The history of Ton coin
(TON) is a story of ambition,
regulatory challenges, and a community-led revival. Here is a summary of the
key phases: The Telegram Open Network (TON) and
Gram (2018-2020): Inception: The
project began in 2018 under the leadership of Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the
founders of the messaging app Telegram Vision:
They aimed to create a fast, scalable, layer-1 blockchain called the Telegram
Open Network (TON) to support a decentralized internet and a native
cryptocurrency called Gram. Funding and Conflict: Telegram raised a massive $1.7 billion in a private Initial
Coin Offering (ICO). However, in 2019, the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Telegram, alleging the sale of
Gram tokens constituted an unregistered securities offering. Abandonment: After a prolonged legal battle, Telegram
was forced to settle with the SEC in 2020, agreeing to stop the project, pay a
penalty, and return funds to investors. Telegram
formally ceased its work on TON. Community Revival and The Open
Network (2020-Present): Open Source Handover:
Before abandoning the project, Telegram made the TON blockchain code
open-source. Community Takeover:
Independent developers and enthusiasts, led by members of the
"NewTON" community (later establishing the TON Foundation),
decided to continue the development of the open-source code. They renamed the network The Open Network, keeping
the TON acronym, and renamed the native cryptocurrency Toncoin (TON).
Decentralized Distribution: To ensure a fair
and decentralized distribution, the vast majority (98.55%) of the initial 5
billion Toncoins were placed into special "Proof-of-Work Giver" smart
contracts, allowing anyone to mine them until the distribution ended in June
2022. Mainnet and Evolution: The
community-led network's Testnet2 was promoted to the mainnet in May 2021,
shifting its consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to enhance stability
and security. Integration with Telegram (2022-Present): While legally separate from Telegram, Toncoin's ecosystem
has seen increasing integration with the Telegram messaging app. Features like peer-to-peer Toncoin transfers via a wallet
bot (@wallet) and the launch of a self-custodial wallet ("TON Space")
within Telegram have led to significant growth and adoption. Toncoin is also used for features like buying Telegram ads
and in-app premium subscriptions. In essence,
Toncoin is the successful revival of the blockchain project originally created
by Telegram, now developed and maintained by a decentralized community known as
the TON Foundation.
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