Following a long-running battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain project would cease to continue. Founder Pavel Durov announced this in a message posted on the official Telegram channel on May 12.
Durov disclosed that the TON project had ended due to the company’s ongoing legal fight with the SEC.
“It is a sad day for us here at Telegram. We are announcing the discontinuation of our blockchain project,” he stated.
Court ruling led to TON’s end
In the telegram post, titled “What Was TON And Why It Is Over,” Durov blamed the US court ruling for the termination of the blockchain project.
According to him, SEC’s winning of the preliminary injunction led to the decision. And it directly resulted in the barring of Telegram from launching TON or distributing its Gram tokens.
“US court declared that Grams couldn’t be distributed not only in the United States but globally. Why? Because, it said, a US citizen might find some way of accessing the TON platform after it launched.”
Durov went on to explain how it all translated into the prevention of Gram token distribution anywhere in the world. “Even if every other country on the planet seemed to be perfectly fine with TON,” he wrote.
Readers will recall that SEC sued Telegram last year in a bid to prevent the distribution of Gram tokens to US investors.
US tech community needs to wake up
The Telegram founder further expressed his dissatisfaction with the dependent nature of the US finance and technology community. He argued that the dollar and its influence on the global financial system gave the US immense power. According to him, the country could also influence Apple and Google to remove apps from their respective app stores.
“Sadly, the US judge is right about one thing: We, the people outside the US, can vote for our presidents and elect our parliaments. But we are still dependent on the United States when it comes to finance and technology (luckily not coffee),” he said in the message.
Durov stated that other countries seemed to lack full sovereignty over what to allow on their territory. He emphasized this by saying 4% of decision-makers living in the US appeared to control and decide for 96% of the world’s population living elsewhere.
Disassociating Telegram from other initiatives
The Telegram founder additionally disassociated his team from any projects utilizing TON marketing or seeking to present themselves as Telegram itself. He issued a grave warning against trusting them with their token or data.
“While networks based on the technology we built for TON may appear. We won’t have any affiliation with them and are unlikely to ever support them in any way. So be careful, and don’t let anyone mislead you,” he wrote.
This was necessitated after an independent community of validators, launched the Free TON blockchain as a hard fork from Telegram on May 7.
Durov concluded his message by wishing luck to everyone striving for decentralization, balance, and equality in the world. “You are fighting the right battle. This battle may well be the most important battle of our generation. We hope that you succeed where we have failed,” he stated.
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