cryptocurrency expanded its wallet offerings so users could easily convert Toncoin to USD.
Hence, each network has different targets, but which is a better investment? Let’s find out.
Use cases contrast
Solana Labs released the token in 2020 to support the development of decentralized apps and make decentralized finance more accessible. Therefore, it laid the groundwork for speed and scalability, making it the fastest and most efficient blockchain among the competition. With rapid and affordable transaction fees, Solana is an excellent Ethereum alternative for investors and developers.
On the other hand, Toncoin began as a project from the social platform Telegram but has continued as an independent project on the Telegram Open Network since 2020. The project offers flexibility and a unique sharding architecture for developers to create applications for IoT devices, social media, and P2E games.
Smart contract differences
Solana is an Ethereum competitor regarding smart contracts, also called programs. The predominant programming language, Rust, allows developers to work with or without a framework, whether they want more flexibility or to create applications quickly. The blockchain offers tools to verify the code and ensure transparency and trust.
On the other hand, TON has complex state machines that help developers deploy entire decentralized exchanges and organizations, as well as gaming platforms. Considering the extended scale of the projects, Ton uses the FunC high-level programming language for domain-specific smart contracts. Toncoin also leverages Tact and Fift, exposing developers to a steep learning curve.
Consensus algorithm comparison
A crypto project’s consensus mechanism is the backbone of efficiency, so Solana uses a combination of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Proof-of-History (PoH). The hybrid consensus allows nodes to add timestamps to transactions, making the ledger impossible to manipulate due to its chronological system.
TON uses a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) algorithm that allows native TON holders to choose the validators responsible for creating blocks and processing transactions. In addition, its hash function KECCAK-256 safeguards the network against collision attacks, and it shares cryptographic functions with Ethereum for compatibility.
Performance and scalability review
The most important aspect of a blockchain is its performance, but it can be difficult to achieve when it targets both security and decentralization. While digital ledgers are far from solving the blockchain trilemma, Solana surely succeeds at scalability, reaching 65,000 transactions per second (but it usually achieves around 3,000 TPS).
On the other hand, TON will develop more, but for now, the average TPS is 100 transactions with a block time of five seconds. Still, the dynamic sharding architecture is superior to Bitcoin’s (seven TPS) or Ethereum’s (up to 15 TPS).
If they’re undervalued, are they potentially rewarding?
Solana and Toncoin have the potential to improve and significantly influence the crypto and blockchain development industries. However, their lack of media coverage and community interest leaves them in the shadows.
When comparing Ethereum to Solana, we know the latter is faster, cheaper, and easier to use, but the first is still leading the market. Toncoin, however, is still in its early stages as a crypto on a decentralized network, but it’s accelerating growth.
As an investor, choosing both SOL and TON for your portfolio is feasible since the first has a large market capitalization, meaning it can better withstand volatility. Still, it might not provide extreme returns. That’s why investing in TON as well could bring more income, as the project is still emerging.
What about their disadvantages?
Besides comparing their features, we must also watch out for risks and disadvantages so we can better adapt asset allocation. For example, Solana is mainly known for its centralization concerns due to the network’s limited number of validators. The network is also prone to outages and disruptions, exposing investors and developers to delays and potential financial losses.
Although it has reached prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, Toncoin’s availability is still limited for investors. At the same time, the current blockchain function isn’t user-friendly and might showcase poorly adapted interfaces on the explorer function. This makes it challenging for users to see wallet addresses or validators, hindering analysis and exposing the blockchain to cyberattacks.
Solana and Toncoin prospects
Pros and cons aside, Solana and Toncoin are continuously developing and will bring major changes to their architectures in the future. Solana accelerates institutional adoption through its latest collaborations with Société Générale or Franklin Templeton. The on-chain also works on building for mobile, allowing payments to expand. New additions include renewable energy to navigate the energy crisis, and the impact of 2024 fundraising contributes to the local economy.
Toncoin has a roadmap of developments as well, with numerous updates for:
- TON blockchain: gasless transactions, extra currencies, and sharding tools;
- TON proxy: intermediate proxies will accept micropayments deducted from users’ wallets;
- TON payments: The TON channel will support unlimited and affordable micropayments;
- TON storage: new marketplace, user products, and an upcoming 2.0 version;
Both networks must evolve considering their potential, but their team developers will take things easy since growing blockchains have always had problems with scalability. The increasing number of users, transactions, and applications has to be controlled to ensure security, which takes time to code and plan.
What do you think about Solana and Toncoin?
Solana, one of the cheapest and fastest blockchains on the market, and Toncoin, an emerging decentralization facilitating DeFi, are promising crypto projects. With unique features and easy-to-understand technologies, they’re great investments in advancing crypto adoption and blockchain usage in the real world. With several pros and cons, SOL and TON are worth the shot for every investor and developer.