Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram messenger, has confirmed plans to rename the native blockchain token TON from Toncoin (TON) to Gram (GRAM). He wrote about it in his channel, RBC reports.
Shortly before his post, a vote on this issue was launched from a verified Telegram account on the TON Vote platform, where token holders vote for changes to the TON blockchain network. But minutes before Durov’s post appeared, the vote was removed from the platform.
Its description said that the blockchain would retain the name TON (The Open Network), and the changes would only affect the token name and its ticker. User balances, addresses, smart contracts, staking, NFT and positions in DeFi will remain unchanged.
Any offers to “exchange,” “migrate,” or “convert” TON to GRAM are scams, the ballot description emphasized. It is solely about changing the name of the token, no user action is required.
According to Durov, Gram was the original name of the TON cryptocurrency in the first version of the concept (White Paper) of the project. He called the renaming a “return to the roots” and “the beginning of a new chapter.”
Durov also said that the name change is the fourth step of seven in the MTONGA (Make TON Great Again) initiative.
Gram was the original name of the Telegram Open Network (TON) cryptocurrency project that Telegram announced in 2018. The company raised about $1.7 billion from investors in one of the largest ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) in the history of the crypto market.
In 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sought through the court to ban the issuance of Gram, deeming it an unregistered security. In 2020, Telegram abandoned the launch of TON, returned some funds to investors and paid a fine.
After Telegram’s departure, the project’s development was continued by an independent community of developers, keeping the blockchain under the name The Open Network (TON). The name Gram remained in the project’s source documents and part of the program code.
Toncoin is ranked No. 20 on CoinMarketCap with a capitalization of more than $5.5 billion. At the time of publication, TON is trading at $2. Cryptocurrency exchanges retain the same ticker, and the rebranding was probably not announced in advance.
