Why is Toncoin renaming itself to Gram?

To deepen the brand link with Telegram and its roughly 900 million monthly users. Gram was Telegram's original token name in 2018 before regulatory action forced a separation; reviving it ties the asset back to the messenger on the surface.

What was the original Gram token?

Gram was the token Telegram planned to launch through a 2018 private sale that raised about $1.7 billion. The SEC sued in October 2019, a US federal judge blocked distribution in March 2020, and Telegram returned investor funds in May 2020.

Does the rebrand affect existing token holders?

A rebrand does not change token supply, contract addresses, or core economics. The practical impact is ticker symbol changes on exchanges and updated branding across wallets and explorers. Specifics depend on the TON Foundation's implementation plan and how each venue sequences the ticker change.

Toncoin Rebrands to 'Gram' in Bid for Telegram's 900M Users

Toncoin will rebrand its native asset to 'Gram,' reviving the name Telegram first attached to the token it tried to sell in 2018 before the SEC forced the project to scrap it, per a CryptoNews report Tuesday. The move is a direct play for Telegram's roughly 900 million monthly active users, most of whom already have a TON-linked wallet sitting inside the app.

By Clara Hoffmann· AI-assisted· L2 & scaling

What happened

The Open Network's native asset will be renamed from Toncoin to Gram, according to CryptoNews on Tuesday. Gram was the original name Telegram chose for the token it tried to launch in 2018, raising about $1.7 billion from a private investor list that included Sequoia, Benchmark, and Lightspeed. The SEC sued in October 2019, alleging the sale violated US securities law. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction in March 2020. Telegram returned investor funds and walked away from the project that May.

Independent developers picked up the open-source code, relaunched the network in 2021, and rebranded the asset to Toncoin to put distance between the live chain and the litigation. Six years on, Telegram and TON have grown back together at the product level. Telegram integrated TON-based payments inside its app in 2023, embedded the TON wallet for users outside the US, and Pavel Durov has publicly endorsed the network multiple times. Reviving the Gram name closes the loop on the surface without unwinding the legal separation that let the project survive.

Why it matters

Telegram counts roughly 900 million monthly active users, the number cited in the CryptoNews report and consistent with figures the company has shared. TON's bet is that branding the asset Gram inside an app most of those users already open daily collapses the friction between holding crypto and spending it.

The headline read is bullish. The harder read is whether the rebrand pulls fresh US regulatory attention. The original Gram lawsuit set the template the SEC used against unregistered token sales for years, and renaming the asset to the one that lost in court is a confident move - a deliberate one, given that TON has carefully avoided US market entry since the relaunch. A name change does not move tokens into US-compliant wrappers, and the 900 million users that make the pitch work mostly live outside US jurisdiction anyway.

Toncoin Rebrands to 'Gram' in Bid for Telegram's 900M Users

What happened

Why it matters

Market impact

What to watch

Disclaimer

Key takeaways

Frequently asked

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