Telegram’s Blockchain Network To Come Soon?

Telegram, a messaging app known worldwide, is reportedly planning to launch the token and mainnet for its new blockchain technology-based network really soon, as early as March this year. This new network will be called Telegram Open Network (TON) and this report comes from an independently unverified source as a strong rumour doing the rounds in the crypto circuit.

The source who apparently reported this is said to be a close associate of Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram. This particular update comes with a caveat that Durov himself is not too inclined to give out a definite date for the release yet. However, even though the March scheduling seems only very tentative, it is heartening to note that the rollout of the new Telegram Open Network is expected to happen so soon.

Telegram is a rather popular messaging app that has a user base that goes up to over approximately two hundred million users each and every month. By virtue of the numbers it cranks up, Telegram has proven itself to be one of the top ten messaging apps (in terms of popularity) all over the world.

The company owning it has managed to raise a whopping sum of $1.7 billion in 2018 over two private ICO (initial coin offerings) rounds. This funding is not just meant for Telegram alone but for TON as well.

A Russian business media source reported in connection to this that members of Pavel Durov’s team had communicated to investors that TON was almost entirely ready, about ninety per cent.

Even so, it is said, delays and bottlenecks are not entirely unlikely given that a novel, creative and innovative platform is on its way to fruition.

The new offering TON will be supported by its native cryptocurrency called the Gram. Given that Telegram has seen such massive success with the pre-sales and private ICO, it has already set a benchmark for itself.

In fact, in view of the unexpected success, the public ICO that was scheduled to be held in the later part of 2018 was cancelled.

While very little data has been made public regarding which investors are backing this project, we know for sure that Sergei Solonin, who co-founded the payment service called Qiwi, and David Yakobashvili, who co-founded Wimm-Bill-Dann, a dairy major, have put their money on it.

It must however be noted that two countries have already taken an offensive-defensive stance towards TON and Gram.

Iran, which has long been anti-Telegram has taken measures to block the new offerings and Russia has followed suit, owing to alleged non-compliance with their need to access Telegram’s encryption codes.