
On May 12, 2020, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov officially cancelled the Telegram Open Network (TON) project, along with the cryptocurrency expected to run on it — Gram. At Crypterium, we supported the development of TON as it was expected to be a catalyst for digital currencies.
“TON was designed to share the principles of decentralization pioneered by Bitcoin and Ethereum, but to be vastly superior to them in speed and scalability. […] When integrated with Telegram, TON had the potential to revolutionize how people store and transfer funds and information,” wrote Durov in a statement.
Back in October 2019, we gave our users the opportunity to support the development of TON by reserving Gram tokens. Since we only had a limited amount to distribute, we broke down the reservation in several batches. The initial batch of Gram tokens was set at $3.50/unit. And the price increased by $0.10 every 24 hours.
Needless to say, our users loved this initiative and jumped into it with hopes that TON will go live in a reasonable timeframe, and their tokens will become available for use. Unfortunately, that never happened. Without going into details, here’s why:
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission stood on the way claiming that TON was financing its development with Gram tokens, and people (including U.S. citizens) were buying them with the expectation of future returns. Typically, that should have prevented TON from distributing Gram in U.S. territory. Yet, a court stated Gram should be banned globally as U.S. citizens can still find a way to access it abroad.
In this regard, Durov said: “This court decision implies that other countries don’t have the sovereignty to decide what is good and what is bad for their own citizens. If the US suddenly decided to ban coffee and demanded coffee shops in Italy be closed because some American might go there – we doubt anyone would agree. And yet, despite that, we have made the difficult decision not to proceed with TON.”
No Gram, Yes Refund
Prior to the announcement of TON’s cancellation, Durov offered direct investors a 72% immediate reimbursement option. However, if you reserved Gram tokens with Crypterium, you are entitled to a full refund. Here’s what you need to know:
- If you reserved Gram tokens with Crypterium, you are eligible for a 100% refund
- The refunds will cover the total value in USD accepted by the time of reservation
- The refunds will be processed until the end of May 2020
- The refunds will be credited to your Crypterium Wallet account in USDC
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out the Crypterium support team via in-app chat or write to support@crypterium.com.