Telegram Open Network

Telegram Open Network (TON) was a blockchain platform conceived by the Telegram messenger team to enable fast, low‑cost transactions, decentralized applications, and data exchange using the native token $GRAM.

Overview#

TON bundled several components:

TON Storage – distributed file storage.
TON Proxy – decentralized VPN service.
TON Services & DNS – domain name system for the network.
TON Payments – micropayment and peer‑to‑peer transaction layer.

The project aimed to provide a Layer 1 solution capable of supporting Telegram’s massive user base.

History and development#

Telegram reached 180 million users in 2017, prompting the team to explore blockchain technology. Finding no existing Layer 1 that could scale to that audience, they announced the creation of their own blockchain, Telegram Open Network.

The white paper was authored by Nikolai Durov, who highlighted three main problems with existing networks: low throughput and high fees on Bitcoin and Ethereum, onboarding difficulty for new users, and limited merchant acceptance of cryptocurrencies. He proposed TON as a high‑throughput, user‑friendly platform with a large potential user base.

In early 2018, Pavel and Nikolai Durov raised $1.7 billion from private investors for the project. Closed testing began in April 2019, and the public testnet launched on September 6 2019. Developers gained access to a browser‑based interface, smart‑contract tooling, and node software released by TON Labs. Later that month, an alpha version of a $GRAM wallet appeared in Telegram for iOS.

SEC lawsuit

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit on October 12 2019, alleging that $GRAM was an unregistered security. The SEC cited investor testimony that $27.5 million of $GRAM tokens were purchased in early 2018 with the intent to profit from price appreciation.

The court required Telegram to provide information about the ICO’s proceeds and investor identities. Telegram’s team resisted disclosing personal data, and the Southern District of New York denied the SEC’s request for investor details on bank‑secrecy grounds. Litigation continued for several months.

Settlement and shutdown

After prolonged legal battles, Telegram reached a settlement with the SEC, returning unused investor funds and paying an $18.5 million fine. The project failed to launch, the development team was disbanded, and the open‑source code was left publicly available. On May 20 2020, Pavel Durov announced the termination of the blockchain project on his Telegram channel.

Community revival#

Following the shutdown, two community‑driven projects emerged from the released source code:

Free TON (now Everscale) – launched on May 7 2020 by a 23‑validator consortium, using the Threaded Solidity language and dynamic sharding.
NEWTON → The Open Network – announced on May 29 2020, preserving the original testnet2 network. In May 2021, testnet2 was rebranded as mainnet, and the project evolved into the TON Foundation, which now operates The Open Network.

Both initiatives aim to preserve TON’s original design principles while advancing decentralization and scalability.

Original TON team#

Nikolai Durov – programmer, co‑founder.
Pavel Durov – investor, ex‑director of Telegram, co‑founder.
Alexei Levin – C/C++ engineer.
Vitalik Waltman – C/C++ engineer.
Arseniy Smirnov – C/C++ engineer.