TON Foundation Denies Plans for Web3 Smartphone

The TON Foundation team has neither released nor plans to release Web3 smartphones. This statement appeared on the project’s official page on X.

Important! ⚠

TON foundation has NOT released any Web3 phone, anything that you find online is completely community driven initiative.

Currently there’s no plan for that, but if TON Foundation were to release a TON Phone, trust us — You would know about it!

Always DYOR.

— TON ? (@ton_blockchain) May 3, 2024

“[…] everything you find online is entirely a community initiative,” the message states.

The TON Foundation emphasized that there are currently no such plans and urged conducting one’s own research.

In early April, developers at Oyster Labs introduced a device based on The Open Network blockchain priced at $99. At that time, the TON team did not comment on the information. Questions on X also went unanswered.

What’s with the phone from #TON? Because I see people are hyping it like crazy on X. And no one has yet confirmed whether it’s true or not. Everyone’s buying it like crazy

— TON SOCIETY ? (@CryptoBranders) April 5, 2024

On May 3, representatives of Oyster Labs emphasized that they never claimed their device to be a “Tonphone.”

We never claim ourselves to be a Tonphone! We are a project incubated by Ton X HashKey Accelerator. We called ourselves UBS. That’s it. We want to present us as truthful and honest.

— Oyster Labs: Universal Phone (Ton X Hashkey) (@oysterecosystem) May 3, 2024

“We are a project created by Ton X HashKey Accelerator. We called ourselves UBS. That’s it,” the message states.

In May 2023, Solana launched the Web3 smartphone Saga priced at $999, but within a few months, its price was reduced to $599. Later, the project’s founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, admitted to low sales of the device.

However, due to the hype around the BONK meme token airdrop, speculators began buying the smartphone en masse for resale. Some listed it on eBay for $5000.

In January 2024, Solana announced the second version of the Web3 smartphone. By mid-February, pre-orders for the new model reached 100,000 units.