Telegram’s Durov revives Gram as TON’s native token

Pavel Durov announced Monday that The Open Network's native cryptocurrency will be renamed Gram, returning to the name used in the project's original white paper. TON will remain the name of the underlying blockchain. The announcement was posted on Telegram and Durov said the transition should take about three weeks.

Durov wrote in the post: “Gram was the original name of TON's currency in the first white paper,” and added, “We're returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter.”

The rename is the fourth of seven items Durov listed in his “Make TON Great Again” initiative, abbreviated MTONGA. Earlier elements he described include a network upgrade in April that he said made TON roughly ten times faster and added sub-second transaction settling, a plan to lower transaction fees by about sixfold, and an intention for Telegram to replace the TON Foundation as the ecosystem's primary steward and become its largest validator.

Telegram originally proposed the Gram name when it launched the Telegram Open Network in 2018. Development halted in 2020 after a legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission led Telegram to stop offering Gram tokens; regulators argued those token sales violated securities laws and Telegram agreed to halt sales. The pause prompted investor lawsuits seeking refunds.

Independent developers later continued the project under the name The Open Network. The blockchain has since been integrated with Telegram's app features for payments and digital asset trading. Durov has not provided a timeline for the remaining three MTONGA items beyond the roughly three-week window for the Gram renaming.