The Open Network

In January 2018 Telegram Messenger and TON Issuer began selling Gram tokens to finance the Telegram Open Network, raising $1.7 billion across two private SAFT rounds.

In October 2019 the SEC sued to halt the Gram offering; in June 2020 Telegram settled by returning $1.2 billion and paying an $18.5 million penalty, abandoning TON, whose open-sourced code was then taken up by the community.

In 2021 the TON Foundation formed and the mainnet ran without Telegram, and in April 2022 peer-to-peer transfers returned inside Telegram through the @wallet bot, warming ties between the two.

In September 2023 Telegram formally chose TON as its Web3 infrastructure partner and embedded a TON-based self-custodial wallet in the official app, giving TON access to a billion-user distribution channel.

In April 2024 Tether issued USDT natively on TON and mini-app games such as Notcoin and Hamster Kombat drove a user surge, with new wallets once exceeding 700,000 a day.

In January 2025 TON Connect became the exclusive wallet protocol for Telegram Mini Apps; in November native USDT covered the whole Telegram Wallet, creating 12 million wallets in six hours as mini apps reached 500 million monthly users.

On May 4, 2026 Pavel Durov said Telegram would become TON's largest validator with about 2.2 million TON staked, and on June 1 TON renamed its native coin from Toncoin back to Gram.

Rebranding and governance shift: Telegram founder Pavel Durov launched the Make TON Great Again roadmap in April 2026. Catchain 2.0 activated on mainnet April 9, cutting block time to about 400 milliseconds; transaction fees fell about sixfold to roughly $0.0005 on May 1; and on May 4, Telegram replaced the TON Foundation as the network's primary steward and largest validator. A June 1–8 referendum approved renaming Toncoin to Gram with 81.22% support, effective June 15 (no swap or migration required); the announcement briefly lifted the token more than 15% in a day.

Ecosystem and institutions: The TVM 14 upgrade activated June 4; Telegram's Gram Wallet opened to first users on August 31; and in September the Config 30 upgrade was expected to raise throughput by up to 30%, Tonkeeper rebranded to Keeper, and Protocol 28 entered governance voting. TON Strategy (Nasdaq: TONX) holds about 230 million GRAM (roughly 4.4% of total supply and about 35% of all staked GRAM), generating about $15 million in Q2 staking revenue; May gross staking rewards were about $5.6 million, an annualized 17.8%.

Current state: The network counts about 57.8 million activated wallets and roughly 2.2 million monthly active wallets; GRAM trades near $1.6, still about 75% below its June 2024 high of $8.25.

On June 8, 2026, a community vote passed with 81.22% support to rename Toncoin to Gram, effective 12:00 UTC on June 15, with the chain still TON and balances carried over 1:1 without migration; the proposal also confirmed Telegram as the largest validator and main driver, citing 10x throughput, roughly 6x lower fees and sub-second finality.

On August 31 Telegram began a phased rollout of its self-custodial Gram wallet, Tonkeeper became Keeper on September 15 with over 77 million users across seven chains, Wallet became Walt on September 29 with 300-plus assets and 70-plus perpetuals, and on October 9 the built-in wallet opened to a billion-plus users as Money, with instant, fee-free transfers from Walt. Protocol 28 entered governance voting in September. The network has about 57.8 million activated wallets, 2.2 million monthly actives, 156,000 daily transactions and roughly $49.6 million in DeFi TVL; on October 21 Upbit suspended GRAM deposits and withdrawals for wallet maintenance.

Future strategy and roadmap: TON, now renamed Gram, is really moving value capture from fees to staking: Catchain 2.0 made block production about six times faster at the cost of lifting annual inflation from roughly 0.6% to about 3.6%, while chain-wide daily fees are only about $8,000, so a near-zero-fee stance means it cannot earn on gas and validator rewards plus a staking yield near 18.5% are the reason to lock tokens. Telegram replaced the TON Foundation as the largest validator with about 2.2 million staked and also holds the roughly one-billion-user gateway, which is both a distribution moat and a single point of concentration; stablecoin supply of $727.7 million in Q1, down 24.3% quarter on quarter, shows the gateway has not yet converted into onchain balances. The remaining MTONGA steps matter only if social graphs turn into payment flow.

Max Crown: President of the Foundation Council and CEO. Studied at London Business School and Columbia Business School; co-founder of MoonPay, where he was CFO and COO; became CEO in April 2025 and added the presidency in August 2025, overseeing the foundation and global team.

Steve Yun: co-founder of the Foundation and Council member, former President. Previously COO of Koinvestor, long responsible for Asia, and founded TVM Ventures in 2025.

Gerardo Carucci: CMO. Formerly at Apple and Nike, handling global brand and marketing.

Anatoliy Makosov: Technical Lead of TON Core, leading open-source core development after Telegram stepped back in 2020, with engineers across Eastern Europe and remote.

Pavel Durov: founder and CEO of Telegram. A graduate of St Petersburg State University who founded VK in 2006.

Development is split between the TON Foundation for ecosystem and governance and TON Core for protocol implementation.

Martin Masser joined The Open Network (TON) as Head of Growth in March 2025 and departed in July 2026. During his tenure, he focused on expanding TON's presence in the US and Europe, aiming to attract more builders and developers to the ecosystem. His departure marks a significant change in the growth leadership team.