TON Foundation is renaming its native token from Toncoin back to Gram — the name originally used in Telegram's 2018 blockchain project before the SEC forced it to shut down. The rebrand is cosmetic only: no token swap, no technical migration, and no new asset issuance. The move is part of a broader effort by Telegram to reassert control over the network through Pavel Durov's seven-step 'Make TON Great Again' roadmap.
Gram's troubled history
Gram was the token at the center of a 2020 SEC enforcement action that forced Telegram to return $1.2 billion to investors. Telegram had raised roughly $1.7 billion through private token sales tied to Gram in 2018. After settling with the SEC — paying an $18.5 million civil penalty and returning $1.2 billion — Telegram stepped away entirely. The project survived only through open-source development and community stewardship, eventually relaunching as The Open Network under TON Foundation with Toncoin as its community-run asset.
Durov's roadmap and Telegram's return
Pavel Durov framed the name change as step four of seven in his MTONGA roadmap, which also flags Telegram's intention to become the primary ecosystem administrator and largest validator. Telegram currently has 900 million monthly active users. The goal is to convert even a small slice of that base into on-chain participants: 1% would mean 9 million Gram wallet users, rivaling the active user counts of top blockchain networks today.
No swap, just a new label
The rebrand rolls out over roughly three weeks across wallets, infrastructure providers, and ecosystem applications. User balances, staking positions, and network operations remain unchanged. TON Foundation is betting that name recognition and Telegram's super-app ecosystem can do for Gram what WeChat Pay did for finance in China — embedding transactions directly into chat.
Toncoin surged 19% after the announcement, reaching about $2.21 in early trading before settling back toward $2.00.
