Swap Gram (GRAM)

TON is the network behind GRAM and behind USDT on TON, and it is built differently from the chains most people learned on: there is a masterchain that holds the configuration and a basechain that splits into shards as load grows. For a sender, three things follow. Sources are docs.ton.org and the network itself through tonapi.io, read on 14 October 2026.

Blocks: sub-second, not 5 seconds

TON's older documentation and many guides give 5 seconds as the block time. On 14 October 2026 the masterchain was producing a block about every 0.4 seconds: 1,000 consecutive blocks spanned 411 seconds. Shard blocks come at their own pace and are referenced by the masterchain. Either way, the chain is fast; the minutes a swap takes are processing, not waiting for blocks.

Confirmations and the swap

The route data this site is built from waits for 2 confirmations on a GRAM deposit — about 2–5 minutes in all — and 20 on a USDT on TON deposit, about 3–7 minutes. The difference is in the route data, not in the chain. A swap into GRAM from USDT on TRON takes 2–5 minutes, TRON's figure.

Messages, not transactions

On TON every action is a message from one contract to another, and a wallet is a contract. Sending GRAM is a message carrying value; sending USDT is a message to your jetton wallet, which sends a message to the receiver's jetton wallet. Each message costs gas in GRAM, and the fee for a jetton transfer includes a small amount forwarded with the notification. This is why a wallet that holds USDT on TON and no GRAM cannot send: the message that moves the USDT has to be paid for in GRAM.

Proof of stake, elected every 18 hours

Validators are elected by stake for a cycle that the network config sets at 65,536 seconds, about 18.2 hours (parameter 15, read from the network). Block rewards are 1.7 GRAM per masterchain block and 1 GRAM per basechain block (parameter 14), with a share of fees burned. There is no supply cap; the issuance is a known number of coins per block rather than a percentage.

Bounceable and non-bounceable

A message to a contract that does not exist can bounce back to the sender if it was sent as bounceable. Wallets send to a personal address as non-bounceable so that a transfer to a not-yet-deployed wallet is credited rather than returned (docs.ton.org). The two address forms, EQ… and UQ…, carry that flag — the Addresses section explains.

The one rule for GRAM. A payout goes to a personal wallet, not to an exchange deposit address: the form carries no memo for GRAM, and exchanges on TON identify deposits by a comment. GRAM and TON: names, tickers, wallets has the background.

A TON address in its user-friendly form is 48 characters of base64 encoding a 36-byte structure: one flag byte, one workchain byte, the 32-byte account identifier and a 2-byte checksum (docs.ton.org, 14 October 2026). The first two characters come from the flag byte and tell you three things at a glance.

EQ… and UQ… for the same account differ only in that flag byte and the checksum; the account identifier in the middle is identical, and both point to the same wallet. The raw form, written as 0: followed by 64 hex characters, is the same account again without flags or checksum.

Which form to give

TON's documentation recommends non-bounceable (UQ…) addresses for wallets, so that funds are credited even if the wallet contract is not yet deployed, and bounceable (EQ…) ones for contracts with their own logic, so that a message to an invalid contract comes back. Wallets today show UQ… by default; older displays and explorers show EQ…. The form accepts both for a GRAM payout, and a payout to either form reaches the same account.

What the form accepts

For a GRAM payout: a 48-character mainnet address starting with UQ or EQ, with a valid checksum. Testnet addresses (kQ…, 0Q…) fail; the raw 0:… form is not accepted — convert it in the wallet or on the explorer first. There is no memo field for a GRAM payout.

The comment field

TON transfers can carry a text comment, and exchanges use it as the memo that identifies which customer a deposit belongs to: one address for everyone, a different comment per account. The route data this site is built from carries no comment for a GRAM payout, so a payout straight to an exchange deposit address would arrive without the identifier and might not be credited. For USDT on TON the form does have a memo field; for GRAM it does not. USDT on TON: addresses, memos, mistakes covers the USDT side, and Memo, destination tag, payment ID the general rule.

Which to give

1. Your own wallet: the UQ… address from its Receive screen. Nothing else is needed, and a wallet that has never been used receives GRAM fine — the first incoming transfer is what deploys it.
2. An exchange: not for a GRAM payout. Pay out to your wallet, then deposit to the exchange from there with the comment it shows.
3. Another person: ask for the address and read the first and last four characters back. UQ… and EQ… of the same wallet will differ in the last characters; that is the checksum, not an error.

Jetton wallets

USDT on TON is held in a jetton wallet, a contract of its own that belongs to your main wallet. Explorers show its address. It is never the address to give for a GRAM payout, and it is never the address to give for a USDT payout either — the USDT form takes your main wallet address and the network finds the jetton wallet.

TON transactions are identified by a hash, and the status page links the TON side of a swap to tonscan.org; tonviewer.com shows the same data. Because every action on TON is a chain of messages, a transfer appears as a message with a source, a destination and a value, inside the transaction of the receiving account. Read on 14 October 2026.

The transaction page shows the hash, the block, the time, the account it belongs to, the incoming message (from, to, value in GRAM, the comment if any) and any outgoing messages it produced, the fees (gas, storage, forwarding), and whether the computation succeeded. For a jetton transfer it shows the chain of messages between the two jetton wallets and names the jetton and amount.

A deposit you sent

1. Copy the hash from your wallet, or open your wallet's address on the explorer and find the outgoing transfer in its list.
2. Check the destination: the deposit address from the form. The explorer may display it as EQ… even if you pasted UQ…; it is the same account.
3. Check the value in GRAM, or for USDT on TON the jetton amount.
4. Check the exit code: 0 means success. A bounced message — the value returned to you — shows as a second message back.
5. The status page updates on its own at 2 confirmations for GRAM, 20 for USDT on TON.

A payout you received

The status page shows the payout hash when the payout is sent. On the explorer the destination of the message is your wallet and the value is "You get" from the form, with the payout network fee already taken out. If your wallet had never been used, the explorer shows it as deployed by this transaction; the whole amount is still yours.

Reading a jetton payout

For USDT on TON the message goes from the payout's jetton wallet to your jetton wallet, and the explorer names your main wallet as the owner of the destination. The amount is in the jetton's own decimals — 6 for USDT. A small GRAM value travels with the message as the forward amount; that is normal.

Comments on the explorer

A transfer's comment is public and the explorer shows it. For a GRAM payout from this site there is none. If you see a comment on a transfer you did not expect — a link, an instruction — ignore it; a comment can be written by anyone who sends to your address and is a common way to deliver a scam.

What a block explorer shows about a swap covers the same reading on the other networks; Reading a swap status page explains each stage.

GRAM's mistakes are about the comment, the fee coin for USDT, and a name that changed. The chain itself is forgiving: there is one network, the address format names it, and a message to a non-existent contract can come back.

The comment

On most networks an exchange's extra field is optional in the sense that a personal wallet never needs it. On TON that is still true, but the form has no field for it on a GRAM payout at all. So the decision is made before you paste: a GRAM payout goes to a wallet you control. From there a deposit to an exchange with its comment is an ordinary transfer that costs a fraction of a GRAM.

The rename

Toncoin became Gram on 15 June 2026. Addresses, balances, contracts and the network did not change, and no action was asked of holders. Any message asking you to claim, swap or migrate is fraud. Wallets and exchanges relabelled over the following weeks; a service that still shows "TON" or "Toncoin" for the native coin of the TON network means GRAM. GRAM and TON: names, tickers, wallets lists who shows what.

The fee coin for USDT

A wallet that holds USDT on TON and no GRAM is in the same position as a TRON wallet with USDT and no TRX: it can receive and cannot send. The route USDT TRC-20 → GRAM puts the fee coin into the TON wallet with two addresses, and USDT TRC-20 → USDT TON is the route for the dollars themselves.

Less than the minimum

A deposit under the route's minimum cannot be processed as a swap, because the payout fee has to fit inside it. On GRAM → USDT TRC-20 the payout is on TRON, where the fixed part is small; Minimums, maximums and network fees on small swaps shows where to read the figure.

TON's visible history for a holder is short and mostly about names. The chain's own changes — faster blocks, new wallet versions — happened without anyone having to act. Sources are this site's existing record of the rename, docs.ton.org, the TEPs on github.com and the network itself, read on 14 October 2026.

Jettons, 2022. TEP-74 defines a token as a master contract plus one jetton wallet per holder, so a balance is not a number in one contract but a contract of its own. That is why your USDT on TON has an address, why a transfer is a message between two such contracts, and why the message needs GRAM attached. Everything about USDT on TON follows from this.

USDT on TON, 2024. Tether's contract on TON is EQCxE6mUtQJKFnGfaROTKOt1lZbDiiX1kCixRv7Nw2Id_sDs with 6 decimals, and it is on tether.to's list of supported protocols. The arrival of USDT is the reason GRAM has a page next to the stablecoins here: it is the coin that pays for moving the dollars.

The rename, 2026. Gram was the name in the original 2018 design. The community vote of 1–8 June 2026 adopted it for the coin, and the change took effect on 15 June at 12:00 UTC. The network kept its name, TON, which is why "USDT on TON" and "GRAM" sit side by side and why some exchanges show "TON" for the network and "GRAM" for the coin. Contracts, addresses and balances were untouched.

Block time. Older documentation gives 5 seconds; the network on 14 October 2026 produced a masterchain block about every 0.4 seconds. For a swap the difference is invisible — two confirmations either way, and the minutes are processing.

What has not changed. The 48-character address, 9 decimals, the comment as the exchanges' identifier, and the rule that a jetton transfer is paid in the native coin. A wallet from 2023 sends and receives GRAM today; only the label on the balance is new.

Both networks carry Tether's USDT, both confirm a deposit in minutes, and on both the dollars need the native coin beside them to move. The route between them, USDT TRC-20 → USDT TON, exists because people hold on one and are asked to pay on the other. The comparison uses docs.ton.org, TRON's developer documentation, tether.to and both networks read through their public APIs on 14 October 2026, and the route data this site uses.

The memo. This is the difference that costs money. TRON exchanges give every customer a distinct T… address; TON exchanges give one address and a comment. A USDT on TON payout here carries the memo you enter; a GRAM payout carries none, so it goes to a personal wallet. On TRON the question never comes up.

The fee. On TRON a USDT transfer is a contract call priced in energy, and a wallet can stake TRX to make it free. On TON it is a message priced in gas, paid in GRAM each time, with no staking shortcut; the amounts are small. In both cases the dollars are stuck without the native coin, and in both cases this site has a route that puts the coin into the wallet: USDT TRC-20 → TRX and USDT TRC-20 → GRAM.

Confirmations. TRON's 1 confirmation and TON's 20 are the route data's figures, and the minutes differ by a little: 2–5 against 3–7. Both chains produce blocks in seconds or less; the swap's time is processing.

Addresses. Neither format can be mistaken for the other or for 0x…. TON's two forms of one address (EQ…/UQ…) are the one thing to learn; TRON's hex form (41…) is the equivalent, and the form takes the T… form only.

Where each is used. USDT on TRON is the most widely accepted exchange deposit; USDT on TON is the dollar inside Telegram-based wallets and the services around them. Which USDT networks exchanges accept tracks the first; USDT on TON: addresses, memos, mistakes is written for the second.