The TON Foundation, an organization building on the Telegram-initiated blockchain project, The Open Network (TON), has chosen the TONcoin Fund as its official ecosystem fund. The TONcoin Fund announced on Monday the launch of an ecosystem fund focusing on supporting TON-based projects, securing an initial collective commitment of up to $250 million from major firms within the industry. The fund has earned the title of the TON Foundation’s official incubation partner, meaning that they will support the fund’s portfolio investments. The fund’s contributors included firms like Huobi Incubator, Kucoin Ventures, MEXC Pioneer Fund, 3Commas Capital, the blockchain startup Orbs, TON …

Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov has expressed excitement about the Telegram Open Network (TON) technology still developing after Telegram officially abandoned the project last year. “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,” Durov said in a Telegram post on Thursday. He noted that the project rebranded from TON to Toncoin. Unlike the original TON, the new project is independent of Telegram. “But I wish its team the same success. Coupled with the right go-to-market strategy, they …

Digitalization keeps on coming to one of the oldest games in the world as FIDE, the International Chess Federation, announces its plans for an NFT marketplace. The group said that the marketplace, which launches at the end of November, will be called ChessNFT. FIDE is the first global sports federation to create its own NFT ecosystem and it does so ahead of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2021. The event is set to take place at the Expo 2020 Dubai from Nov. 24 to Dec. 16. Just last month, the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen, won an NFT trophy in …

When this “truly decentralized” blockchain launched on May 7, 2020, it had not sold a single token. A year later, Free TON still hasn’t — and won’t — TON Labs CTO Mitja Goroshevsky said on a May 3 Cointelegraph AMA. That’s unique for a proof-of-stake blockchain, which generally relies on validators who stake a fair amount of a project’s tokens to ensure good behavior. But then, very little is normal about the Free TON project, which arose from the ashes of Telegram messaging service’s Telegram Open Network blockchain. In that incarnation, Telegram presold $1.7 billion worth of tokens to investors. …

Da Vinci Capital, a major investor in Telegram’s Gram token $1.7-billion initial coin offering, has reportedly requested compensation for the failed launch of the Telegram Open Network, or TON. Investors at Da Vinci Capital reportedly sent a letter before claim to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, stating that the fund is planning legal action against TON Inc. and Telegram, Forbes Russia reported Monday. Citing anonymous sources close to Da Vinci, the report initially stated that the fund has demanded $100 million in compensation from Telegram and other firms involved in the Gram ICO. According to the report, Telegram now has two …

TON Labs and China’s Blockchain-based Service Network are collaborating to build applications on the Telegram-built TON protocol. According to an announcement issued on Monday, the partnership grants BSN developers access to TON technology. As with other instances of adapting public networks to the BSN China infrastructure, TON Labs will adapt the Telegram-built TON protocol to suit the demands of Chinese regulations. Hence, the TON network implementation on BSN China will be an open permissioned blockchain version. According to He Yifan, CEO of Red Date Technology — a founding member of the BSN — Chinese developers will be looking to the …

What can contests be used for? Grants are normally reserved for developing infrastructure, apps and other tools, but Free TON says this means other important areas are overlooked. The network’s mantra is to use contests for everything from validators and software development to marketing and social media strategies. An added benefit of this approach is how it enables Free TON community members to find something that they’re passionate about — and make a meaningful contribution to making it happen. Learn more about Free TON Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at …

Earlier this year, Telegram announced that it was abandoning the Telegram Open Network — reeling from the effects of a drawn-out legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. But because TON was an open-source project, with its entire code published on GitHub, the story was far from over. Here, Ton Labs CTO Mitja Goroshevsky reveals how a “devastating” setback was transformed into a decentralized movement involving tens of thousands of people. 1. What happened after Telegram left TON? A community came together and launched the Free TON network based on TON technology independently. The first version of …

A blockchain focused on decentralization has added 105 independent validators to its mainnet, with hundreds more to follow next month. More than 440 validators are set to be involved with Free TON by the end of the year, making it one of the largest and most scalable proof-of-stake networks that the industry has to offer. Free TON’s goal is to achieve “true decentralization.” At present, the blockchain’s multi-threaded architecture delivers an average block time of just 0.2 seconds, far faster than what’s currently offered by rivals. With 440 validators and a 0.2-second block time on the horizon, Free TON’s members …

In 2017, when everything concerned with cryptocurrency and blockchain still looked fresh and interesting, it seemed that there would be no day without a new “revolutionary” project or idea. Decentralized financial system, decentralized torrent tracker, decentralized office documentation system. Decentralized, decentralized, decentralized. The overuse of terms like “transparent,” “distributed” and “blockchain-based” soon made most press papers look generic. The closer we got to the peak of the Bitcoin price at the end of 2017, the more absurd the names of new projects became: “Ethereum-based payment system for slaughterhouse industry workers,” “decentralized blockchain-based dwarf horse breeding platform,” “peer-to-peer personal banking service …

Major encrypted messaging app provider Telegram has expressed support for the mass protests in Belarus against sitting President Alexander Lukashenko. On Aug. 25, the Telegram app introduced a new animated emoji to replace the national flag of Belarus with the white-red-white flag. Opposed to the official red and green flag of Belarus, the white-red-white flag is used as a symbol of the opposition to Lukashenko's regime. With the new feature, the emoji of Belarus’ national flag automatically turns to the animated opposition flag when a single symbol is typed in a message. Telegram’s latest gesture of support for the opposition …

Pavel Durov, CEO of the popular encrypted messaging platform, Telegram, has denied reports that the firm is preparing to sell the company after the failure of Telegram’s blockchain project. According to an Aug. 5 report by local tech publication iXBT, Russia’s internet company Mail.ru is one of the parties interested in acquiring Telegram. Another is an as yet unidentified Russian billionaire. The information was reportedly shared by Russia-based trader and analyst, Kirill Promzin. As reported by iXBT, Promzin predicted Bitcoin’s 2017 bull run back in 2012, even calling the asset’s eventual high of $20,000. Shortly after the iXBT’s report was …