Pavel Durov said in a Telegram channel post that The Open Network’s native cryptocurrency will be renamed from Toncoin to Gram over the next three weeks, restoring the 2018 whitepaper name the SEC blocked. The token climbed as high as $2.21.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Monday that The Open Network’s native cryptocurrency will be renamed from Toncoin to Gram over the next three weeks, in a post to his personal Telegram channel that revives the 2018 whitepaper name the SEC blocked six years ago.
“TON’s native currency is becoming Gram,” Durov wrote. “Gram was the original name of TON’s currency in the first white paper. We’re returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter.” Durov framed the rename as “step 4 of 7 to Make TON Great Again,” the roadmap he has published through the same channel since taking over TON development from the Switzerland-based TON Foundation in May.
Toncoin climbed as high as $2.21 on Monday before paring some of the gain, a 24-hour rise of about 19% according to CoinMarketCap data on the TON/USDT pair, with 24-hour spot volume of roughly $575 million, more than double the prior session. The token had been near $1.83 before the post hit shortly after 15:48 UTC, CoinGecko data showed.
What the Rebrand Changes
The change is a rebrand, not a token swap. Durov said in the same post that “TON remains the name of the blockchain” and that the three-week transition will not require any action from holders, validators or DeFi integrations. Existing TON balances will simply trade under the GRAM ticker once exchanges and wallets cut over.
That distinction matters because the Gram name carries the heaviest legal baggage in TON’s history. Telegram raised about $1.7 billion in two 2018 presale rounds for Gram tokens that were never issued, and in October 2019 the SEC obtained an emergency action halting the offering as an unregistered securities sale.
The June 2020 settlement required Telegram to return $1.2 billion to investors and pay an $18.5 million penalty, and Durov shut the project down the following month. Independent developers later revived the codebase and rebranded the asset Toncoin in 2021 — a name chosen in part to put distance from the litigated Gram brand.
Telegram Roadmap
Step 4 follows three upgrades Durov pushed through the channel since taking the validator helm in May. The network rolled out Catchain 2.0 for sub-second block finality, cut base transaction fees by roughly six times, and made Telegram itself TON’s largest validator with millions of tokens staked through the messenger’s own infrastructure. Three more steps are still to come; Durov has not detailed them publicly.
The market response has been front-loaded into each step. Toncoin roughly doubled from $1.30 to a $2.80 peak through May’s validator-takeover and fee-cut announcements before retracing, and the Gram rename adds another 19% candle on top.
Where It Could Get Awkward
A pure rename does not change supply, fees or the on-chain mechanics that drive long-run token value, and Durov did not pair Monday’s post with the customary detail an SEC-cleared issuer would publish; a transition schedule for exchanges, a coordinated wallet update plan, or a statement from the TON Foundation, which has not yet posted on the rebrand.
Reviving the Gram name also reopens questions about U.S. regulatory perception six years after the original offering was shut down, even though the new Gram is the existing TON token under a new label, not a fresh issuance.
The three-week transition will play out across exchange listings and wallet interfaces through mid-June. Durov has signaled steps 5 through 7 will follow.
