TON Storage and TON Proxy: the decentralized web in 2026

When people talk about the “decentralized web”, nine times out of ten they mean IPFS, Arweave or Filecoin. TON rarely shows up in that conversation — even though the network has its own full stack for it: TON Storage for files, TON Proxy for access and TON DNS for naming. Technically it’s a complete HTTP alternative. Practically, in 2026, it’s still a niche corner of the ecosystem, with more developers than users.

This guide walks through the stack honestly: how the pieces fit together, how it compares to IPFS and Arweave, what actually works today and where the limits are. No hype — just a sober picture.

What TON Storage is

TON Storage is a decentralized file-storage system, conceptually close to BitTorrent but with an economic layer on top of TON. A file gets chunked, a hash tree is computed over the chunks, and the resulting Bag ID becomes the identifier you use to fetch it back.

The key difference from a plain torrent: in TON Storage the data owner and storage providers can sign a payment smart contract. The owner publishes a Bag ID and the terms; providers pick up the file and periodically prove they still hold it (storage proofs). For each confirmed storage window they receive TON.

This turns hosting into a paid service with a transparent contract, instead of voluntary seeding. On paper, at least.

TON Proxy and .ton sites

TON Storage handles “what’s stored”. It doesn’t handle “how to open it”. To let a user load example.ton, you need another layer — TON Proxy.

The flow looks like this:

1. The domain example.ton is registered in TON DNS, and its records point to the owner’s ADNL address or to a Bag ID.
2. The user’s browser can’t resolve .ton natively, so TON Proxy does it — either embedded in a wallet or running locally.
3. The proxy locates storage providers, downloads the content and serves it back as if it were a normal HTTP response.

The end result is that opening a .ton site looks indistinguishable from any other website — but there is no “server” in the classic sense. There’s just a hash tree and a network of peers holding pieces of it.

How wallets integrate the proxy

Both Tonkeeper and MyTonWallet ship with built-in support for .ton addresses. The wallet acts as a thin client that talks ADNL directly, or it proxies the request through a dedicated gateway.

From the user side it’s simple: type example.ton into the wallet’s address bar and the content opens. No VPN, no extra setup.

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Don’t confuse TON Proxy with a regular VPN. TON Proxy does not mask your IP on the normal web — it only resolves .ton addresses. It’s a network layer for decentralized content, not a Web2 unblocking tool.

Compared to IPFS and Arweave

These are three different bets on the same problem.

Each design has tradeoffs. Arweave promises “permanence” but charges you a hefty one-time fee for it. IPFS is the most flexible but never solved “who pays to keep the data pinned” at the protocol level. TON Storage offers a simple recurring-payment contract with clear terms, which is convenient when you need guaranteed hosting for a known duration.

Real-world use cases in 2026

If you peel away the marketing and look at what the stack is actually used for, the picture is grounded. Common patterns:

1. NFT metadata and media hosting. TON-native NFT collections often place their JSON manifests and images on TON Storage — it’s cheaper and more native than wiring up a third-party IPFS pinning service.
2. Project showcase pages. A handful of TON apps host their landing page on .ton as a flag-planting exercise. Their main site still runs on regular HTTPS.
3. Anti-censorship mirrors. Niche cases where a team duplicates content through TON Proxy for regions with blocks.
4. In-wallet user-data storage. The idea of backing up encrypted user content via Storage exists, but production usage is still rare.

A mass audience routinely browsing .ton sites doesn’t exist yet. The user base is narrow — protocol developers, decentralized-web enthusiasts, and projects for whom decentralized hosting is part of the brand.

What being a storage provider looks like

Suppose you decide to run a TON storage provider. Here’s what that means in practice.

You launch a storage daemon next to a TON node, allocate some disk and publish an offer: how much you’ll store, for how long, and for how much TON. Clients searching for hosting find your offer over DHT and sign a contract with you.

Then the proof loop begins: the contract periodically demands a Merkle proof for a specific chunk. Return a correct proof and you get paid for the window. Fail to return it and you don’t.

For a solo operator the economics in 2026 are modest: the market is small, competition for the larger offers is real, and margins are thin. It’s closer to an enthusiast contribution than a paying business.

Security and trust model

There are two distinct layers to keep apart.

Data integrity is solid. Content is addressed by its hash, so you cannot forge it. If you download Bag ID abc...123 you either receive exactly what was published under that hash, or nothing.

Availability is weaker. Even with economic incentives, there’s always a risk that every provider of a particular Bag ID drops offline at once. Critical content should be replicated across independent provider sets, or kept in a traditional store as a backup.

For TON Proxy there’s an extra property: the ADNL channel between client and provider is encrypted, and the DNS record is signed by the domain owner. That rules out a class of “address swap” attacks without the owner’s private key.

Where the decentralized web hits walls

Let me be candid about what slows mainstream adoption in 2026:

• Browsers can’t open .ton out of the box. You need a wallet or a local proxy. That alone excludes the typical web user.
• Latency. Going through ADNL and peers is slower than a CDN edge. Acceptable for static pages, not for interactive apps.
• No CDN-equivalent edge cache. Larger TON Storage sites load visibly slower without optimization.
• Search engines. Google and Yandex don’t crawl .ton directly. If SEO matters, your canonical site has to be on a normal domain.
• Legal grey zones. Hosting content on “we’re not quite sure whose machines” means you can’t quickly take it down if a takedown comes in.

None of this makes TON Storage useless. It just means it has a specific niche: hosting things that must be decentralized, where mass-traffic SEO isn’t the goal.

Trying it yourself

If you want hands-on exposure, the minimum loop is:

1. Install Tonkeeper or MyTonWallet and confirm it has built-in .ton support.
2. Register a .ton domain (see our TON DNS guide) so you have a name in the network.
3. Use the storage CLI to upload a few HTML files, get the Bag ID and bind it to your domain.
4. Open the .ton site through your wallet and check that it really loads.

An afternoon with this loop will teach you more about the stack than any theoretical write-up.

Bottom line

TON Storage and TON Proxy aren’t a marketing fiction — they’re a working stack. They have real strengths: paid hosting with a contract, storage proofs, hash-addressed integrity, native TON DNS wiring. And they have honest limits: a narrow user base, no out-of-the-box browser support, mature competitors like IPFS for the same job.

The right framing in 2026 is “useful tool for specific jobs”, not “HTTP replacement”. If your project genuinely needs decentralized hosting with predictable economics, the stack fits. If you need to deliver content to a mass audience fast, stay on the regular web.

How to register a .ton domain