In Brief:
- Telegram CEO Pavel Durov expresses excitement about the development of his abandoned TON project.
- Telegram made TON’s code open-source and gave it up to the community following the project’s halt.
- The initiative was rebranded from TON to Toncoin.
Pavel Durov, co-founder and CEO of Telegram, recently posted on his channel expressing his support and delight for TON technology and Toncoin development.
The Durov brothers developed the TON blockchain back in 2017. Last year, however, Telegram, as well as the two co-founders, were forced to leave the project.
Durov stated, “I’m proud that the technology we created is alive and evolving. When it comes to scalability and speed, TON is still years ahead of everything else in the blockchain realm.”
The ‘Telegram Open Network,’ as it was termed, was supposed to be a blend of a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain platform and a native token that could be used to make payments on Telegram’s chat app.
The developers also wanted to experiment with decentralized storage, anonymous network, DNS, and other decentralized services along with Web3.
Unfortunately, only weeks before its anticipated launch in October 2019, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against the business, accusing it of violating securities laws.
As a consequence, the launch was put on hold. The popular messaging app canceled support for the TON blockchain in May 2020. Telegram made TON’s code open-source and gave it up to the community in an effort to keep the initiative alive.
The project was later renamed from TON to Toncoin, according to Durov. The new initiative, unlike the previous TON, is independent of Telegram.
The TON Russian community has around 160,000 subscribers on its official Telegram channel at the time of posting, and the global Toncoin community has around 50,000 followers.
“But I wish its team the same success. Coupled with the right go-to-market strategy, they have all they need to build something epic,” Durov added.
Durov’s statement came as the TON Community revealed the TON blockchain’s collaboration with Donate, a recently launched payment service verified by Telegram.
The collaboration essentially allows users to donate and pay for memberships using the Toncoin cryptocurrency.
The admins of the channels, on the other hand, will be able to get their earnings in the same cryptocurrency.
Additional information about the partnership will be released in the coming days, according to the official announcement.
Last month FIDE announced a collaboration with TON Labs to launch ChessNFT.com, a new NFT marketplace for chess. FIDE will become the first global sports federation to operate its own NFT marketplace with this launch.
