Sergey Solonin, co-founder of the Qiwi group, and TON investor to the tune of $17 million has decided to reissue his investment as a loan to Telegram, according to a report by Forbes Russia, May 16. Telegram Open Network troubles Following Telegram’s well-documented court battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company missed its April 30 deadline to launch the TON network and was prohibited from distributing its Gram tokens. Investors were given until the end of Friday, May 15 to decide whether to accept an immediate refund of 72% of their initial investment, or provide the …

Telegram Open Network is off to a very uncertain future. Earlier this week, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced his company’s “active involvement with TON” was over, following a drawn-out legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The project remains decentralized, however. Although TON lost its main ideologist, an independent community of validators has recently launched the blockchain platform separately from Telegram. So, what is TON without Durov’s supervision, and should other high-scale crypto projects — such as Facebook’s Libra — be even more worried about the SEC coming after them? What was Telegram’s idea for TON? TON …

Per a May 12 message from Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the company is calling it quits on the Telegram Open Network (TON) and the linked Gram tokens following a lengthy battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. After announcing the TON network and Gram token back in 2017, Telegram is now officially terminating its involvement with the project, Durov said. U.S. court breaks sovereignty of global jurisdictions, Durov argues In the post, dubbed “What Was TON And Why It Is Over,” Telegram CEO said that they made the decision in response to a U.S. court prohibiting Telegram from …

Telegram has filed an order of consent agreeing to provide a trove of communications and documentation requested by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on May 7. The communications concern the distribution of Telegram’s Gram (GRM) tokens and purchase agreements relating to its 2018 initial coin offering. Telegram’s consent comes amid the Free Telegram Open Network community’s decision to launch a version of the TON blockchain via a "fork." The SEC halted Telegram’s offering in October 2019 for conducting an unlicensed offering of securities. After six months of proceedings, New York District Judge P. Kevin Castel issued a preliminary …

In a May 7 post, Telegram founder Pavel Durov called the United States a “police state” and discouraged entrepreneurs from moving their businesses to Silicon Valley. Perhaps exhausted by the legal battles around Telegram’s beleaguered token offering, Durov berated the U.S. in his latest post “7 Reasons Not To Move To The [Silicon] Valley.” In the post, he criticized it both as a place to do business and a place to live. The post was only announced in Durov’s Russian language Telegram channel and was published in Russian. Telegram was pressured by FBI The number one reason, in Durov’s opinion, …

Free TON Community, an independent group of developers and users, have just launched a free version of the Telegram Open Network, or TON. During the launch event on May 7, community members answered major questions about the Free TON Blockchain launch. At the launch Zoom call, a number of users were wondering whether the Free TON Blockchain represents a fork of Telegram’s original TON. According to a key community member, the Free TON Blockchain should not be referred to as a fork. “There is no network to fork” Mitja Goroshevsky, CTO at TON Labs — a third-party group of TON …

The Free TON community, an independent group of software developers, validators and users are launching the "Free TON Blockchain" today, May 7. The blockchain would appear to be based on the Telegram Open Network, the blockchain originally created by encrypted messenger app Telegram. The TON community had previously declared that it would release the network, despite Telegram's long-running legal dispute with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the agency's continuous efforts to block the network's launch. According to an announcement shared by TON Labs, the community will launch the Free TON Blockchain along with free "TON" tokens to …

Telegram recently delayed their open network, TON, and their cryptocurrency, GRAM, once again. There is one related project that has not experienced these setbacks, however. TON OS, an operating system for the TON blockchain, will soon get an open source release. TON Labs, a third-party group of TON infrastructure developers, are planning to open source the main components of the TON OS on GitHub tomorrow. Mitja Goroshevsky, CTO at TON Labs, confirmed the news to Cointelegraph on May 6. TON Labs to issue a token known as TON Cash within a month As reported by industry publication, ForkLog, the release …

Soon after missing the April 30 deadline to launch the Telegram Open Network (TON), Telegram sent another letter to its investors. In the new letter, Telegram reportedly said that American TON investors will not be able stay in the TON project for another 12 months. American TON investors will be only eligible for an immediate 72% repayment instead of a 110% refund option in April 2021, Russian news agency RBC reports on May 4. Telegram had to retract the 110% option due to regulatory uncertainty in the U.S. The news comes after Telegram offered to refund its investors on April …

As Telegram again delays the launch of its Telegram Open Network (TON) after missing their April 30 deadline, some key players in the crypto industry don’t want Telegram to launch the coin at all. Michael Novogratz, CEO of crypto merchant bank, Galaxy Digital, and one of the biggest Bitcoin (BTC) bulls, expressed a sceptical stance to Telegram’s blockchain and crypto project in an April 30 tweet. Novogratz wants to turn 400 million Telegram users into Bitcoin consumers According to Novogratz, there is no need to launch either another blockchain network or another cryptocurrency. Novogratz, who is confident that Bitcoin will …

Encrypted messaging platform Telegram appears to have accepted a United States court ruling that the company cannot distribute its Grams tokens or launch the Telegram Open Network (TON) until the dispute has been resolved. With Telegram missing its deadline to launch TON by April 30, a refund clause in Telegram’s purchase agreements means that investors can now claim refunds. However, while proposing an immediate refund of 72% of investors’ stakes, the platform is also offering repayment of 110% on April 30, 2021. Investors who opt to accept the loan may be able to redeem their stake for crypto assets in …

Google Play market and Apple's AppStore will reportedly soon feature the Telegram Open Network (TON) operating system (OS), an end-to-end open-source infrastructure that allows developers and users to work with the TON blockchain. The TON OS will soon become available on smartphones and personal computers for mainstream users, a source close to Telegram told Russian news agency RBC on April 29. TON OS is not an alternative to existing operating systems, but will serve as an add-on for devices, making them able to support blockchain applications. Big plans for the future The source said that with TON OS, users can …