History: Beginnings and SEC
The story of Telegram vs. the SEC almost seems like a lifetime ago I mean after all most of the saga played out during the beginning of the COVID pandemic which to me is mind-blowing. Telegram's blockchain and crypto debut was at one point one of the biggest expected ICOs until the US government crushed the industry. The blockchain was set to be named TON or Telegram Open Network and its native crypto was to be named Gram however this was never to come to fruition due to the SEC filing a lawsuit against Telegram for securities offers.
During the ICO boom, there were tons of projects that honestly were scammy from the beginning and their promises were really just not realistic while Telegram to their credit released a 23-page whitepaper along with a 132-page technical paper something a ton of ICOs really lacked. The goals of TON were high with it becoming the next Apple App Store, WeChat, or Google Play and really helping facilitate mass adoption with the onboarding of Telegrams users. Telegram's ICO ended up resulting in an estimated $1.7 billion being raised which while fantastic also served as a huge issue once the SEC shut it down. When Telegram ended up settling with the SEC they agreed to return $1.22 billion to those who had bought in at the ICO and pay the SEC an additional $18.5 million resulting in Telegram having to issue bonds to be able to afford to pay back this much money as fast as the SEC required.
History: After the SEC Battle
In May 2020 Telegram officially announced it was ceasing its development of the TON blockchain. As a result of the settlement no one was exactly sure what was going to happen to the TON blockchain. When you look back and think about it this was something developed by Telegram for Telegram except now the central creator that had stood up the project and was backing it was abruptly gone.
Luckily for everyone when Telegram stopped development, testnet2 tokens were placed into 20 Proof of Work Giver smart contracts, and a year later a majority vote voted in favor of promoting this blockchain to mainnet status! A little over a year later the initial distribution was finalized and the network entered a new stage of growth most importantly developers started building. Essentially TON truly became a community-run chain something that we do not really see anymore due to either ICO sales or private investments.
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