TL;DR
- Pavel Durov announced the launch of Cocoon Network, a decentralized confidential compute network on TON.
- Telegram will be the network’s first major client and promoter, using TON as the base infrastructure for AI.
- The network allows GPU owners to earn TON tokens by lending computing power for AI tasks requiring high privacy.
The popular messaging application Telegram and its adjacent ecosystem have taken a giant leap towards expansion. On November 30, the app’s founder, Pavel Durov, announced that Cocoon Network, a decentralized confidential compute network built on the TON blockchain, is now active and operational.
Known as the Confidential Compute Open Network, this project is designed to process artificial intelligence (AI) requests while fully guaranteeing the protection of user privacy and data confidentiality.
Durov explained that Telegram will be the network’s first major client and its biggest promoter, an integration that positions TON as a central infrastructure layer for confidential AI workloads within the messaging application.
A Decentralized AI Compute Marketplace
The Cocoon Network introduces a new income model for Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) owners. That is to say, anyone with a GPU can earn crypto by running AI models that require strict privacy guarantees.
Users can earn TON tokens in exchange for contributing their computing power, although the system is designed so that they never see the underlying user data they are processing.
The network seeks to scale as a decentralized AI compute marketplace, pairing GPU providers ( including small miners and data centers) with developers who require confidential processing.
To ensure total confidentiality, Cocoon uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), such as Intel TDX, which guarantees verifiable and private model execution. This architecture ensures that even node operators cannot inspect or leak the data they process.
In summary, the integration of Cocoon Network fits into a broader strategy by Telegram and TON to empower the in-app economy. The TON blockchain already supports features such as creator payouts and ads, and now also underpins the incentive layer for AI compute, linking confidential services, GPU rewards, and user-facing Telegram features into a single economic loop.
