Pavel Durov, the CEO of prominent social messaging application Telegram has expressed his optimism around the Telegram Open Network (TON) project after abandoning it almost a year ago due to mounting regulatory threats.
Durov stated that the TON project is still breathing and under development even after it was forsaken after a run-in with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Resurrection of TON
On December 23rd, the exec announced in a Telegram post, that the abandoned project has been rebranded to Toncoin. Highlighting the absence of a link between Toncoin and Telegram, the exec said that, unlike the original project, Toncoin is independent of the company. Wishing success to the technology team of the project, Durov, emphasized the importance of having the “right strategy” which would help them make something “epic.” He further added,
“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, it would have been a shame to see this project not benefitting humanity.”
The Open Network
Telegram Open Network (TON) technology, created by brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov in 2017, is a blockchain-based decentralized computer network technology. The project was made to attract the existing Telegram user base to TON and promote the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, turning it into one of the largest blockchains. The network was described as a platform for decentralized apps or services similar to WeChat, Google Playstore, or Appstore and even a decentralized alternative to payment processing services of Mastercard and Visa due to its high scalability which could support millions of transactions per second.
Telegram started working on the TON blockchain in 2018, raising $1.7 billion in funding rounds from various institutional investors around the world. However, in May 2020, the online messaging app withdrew from the project after eight-month-long litigation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
BOT to manage payments
The latest development comes in at a time when, Donate, which happens to be a Telegram-verified payments service, is preparing to enable donations on Telegram using the Toncoin cryptocurrency. Ton has recently partnered with Donate which aims to create a way for users to make donations and pay for their subscriptions in Toncoin. Meanwhile, the channel administrators will be able to collect their income in cryptocurrencies. The recent development witnessed a nearly 30% spike in the Toncoin token price according to CoinMarketCap data.
