The Gram token, the cryptocurrency offered by TON, was frozen by the United States federal court. Recently, Telegram withdrew the appeal against this decision, which means the company is not going to restart the TON project. After the decision was made, Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, declared the team is not actively involved with the project anymore. He, further, criticized the US for overextending its power of regulations. Durov regarding the US federal’s decision stated:
“The 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 So, to prevent this, Grams shouldn’t be allowed to be distributed anywhere in the world – even if every other country on the planet seemed to be perfectly fine with TON.”
The TON project was a decentralized project, based on Bitcoin and Ethereum’s idea. The idea could have been a success if the US federal hadn’t interrupted it. Durov, following his previous statement, agreed to the judge’s statement about the global dependencies on the US regarding economy and technology. He explained, 96% of the world’s population leave elsewhere, but they are dependent on that 4% leaving in the US to make decisions for them. Regarding these issues the CEO was bold enough to state the following:
“This court decision implies that other countries don’t have the sovereignty to decide what is good and what is bad for their citizens. If the US suddenly decided to ban coffee and demanded coffee shops in Italy be closed because some American might come there – we doubt anyone would agree.”
This was a reply to the court when the judge declared after launching the TON, a US citizen can find a way to access it, that is why the platform should not be launched globally.
Some more information on the TON
The TON was announced in 2017. The plan was to introduce a platform called TON and its cryptocurrency called Gram. It was designed to facilitate payment using Gram tokens. This Blockchain platform was going to host decentralized applications. It was able to collect $1.7 Billion from private investors in two private token sales, Gram, through an initial coin offering.
TON was the result of an expert’s two and a half years of work. The CEO explained was going to surpass Bitcoin and Ethereum in speed and scalability, although the idea of decentralization was theirs. The US considered the danger this idea posed to its banking and for proving the importance used the statement made by Durov in the court.
“Existing networks such as the Bitcoin and Ethereum Blockchains cannot replace high-volume transaction mechanisms like credit cards and fiat currency,” although this statement was offered by the court document and Durov denied it saying that some sites may be using his name.
To sum up – Maybe decentralization is against the US government’s wishes. As Telegram CEO mentioned, they are making decisions for 96% of the world population. It is understandable they wouldn’t want to succumb to the idea. They were successful in stopping the TON, since Telegram withdraws its appeal showing its agreement to stop the TON. We still look forward to new ideas since then using Bitcoin and Ethereum might be a step we can take as individuals to help.