TON Telegram Open Network Blockchain platform

Telegram Open Network (TON) is a project of a fast, secure and scalable blockchain and network capable of processing millions of transactions per second, simultaneously aimed at both users and service providers, follows from the description. TON can be seen as a huge distributed supercomputer or even a "super server" to host and provide a wide range of services. TON is expected to consist of a set of different services. Among them are the TON blockchain itself (project core), a distributed technology for storing TON Storage files, network proxy anonymizer for hiding IP addresses and transactions on the network, hash table, "used as a torrent tracker" for storing data from network services, TON DHT, a platform for user services, including smart contract-based applications, an internal name system for TON DNS services and users, and a platform for micropayments within the TON Payments network.

2023: The ability for Telegram users to use the crypto wallet

All users messenger Telegram from November 2023 will be able to use the TON (Telegram Open Network) crypto wallet through the messenger settings. This was announced on September 18, 2023 by the press service of the deputy. State Duma of the Russian Federation Anton Nemkin

Starting from November 2023, TON Wallet will be included in the settings and attachments menu for all our users outside the United States and some other countries (if @ wallet is added and the latest version of Telegram is installed, you can see the wallet option in the menu). This step will allow developers to include hundreds of new valuable functions, - said the creator of the messenger Pavel Durov in his Telegram channel.

Initially, the Wallet crypto wallet function became available to Telegram users back in January 2022, but only users of the same bot could try it out. As Durov recalled, in 2022, Telegram users were also able to sell user names and identifiers on the Fragment auction platform based on TON blockchain technology. In total, digital assets worth $120 million were sold at auctions, and the value of some of them, for example, anonymous numbers on Telegram, increased by 27 times in nine months.

This success demonstrated the potential of Web 3.0 in Telegram. For the first time in history, users were allowed to directly own their personal data in. social networks Now we want deeper to integrate blockchain technology in Telegram, - said Pavel Durov.

2022: Who invested in TON loses court in London

On February 6, 2022, the London International Arbitration Court dismissed the claim of mobile application developer Zotobi Management Limited against Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer Inc. for compensation of $280 thousand. This became known in early April 2022. Read more here.

2021

The court recovered from ex-Minister Abyzov and Alfa-Bank $126 million invested in Durov's TON blockchain project

In September 2021, the Gagarinsky Court of Moscow recovered $22 million from the ex-Minister for "Open Government" Mikhail Abyzov, and $30.8 million and 5.6 billion rubles from Alfa Bank at the suit of the Prosecutor General's Office. Read more here.

Two funds demand the return of $100 million due to the failure of TON

Investors of Pavel Durov's TON project through the media are trying to disrupt plans to place a loan of $1 billion by Telegram.

The zavodilas are Zhelezko's Da Vinci Capital fund and Cherkashin's Mindrock. Zhelezko sent a threat to Durov about his intention to file a lawsuit against TON, Telegram and his management, writes Forbes.

Investors are demanding compensation for damage in the amount of about $100 million for the failed project of the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain platform.

2020

The court ordered Telegram to return TON investors $1.2 billion

At the end of June 2020, Pavel Durov said that Telegram paid Telegram Open Network (TON) investors more than $1.2 billion "both directly and in the form of loan agreements" due to the inability to launch a blockchain platform due to the ban on the US authorities.

Unfortunately, we were unable to launch the TON platform as scheduled due to the injunction, so we had to return the remaining funds to buyers - in line with contractual obligations. Due to the fact that the continuation of the trial looks insignificant, we welcome the opportunity to complete it without recognition and denial of responsibility, - wrote Pavel Durov in his official Telegram channel.

Telegram paid investors more than $1.2 billion due to the impossibility of launching the TON platform

He also added that Telegram will continue to work on other innovative projects. It is hoped that in the future, the regulation of blockchain technologies in the United States will become more favorable for market participants, the entrepreneur added.

On June 25, 2020, a court in the United States ordered Pavel Durov to return cryptocurrencies Gram the money collected for the project to create the TON blockchain platform to investors. In exchange for investments, investors were issued Gram tokens, but cryptocurrency as a result, they could not be fully launched due to obstacles from the Securities and Exchange Commission (). SEC

At the end of June 2020, the regulator fined Telegram $18.5 million and ordered the company to report plans to issue digital currency on the blockchain over the next three years. Notification of the creation of cryptocurrency must come no later than 45 days before its release.

Pavel Durov announced  the completion of the TON blockchain platform project in May 2020. He called the reason for this decision a trial with the US authorities and a ban on the distribution of Gram. Durov also described this court decision as proof of the financial and technological dependence of other countries on the United States.^[1]

Launch the TON Sites tool to access sites on the TON network

On February 10, 2020, it became known that the Telegram team launched the TON Sites tool, which allows you to create and access sites in the decentralized TON network (Telegram Open Network). Due to the peculiarities of the network architecture, its users are much more difficult to identify. Restricting access to the site in it is likely to be difficult too.

From a technical point of view, TON sites are not much different from ordinary web pages, but they are accessed through the TON network, which works on top of the Internet (the so-called overlay network). According to the same principle, there are well-known projects of anonymous peer-to-peer networks like I2P and Tor.

Such networks (they are also called darknet or dark Internet) attract a wide variety of audiences: from lovers of anonymous communication, to large underground sites that are engaged in trade drugs, weapons and other illegal activities.

Each site in the TON network has a special ADNL address (instead of the more familiar IPv4 or IPv6 address) and is able to receive HTTP requests via RLDP instead of TCP/IP. Traffic encryption is provided by the ADNL protocol, so there is no need to use HTTPS, representatives of the Telegram team say.

You can get to the TON site using any popular browser. However, the user will first have to install and configure a special proxy server (HTTP- > RLDP), which acts as a gateway between the public Internet and the hidden TON network. The creator of the TON site, in turn, will have to deploy the so-called reverse proxy (RLDP- > HTTP).

TON sites can contain ton ://hyperlinks, when navigating through which it will be possible to make a payment using the Gram cryptocurrency using the TON network infrastructure.

The development of the RLDP-HTTP Proxy utility, which performs both functions described above, is at the alpha stage as of February 10, 2020. Its source code is freely available in the official repository of the TON Blockchain project on GitHub.

On the website of the TON project, a document has been published describing the basic principles of the network, as well as instructions for assembling and configuring RLDP-HTTP Proxy^[2].

Who invested in ICO TON

In January 2020, the SEC named new investors ICO Telegram.

So one of the investors was Mayer Malka, a former member of the Bitcoin Foundation governing council and partner of the Ribbit Capital fund. He was mentioned by Pavel Durov during his testimony at the beginning of the year. Durov added that investors such as Malka could help with validation in the PoS blockchain of the project. This follows from the court documents, CoinDesk was the first to draw attention to them.

Also on the list of possible investors was ABBYY founder David Yang. He was called in one of the messages by the vice-president of Telegram Ilya Perekopsky. According to the SEC, Yang learned from Perekopsky about the possibility of receiving tokens in the event of contacting the company directly and without intermediaries in January 2019. Perekopsky answered positively.

In addition to Malka and Jan, TON investors could be American funds Kleiner Perkins (invested $30 million), Fortress, Draper Dragon, Dragoneer, DRW Holdings and Redpoint. This is evidenced by the declarations of testimony attached by the SEC to a recent motion. At the same time, as follows from the documents, Draper Dragon and Dragoneer were contacted already in 2019 in an attempt to find additional funding for TON.

The documents contain a statement from a witness who claims that in January 2019, the Dragoneer fund invested $15 million in exchange for 39.7 million future tokens. Another DFJ DragonFund, part of Tim Draper's Draper Dragon group, invested $10 million for 26.5 million Gram tokens.

None of the above investors responded to the publication's request, but according to CoinDesk sources, many of them did take part in the ICO.

Witnesses interviewed by the SEC claim that the messenger does not accept funding for its main business, and all investments concerned only TON.

2019

Appearance in the public domain

In early September 2019, Telegram released a test version of its Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain system to the public. Links to the archive with the blockchain code and the repository on GitHub, where the updated code lies, appeared on the site test.ton.org.

In addition to the code itself, the page contains instructions on how to correctly install the node and convert it into a validator. The TON documentation is also available on the test page: a description of the blockchain itself, its elements, as well as the Fift programming language for creating smart contracts in the blockchain. All documents were signed by Nikolai Durov - brother of Pavel Durov and co-founder of Telegram.

The appearance of the test version of TON in the public domain was the last stage before the launch of the project, in which about $1.7 billion was invested.

Since May, the test version has been available only to a limited number of companies, but in September 2019, anyone can check the platform if they have enough test tokens. Gram The launch of the TON cryptocurrencies and Gram blockchain platform has been postponed several times.^[3]

Telegram Open Network blockchain will start working in March

On January 24, 2019, it became known that the working network of the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain platform will work in March 2019. The announcement of its launch will be made by Pavel Durov.

The TON blockchain platform will become the basis for processing GRAM cryptocurrency transactions. Its issue will be carried out by TON Issuer Inc., which as of January 2019 is actively working with crypto exchanges in Japan, China and the UK. The first country in which GRAM will begin to trade may be Japan.

TON should solve the key problem of modern cryptocurrencies - low performance, which prevents the full replacement of global payment systems. Visa and Mastercard can theoretically handle up to 56,000 transactions per second, although, as reality shows, Visa/MC handles about 1,700 transactions per second, and actual performance is rarely higher. The performance of modern cryptocurrencies is even lower. The bitcoin network processes only 7 transactions per second, Ethereum - up to 20-30.

TON Project Roadmap. Source: The Bell

The blockchain test network will be opened in January 2019, in February the test platform will be audited in order to find errors and flaws. In March 2019, Mainnet, a version of the TON blockchain platform, will be launched. If the platform is not launched before October 31, 2019, then Telegram promised to return the money to investors, although it warned that there were no guarantees for this.

According to the developers, in the future, Telegram bots that accept payments from credit cards will be able to exchange cryptocurrency for fiat money without legal registration. First of all, users will be able to buy GRAM with its subsequent conversion to other digital currencies on exchanges. Thus, GRAM will become the link between the fiat and crypto worlds - this function is most widely associated with bitcoin in January 2019.

GRAM will also allow you to make micropayments, make donations. It is planned to be used in the advertising market. According to the creators, Telegram will integrate a convenient Light Wallet crypto wallet, protected by encryption keys. The contents of the wallet will be duplicated in the TON blockchain^[4].

2018

Telegram Passport

The Telegram messenger ​sozdal the first service for its Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain platform . The Telegram Passport service will store user data. Two sources close to the messenger told the Vedomosti newspaper about this. This service will allow messenger users to store their personal data directly in Telegram.

The service will also be able to identify the identity of users: the documents necessary for this will need to be uploaded once to the messenger. Then, through Telegram, they can be instantly transferred to Service-Partners and used their services both inside the platform and on the main sites of services.

In particular, Telegram Passport will be able to collect passports, passports, driver's licenses, utility bills, bank account certificates, and also ask the user to take a picture.

According to a closed page on the telegram.org website, accessed by Vedomosti, only the user will have access to copies of documents transmitted via Telegram - he will encrypt them with his password. two-factor authentications The messenger itself will not be able to get them. The service will be able to receive this information only if the user himself confirms the consent to transfer them.

The messenger is currently testing Telegram Passport behind closed doors. According to the sources of the publication, the service will officially start working at the beginning of summer 2018.

In addition, with the help of the new service, it will be possible to use the services of several partners. As a person familiar with Qiwi managers told the publication, this payment system gained access to the messenger technology.

Telegram refuses investors who fell under international sanctions

Persons included in any sanctions lists of the United States, Great Britain, the European Union and the UN Security Council will not be able to take part in any of the rounds of the Telegram Open Network project closed by ICO. Also, the ban applies to the immediate relatives of such persons, according to the standard form of the agreement on the purchase of Gram between Telegram Group Inc. registered in the British Virgin Islands and Telegram investor^[5].

In addition, it is forbidden to participate in the ICO for any citizen who is a resident or lives in the territory in respect of which sanctions are distributed. At the time of drawing up the treaty, they are considered to be Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria, RBC reports.

All potential TON investors must go through the KYC procedure adopted in financial markets to identify customers and protect against criminal activity.

The model agreement between Telegram Group Inc. and the investor separately noted that the buyer of tokens is not entitled to use them to violate the sanctions regime or launder funds, as well as finance terrorism, but it is not said whether TON itself will track suspicious transactions.

Telegram will create its own cryptocurrency and blockchain platform

The Telegram messenger plans to launch its own blockchain platform and its own cryptocurrency. TechCrunch writes about this in January 2018, citing a number of^[6] sources^[7].

The third generation blockchain platform should be called the Telegram Open Network, in turn, the cryptocurrency will be called Gram.

For these purposes, the messenger plans to attract ICO $500 million through the preliminary. USA At the same time , the potential total cost of tokens will be from 3 to 5 billion dollars. UNITED STATES. The publication believes that this will become one of the largest ICOs, as Telegram has established itself as a messaging platform used worldwide.

As part of the pre-sale to investors who are not part of the inner circle of Telegram creator Pavel Durov, they can set a condition to invest at least $20 million. The United States, at the same time in the form of official, not cryptocurrency. The development team will be reserved  for four years 4% or 200 million Gram units, another 52% of the currency will also retain Telegram to protect it from speculation. The remaining 44% will be in both public and private sale. The currency will be applied to external exchanges and used inside the Telegram application.

In addition, Telegram plans to launch its own electronic wallet in the fourth quarter of 2018. By the same time, the company plans to launch a stable version of the TON platform, including personal Telegram Wallet wallets, in which messenger users can store not only virtual currency, but also ordinary money. At the same time, when translating between crypto wallets, users will be able to maintain complete anonymity, reports Zerich.com.

It is planned that in the first half of 2019 the TON Proxy anonymization tool and TON Storage cloud storage will work. Using TON Services, third-party services can work on the platform.

As the newspaper notes, Telegram is already actually a communication channel for participants in cryptocurrency communities, and therefore the development of the messenger project in this direction is quite natural.

The TON blockchain platform, which will be launched by Telegram, can increase the speed of transactions to millions per second. There is information about this in the technical documentation of the project, Kommersant reports. ^[8].

The speed of bitcoin is 7 transactions, and the ether is 20. Thus, the future Telegram cryptocurrency (it will be called Gram) will significantly outstrip its competitors in this indicator. Experts expect this to affect the work of financial companies and payment systems.

Thanks to this speed, cryptocurrencies will be able to compete with other payments, including bank cards.

Notes