Nodes
The TON Blockchain is maintained by a distributed network of nodes.
Some are validators, who produce and validate blocks. Others are full nodes, who keep history and serve data. And at the edge are lite clients, used by apps to interact with the network efficiently.
Together, these components form the backbone of TON’s decentralized architecture.
Full nodes
A full node is the basic node type in TON. It stores the blockchain history and provides access to it:
- Store recent blocks and account states (not necessarily the entire chain).
- Provide APIs and data for explorers, developers, wallets, and analytics.
Validator node
Validators are the backbone of consensus. They also function as full nodes but with additional responsibilities:
- Collect incoming transactions and form new blocks.
- Validate and sign blocks produced by other validators.
- Maintain the current shard state (balances, code, and data of accounts).
- Store recent blocks to extend the chain.
Validators do not need to keep the full blockchain history. They focus on the present — ensuring new blocks are valid and properly added to the chain.
Lite clients
Nodes can run in liteserver mode, which allows lite clients (external applications) to interact with the blockchain. In this mode, the nodes process requests from lite clients, enabling them to access blockchain data, send transactions, and retrieve information about blocks and transactions—for instance, to fetch and update wallet balances.
Lite clients:
- Downloads block headers.
- Verifies Merkle proofs for the specific account data it needs.
- Uses validators’ signatures to confirm authenticity.
Lite clients make it possible to use TON securely on resource-constrained devices (like mobile phones) without trusting any single server.
What do nodes actually keep
Nodes maintain:
- Blocks — ordered chains of transactions.
- Shard states — the current state of accounts (balances, code, and data).
- Proofs — cryptographic guarantees that connect states and blocks.
This ensures that even a lite client can verify the correctness of an account’s state without trusting any single node — relying only on cryptographic proofs.
The role of cells
All data in TON — blocks, accounts, smart contracts — is ultimately stored in cells. Cells are like tiny boxes that can hold up to 1023 bits of data and point to up to 4 other boxes.
Because of this:
- Storage is compact and efficient (cells can be reused in multiple places).
- Verification is simple (Merkle proofs can show that data is correct).
- Serialization is standardized (Bag of Cells).
Transition to cells
When a transaction happens:
- Validators execute smart contracts inside the TVM.
- The resulting changes are written to account states.
- These account states are stored as cells, which are then committed into blocks.
Thus, cells are the fundamental building blocks of TON’s data storage.