The TON (The Open Network) cryptocurrency appeared in 2021 as a successor to the idea of the GRAM cryptocurrency, which was supposed to be an addition to the Telegram messenger, but was banned by the US government. TON, like GRAM, focuses on sharing with the Telegram messenger, but from an independent developer. Initially, the TON cryptocurrency was designed with POS mining, but at the start of the blockchain of this cryptocurrency, special 10 premine addresses were created. Access to which could only be obtained through POW mining, i.e. mining with video cards.
Because the number of ton coins for mining was initially limited, then the moment when POW mining TON would ever end was only a matter of time. And this moment came on June 23, 2022, when the last TON coin was mined using a video card. From now on, the minting of new coins will occur only with the help of POS mining, as was originally intended.
POS mining for the TON project involves launching a validator (server) with 600,000 TON coins in the account (600,000USD at the exchange rate on June 27, 2022), which not all crypto enthusiasts can afford.
Actually, due to the high threshold for entering the POS mining of the TON cryptocurrency, at the initial stage, POW mining was launched, which was available to everyone, thereby popularizing this project among miners.
