Durov Revives the Original Name Telegram CEO @durov has announced that $TON, the native currency of The Open Network blockchain, will be rebranded to $GRAM. According to Durov, GRAM was the o
Telegram CEO @durov has announced that $TON, the native currency of The Open Network blockchain, will be rebranded to $GRAM. According to Durov, GRAM was the original name assigned to the currency in Telegram's first whitepaper, published in 2018, and restoring it is intended to "pave the way for what comes next." The transition is expected to take up to three weeks. Importantly, the name of the underlying blockchain itself will remain unchanged.
The name GRAM carries significant history. TON made its debut in 2018 as "Telegram Open Network", and its TestNet 2 was rolled out in 2019 with 5 billion Gram tokens. Telegram originally developed the network under Pavel and Nikolai Durov, but the project was halted after US Securities and Exchange Commission action over the sale of Gram tokens. In June 2020, the SEC said Telegram and TON Issuer agreed to return more than $1.2 billion to investors and pay an $18.5 million civil penalty to settle charges tied to an unregistered digital token offering. The native currency, originally called Gram, was subsequently renamed Toncoin, and by 2021, Durov supported the new Toncoin cryptocurrency.
The rebrand does not arrive in isolation. It forms part of a roadmap Durov has been calling MTONGA, short for "Make TON Great Again," a seven-step plan focused on technical superiority and product integration. Durov announced the seven-step plan on April 9, beginning with the Catchain 2.0 consensus upgrade that cut block times from 2.5 seconds to approximately 400 milliseconds. That was followed by a sixfold reduction in transaction fees. On May 4, 2026, Durov then announced that Telegram would replace the TON Foundation as the primary driver of the network and become its largest validator, marking a significant shift in governance. The GRAM rebrand now represents the fourth step in that sequence.
Following the MTONGA announcement, Telegram has staked approximately 2.2 million TON and cut fees 6x. An independent group of developers had previously relaunched the network as The Open Network under the TON Foundation banner, and rebuilt it from a court-killed token sale into a chain integrated across Telegram's 950 million user base. Returning the currency to its original name signals that Durov views this as a full-circle moment, closing a chapter that began with regulatory setbacks and reopening it under Telegram's direct stewardship.
No token swap is required as part of the rebrand. Holders of $TON will see the name and ticker update to $GRAM over the course of the transition window, with no change to the underlying blockchain or token mechanics.
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