Last September I wrote a two-part article about the history of TON and how the US Government tried to squash it (part one is here part two is here). When I wrote those two articles, it was because Telegram had just announced TON was being integrated into its messaging service allowing people to send TON to each other. Due to the complex history of TON this in itself was a huge victory and a slap in the face to the SEC and the US Government.

For those who do not know or remember the SEC sued Telegram after it raised $1.7 billion in an ICO for a blockchain called The Open Network or Telegram Open Network with its native crypto being called Gram. The idea was to create a decentralized platform that would rival Google Play, App Store, and become a super app like those in China. The money was raised privately between January and February of 2018 with the SEC being granted an initial restraining order against TONs launch the day before it was set to launch in October 2019. After continued legal battling the company ended up settling with the SEC, agreeing to return $1.22 billion to those who bought into the private ICO and to pay the SEC an additional $18.5 million.

Initially, when this settlement came out it was not clear what would become of this project that had some serious funding behind it. When it was being developed by Telegram it was done so in isolation meaning its development was contained and those working on it were not widespread throughout Telegram and leveraging the same resources it was a stand-alone thing. Before the Telegram team pulled the plug on the development and backed out they released the source codes for TON on GitHub allowing those who wanted to to try and continue the development and building of TON.

Once the original team backed by Telegram pulled the plug a couple of groups formed to try and continue on with TON. One of these groups called Free Ton developed the blockchain for a while before rebranding their blockchain and foundation (essentially creating another crypto) Everscale. Another group that continued to build upon what Telegram was forced to abandon went by the name The NewTON Team and continued to develop TON following the design detailed in the released documents. In May 2021 this team also rebranded as the TON Foundation a not-for-profit community focused on the development of TON. After the rebrand from the end of 2021 to the present the blockchain has been on an absolute tear for development with key developments in 2021 being bridges between TON and both ETH and BSC as well as top listing exchanges. 2022 was marked with TON DeFi, TON DNS, TON Payments, and TON Storage. Before the Telegram announcement in 2023 TON had announced updates featuring Token guidelines and tools, DAO and liquid staking contracts, and decentralized encrypted messaging among others.

Then there was the Telegram announcement.

Remember that the white paper and original technical papers both came from Telegram before the SEC got involved and derailed this. However, last September Telegram announced that it was going to integrate TON's crypto wallet throwing its weight behind TON as its blockchain network choice for Web3. It is almost as if the SEC settlement had not occurred as the result was still the same. Though roughly 4 years later TON became what Telegram had initially envisioned for it and merged the two ecosystems.

With Telegram's integration, TONs ecosystem received an injection of roughly 800 million daily active users. Any project would love to receive an injection like this and TON Foundation by all appearances seems to be making the most out of it and the price surge by TON backs this up.

On February 28th TON exploded going up by nearly 40% when Telegram announced it would share ad revenue via the TON blockchain. This price action took TON from $2.15 to almost $3 in a single day. When Telegram announced this a broader TON-based ecosystem started to take root and emerge. As open interest in the blockchain has continued to emerge TON hit $7 a coin earlier this month. With growth like this TON flew into the Top 10 Cryptos climbing to Number 7 at one point.

Further driving growth was the TON Foundation's partnership with HashKey Group to facilitate hassle-free and seamless conversion of fiat currencies into digital assets and the opposite for wallet users in the Asia Pacific region. Not to mention the launch of The Open League's first season beginning on April 1st. During this first season, the TON Foundation will distribute 30 million Toncoin (worth roughly $188 million) to everyone from newbies to the crypto space to developers and crypto degens based on their activity. The program aims to help bring aboard millions of these Telegram users and as the image below shows create a self-reinforcing flywheel for Ton-based projects.

Remarkably with all this success the US Government and the SEC have been silent. They thought the 2020 settlement ended this project and killed the ideas behind it but underestimated not only the technology but also the will of the people. Tether has so far issued $60 million in USDT to the blockchain which might not sound like a lot given its $100 billion-sized crypto but this issuance makes it already the 11th largest blockchain for Tether.

Stepping back and looking at the situation I just laugh because of the fact the government just got slapped right across the face with the growth in the last 2 months. They do not have any sort of recourse either adding to the smile on my face! It is amazing what the TON Foundation has been able to build from the ashes of the once-promising project and how it has now become everything the government did not want it to become. The biggest obstacle I see TON having is bridging the gap between those who use it because of Telegram and the rest of the 7 billion + people on the planet. One thing for sure though is it would be the dumbest move to count them out!