Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced on June 1, 2026, that The Open Network's native token will be renamed from Toncoin to Gram — the same name a U.S. federal judge blocked in March 2020 after the SEC sued Telegram over a $1.7 billion unregistered token sale. The rename is step four of seven in Dur...
"Gram was the original name of TON's currency in the first white paper. We're returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter." — Pavel Durov, CEO, Telegram
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced on June 1, 2026, that The Open Network's native token will be renamed from Toncoin to Gram — the same name a U.S. federal judge blocked in March 2020 after the SEC sued Telegram over a $1.7 billion unregistered token sale. The rename is step four of seven in Durov's "Make TON Great Again" (MTONGA) roadmap, which began in April 2026 with a consensus-layer upgrade and has since included a sixfold fee cut, Telegram becoming the network's largest validator, and now the brand restoration. The transition will roll out across wallets and infrastructure over approximately three weeks. No token swap is required.
TON rose approximately 15% on the announcement, with trading volume jumping 135%. The rally occurred against a backdrop of broad market weakness: Bitcoin fell below $70,000 for the first time since April and Ethereum breached $2,000 support on the same day. The divergence illustrates the market's appetite for narrative catalysts during risk-off conditions.
The economic question is whether a name change attached to a seven-step operational overhaul can reverse TON's structural underperformance — a network with 950 million addressable users through Telegram but only $69–82 million in DeFi TVL, down from nearly $800 million in 2024.
Durov unveiled the MTONGA plan in April 2026, framing it as a seven-step campaign to make TON the primary payment and application layer for Telegram's user base. Four steps have been executed:
| Step | Description | Date | Status | |------|-------------|------|--------| | 1 | Catchain 2.0: Consensus upgrade reducing block times from ~2.5 seconds to ~400 milliseconds; transaction finality from ~10 seconds to under 1 second | April 9, 2026 | Complete | | 2 | Fee reduction: Standardized transaction costs at 0.00039 TON (~$0.0005 per transfer), a sixfold decrease | April 2026 | Complete | | 3 | Validator takeover: Telegram staked 2.2 million TON, becoming the network's single largest validator | May 2026 | Complete | | 4 | Gram rename: Native token rebranded from Toncoin to Gram | June 1, 2026 | In progress (3-week rollout) | | 5 | New developer tools | TBA | Pending | | 6 | Revamped ton.org and TON Pay 2.0 for in-app payments | TBA | Pending | | 7 | TON Teleport bridge for Bitcoin liquidity | TBA | Pending |
Steps 1 and 2 are infrastructure changes with measurable impact: sub-second finality and sub-cent transaction fees put TON in the same performance tier as Solana and Sui. Step 3 is a governance shift — Telegram moving from arm's-length supporter to the network's dominant operator. Step 4 is brand strategy.
The unreleased steps — developer tooling, a payment product, and a Bitcoin bridge — would, if executed, address the two primary gaps in TON's economic profile: thin DeFi infrastructure and limited cross-chain liquidity.
The name Gram carries regulatory history. In January 2018, Telegram raised $1.7 billion across two private rounds to fund development of the Telegram Open Network and its native Gram token. Initial purchasers paid approximately $0.38 (round one) and $1.33 (round two), with Grams marketed at a reference price of $3.62 — implying premiums of 852% and 172%, respectively.
On October 11, 2019, the SEC filed suit in the Southern District of New York, alleging Telegram conducted an unregistered securities offering. On March 24, 2020, Judge P. Kevin Castel granted a preliminary injunction blocking distribution of Gram tokens. The ruling held that the sale constituted an investment contract under the Howey test.
On June 10, 2020, Telegram settled: $18.5 million in civil penalties, $1.22 billion returned to investors, and a requirement to notify the SEC at least 45 days before issuing any future digital assets. Durov walked away from the project entirely.
What exists today is not the same entity the SEC halted. After Telegram abandoned TON in 2020, independent developers forked the codebase and launched what became the community-governed TON blockchain. The TON Foundation — a separate entity from Telegram — managed ecosystem development from 2021 through early 2026. Telegram re-entered the ecosystem through Wallet integrations in 2023–2024 and formally reclaimed operational leadership in May 2026, sidelining the Foundation.
The legal distinction matters. The 2020 enforcement action targeted Telegram as the central promoter of a security. The current network is a proof-of-stake chain that Telegram has rejoined as the largest validator — a structurally different relationship. However, legal analysts note that Telegram's formal re-entry, combined with the restoration of the Gram name, invites scrutiny from regulators who required the company to notify them of future digital asset activity. The current U.S. regulatory posture is materially different from 2020: the SEC has shifted toward rulemaking rather than enforcement-driven precedent under the present administration, reducing — but not eliminating — the risk of renewed action.
Despite access to Telegram's 950 million-plus monthly active users (Telegram crossed 1 billion MAU in March 2025), TON's on-chain economic activity remains modest relative to competing Layer 1s.
| Metric | TON (2026) | Context | |--------|-----------|---------| | Market cap | ~$5.5 billion (at $2.05/TON) | Ranked outside top 20 by market cap | | DeFi TVL | $69–82 million | Down from ~$800 million peak in 2024 | | Daily active addresses | ~500,000 | Fourth among major L1s | | Daily transactions | ~2.16 million | Briefly surpassed Solana during peak periods | | Q1 2026 transactions | 1.5 billion | Strong throughput but low-value activity | | Stablecoins on network | $770 million ($580M in USDT) | Concentrated in a single issuer | | Daily DEX volume | ~$4.5 million | Fraction of Ethereum or Solana DEX volumes | | Monthly active wallets | ~1.78 million | Less than 0.2% of Telegram's user base |
The gap between distribution potential (950M+ Telegram users) and actual engagement (1.78M monthly wallets, $4.5M daily DEX volume) defines TON's central economic problem. The network processes high transaction counts at low value — consistent with micro-payment and gaming use cases rather than capital-intensive DeFi activity.
Catchain 2.0 addresses latency. The fee cut addresses cost. Neither directly addresses the TVL and DEX volume gap, which reflects a deficit of DeFi protocols, liquidity depth, and cross-chain bridge infrastructure — issues that steps 5–7 of MTONGA are ostensibly designed to resolve.
Token rebrands in crypto have a mixed record. The data suggests that name changes correlate with short-term price appreciation but rarely alter long-term fundamentals.
| Rebrand | Date | Initial Price Impact | Long-Term Outcome | |---------|------|---------------------|-------------------| | LEND → AAVE | Oct 2020 | Strong rally | Success: coincided with protocol upgrade and DeFi boom; became top-5 DeFi protocol | | MATIC → POL | Sept 2024 | Modest rally | POL declined 91% from its 2024 ATH of $1.24 to $0.111 by March 2026 | | BIT → MNT | 2023 | +56% post-rebrand | Down 50% on full trade history; mixed results | | MC → BEAM | Oct 2023 | +70% post-rebrand | Down 70% across full trade history |
The critical variable is not the name but what accompanies the name change. AAVE's rebrand succeeded because it coincided with a protocol-level product upgrade (flash loans, multi-asset lending) during a favorable market cycle. MATIC → POL introduced new tokenomics (2% annual emission split between staking and treasury) but occurred during an adverse altcoin market and amid stiff L2 competition. The name change did not arrest the decline.
For TON → Gram, the relevant comparison is AAVE: the rebrand is paired with a technical overhaul (Catchain 2.0, fee cuts) and a governance shift (Telegram as lead validator). Whether it produces AAVE-like results depends on whether steps 5–7 deliver sufficient protocol infrastructure to capture DeFi activity from Telegram's user base — an execution question, not a branding one.
Parallel to the MTONGA campaign, the TON Foundation and Kingsway Capital Partners are structuring a $400 million PIPE (private investment in public equity) to create a publicly listed company that will accumulate Toncoin as a core treasury reserve. Manuel Stotz, who heads Kingsway Capital and serves as president of the TON Foundation, is leading the initiative. Cohen & Co. is providing advisory services, having previously supported a $1.5 billion Ethereum-focused treasury deal.
The model replicates Strategy's (formerly MicroStrategy) Bitcoin treasury approach — using public-market equity to fund token accumulation. Strategy's stock has appreciated more than 3,400% over five years using this structure, though it recently disclosed its first Bitcoin sale since late 2022 amid market pressure.
The $400M figure is material relative to TON's $5.5 billion market cap (~7.3% of total value). A concentrated buyer at that scale could influence token price, particularly in a thin market. However, the structure also introduces reflexivity risk: if the public company's valuation depends on TON's price, and its buying supports that price, any reversal could trigger a deleveraging spiral — a risk the Strategy model has so far avoided only because Bitcoin's liquidity absorbs even large positions.
An additional complication: the TON Believers Fund unlocks approximately 36.59 million TON monthly (~$75 million at current prices), with distributions scheduled through October 2028. The Kingsway PIPE vehicle would need to absorb not only market supply but also these scheduled unlocks to maintain price support.
Regulatory exposure. The SEC's 2020 consent order required Telegram to provide 45 days' notice before issuing future digital assets. Durov's formal reassumption of network leadership and restoration of the Gram name — the same token name the court blocked — could trigger renewed regulatory interest, even under a less aggressive SEC. The legal argument that today's TON is a community-built network distinct from the 2018 ICO weakens as Telegram's operational role grows.
User conversion. TON's fundamental thesis is that Telegram's 950M+ users can be converted into blockchain participants. After three years of wallet integration and mini-app ecosystems, 1.78 million monthly active wallets represent a 0.19% conversion rate. Catchain 2.0's performance improvements are necessary but insufficient — the bottleneck is application-layer demand, not transaction speed.
TVL collapse. DeFi TVL on TON has fallen from ~$800 million to $69–82 million — a decline of over 90%. This reflects both market-wide DeFi compression (total DeFi TVL across all chains fell to ~$78 billion, down 25% year-to-date) and TON-specific protocol weakness. Without meaningful DeFi infrastructure, the Gram rename does not change the economic utility of the token.
Treasury reflexivity. The Kingsway PIPE creates a buy-side backstop but also introduces leveraged exposure to TON's price. Combined with monthly Believers Fund unlocks of ~$75 million, net supply dynamics could work against the treasury vehicle in a down market.
Execution dependency. Steps 5–7 of MTONGA — developer tools, TON Pay 2.0, and the Bitcoin bridge — address the network's actual deficits. The Gram rename is step 4. The market is pricing in the full roadmap; delivery risk remains.
The Gram name revival completes a six-year arc: from Telegram's $1.7 billion ICO in 2018, to the SEC injunction in 2020, to community stewardship from 2021–2025, and back to Telegram-led operations in 2026. The rename itself is a branding event. The underlying MTONGA program contains genuine infrastructure improvements — sub-second finality, sub-cent fees, and a forthcoming payment product — that address some of TON's competitive gaps.
The network's core challenge is unchanged: converting Telegram's massive user base into economically active blockchain participants. At 0.19% wallet conversion and $4.5 million daily DEX volume, that conversion has not yet occurred. The Gram name, Catchain 2.0's performance, and the Kingsway treasury vehicle are inputs. The output — whether measurable economic activity materializes on TON — remains to be demonstrated.