Some investors are suing Telegram, claiming they didn’t get fully paid for the failed GRAM coin … [+]
A few years ago, messaging app Telegram announced it was creating a blockchain called the Telegram Open Network (TON). It would have its own coin called Gram. You were going to be able buy and sell things on Telegram using Gram. It would be as exciting as buying and selling things on Facebook with Libra, if that was a thing. It’s not. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it could rival the dollar in commerce and the Federal Reserve, no fan of cryptocurrencies except their own central bank digital dollar, put the kibosh on Facebook’s digital currency wing, known as the Diem Association.
Things fall apart.
Not so for Telegram, it seems. Telegram has what Facebook wanted.
After the SEC killed Gram, Toncoin took its place as a new option, an alternative to Gram, which was more like an investment in Telegram itself. Toncoin is different, and is not an investment in Telegram. The two are separate legal entities according to Telegram press office – a fact challenged by many Gram investors. But Toncoin, like Gram before it, is the native cryptocurrency of the messaging app Telegram.
In January 2022, there were around 200 thousand active wallets holding Toncoins….
