TON Connect: what it is, why it matters and how it works

TON Connect is the technical “handshake standard” between a wallet and an app. Without it, every TON dApp would have to either implement support for each wallet by hand or ask the user to export private keys (which is a non-starter). With it, any dApp works with any wallet through the same one-step flow.

If you have ever opened STON.fi, DeDust, getgems.io, or any mini-app with a “Connect Wallet” button — you have already used TON Connect, you just did not know.

Why a protocol like this is needed

A wallet’s private key must never leave the wallet. That is axiomatic. But a dApp needs three things from the user:

Discover the address — where to send tokens, whose NFTs to show.
Get a signature on arbitrary data — to authenticate the user without a password (signed message), for example.
Send a transaction — assembled by the dApp but signed and broadcast by the user.

TON Connect is a set of messages that the dApp and the wallet exchange to handle all three, without ever sharing the key. The analogy: the dApp and the wallet are two apps “talking” through an encrypted bridge. The user sees the request inside the wallet, taps confirm, and the signature flows back to the dApp.

What this looks like for the user

A simple scenario — swapping on STON.fi:

Open STON.fi in the browser.
Click “Connect Wallet”.
A list of wallets appears: Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, OKX Wallet, Bitget, etc.
Pick Tonkeeper.
Tonkeeper opens on your phone with the prompt “STON.fi is requesting access to the address. Allow?” — tap Confirm.
The site shows your address and balance.

When you go on to make a swap:

Click “Swap”.
Tonkeeper opens with the transaction laid out — what you send, what you receive, the expected fee.
Confirm.
The site receives a success notification and refreshes the balance.

This is the basic loop that repeats inside every TON dApp.

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What the user sees and does not see

TON Connect surfaces all the important transaction parameters — recipient, amount, message body. But humans should not rely on the wallet UI alone. For critical operations (a large swap approval, for example) sanity-check the simple things — does the amount match expectation, is the recipient the one you meant.

Architecture: how it works under the hood

TON Connect 2.0 uses a three-tier model:

dApp — the app to be connected.
Bridge — a centralised or decentralised relay server through which the dApp and the wallet exchange encrypted messages.
Wallet — the wallet that holds the key.

The connection flow:

The dApp generates a connect request and a connect-link (ton://... or an https deep link).
That request reaches the wallet — either via a click on the link (if the wallet is on the same device) or via a QR code (if the wallet is on a phone and the dApp is in a desktop browser).
The wallet connects to the bridge, validates the request, and shows it to the user.
The user confirms — the wallet returns the public address and establishes an encrypted session.
Subsequent transactions flow through the same session — the dApp sends a “request-transaction”, the wallet shows it, the user confirms, the wallet broadcasts it and replies with the result.

All messages between the dApp and the wallet are encrypted with the public key — the bridge sees only encrypted traffic.

How it differs from WalletConnect

The Ethereum world has a similar protocol — WalletConnect. TON Connect was built separately, because TON’s architecture is fundamentally different:

Parameter	TON Connect	WalletConnect
Target network	TON only	EVM chains, multi-chain
Transaction model	Async (TON message-based)	Sync (EVM tx)
Signing methods	TonProof, sendTransaction	personal_sign, eth_sendTransaction
Bridge	Multiple public + custom	WalletConnect Cloud
2026 version	2.0	2.x

On TON only TON Connect is used. WalletConnect is not supported because architecturally it does not cover TON’s async semantics.

Which wallets support it

The main TON Connect 2.0 wallets in 2026:

Tonkeeper — full support, the flagship.
MyTonWallet — full support, open source.
Tonhub — supported but on a legacy branch.
Bitget Wallet, OKX Wallet, Binance Web3 Wallet — exchange-grade multi-chain wallets with TON support.
SafePal, Trust Wallet — partial support.
Wallet in Telegram — support via the Wallet Pay SDK, not full TON Connect.

The full registry of supporting wallets lives in the wallets-list repository under TON Foundation.

Where you will meet TON Connect

In 2026 TON Connect is used almost everywhere across the ecosystem:

DEXs — STON.fi, DeDust, Megaton.
Staking — Tonstakers, Hipo, bemo.
NFT marketplaces — getgems.io, Disintar, mrkt.app.
Games and mini-apps — all of them, except purely custodial flows through Wallet.
Lending — EVAA, DAOLama.
Cross-chain bridges — Orbit Bridge, Symbiosis.

There is no serious TON dApp without TON Connect.

Get a wallet with TON Connect

Tonkeeper is the most popular non-custodial TON wallet, supports all the major dApps via TON Connect 2.0.
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Security: what to keep in mind

TON Connect does not turn bad transactions into good ones. If a dApp asks you to sign a drain function, the wallet will show it but will not be able to know it is an attack.

What to remember:

Read the transaction body. Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet show parameters — how much TON you send, to which address, what is in the payload. An unfamiliar payload plus a large amount is a reason to refuse.
Check the dApp URL. Phishing through Telegram ads constantly pushes fake DEXs. The browser address bar is the only real defence.
Disconnect unused sessions. Tonkeeper has “Connected dApps” in settings — that is the list of active connections. After using a dApp, disconnect.
Separate wallet for DeFi. Active wallet with $100–500 USDT for swaps and mini-apps; main funds on a cold wallet without TON Connect sessions.

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Connecting a mini-app is connecting a wallet

When a Telegram mini-app prompts “Connect Wallet”, it uses TON Connect through the bridge. There is no “magical Telegram-only connection” — it is the same standard flow. All security rules apply.