As an independent first-layer blockchain deeply integrated with Telegram, Open Network officially announced on Thursday the completion of the Catchain 2.0 consensus mechanism upgrade. Key metrics show that block generation time has been reduced to 400 milliseconds. This technological breakthrough significantly shortens payment transaction settlement times, bringing most regular transactions close to real-time processing. The performance of decentralized applications has also approached that of traditional centralized applications.

The underlying logic of this upgrade is to restructure the network incentive mechanism by increasing the frequency of block generation. With faster block creation, the number of new blocks produced per unit of time increases significantly, meaning verifiers can receive more rewards. TON officials clearly stated in their announcement that the annual inflation rate would rise from around 0.6% to 3.6%, an increase of six times. This adjustment in the inflation rate essentially reflects the dynamic balance between continuous issuance and destruction of Toncoin within its ecosystem.

More block production directly translates into increased revenues for verifiers, thereby motivating more users to participate in staking. As stated in TON's announcement, this mechanism will encourage more TON tokens to flow into the network. This upgrade builds upon the Catchain consensus algorithm initially proposed in 2020 and, after several years of iterative optimization, has achieved the technical goal of providing near-real-time transaction settlement services for over 1 billion users worldwide.