Although Telegram has terminated its blockchain project, Telegram Open Network (TON), in May 2020, the TON test net has been apparently running for almost one year. In a July 6 update, the official TON development group on Telegram announced that it would be discontinuing its support of the test network for TON. Remaining TON validators will be turned off by August 1. In the post, the TON official recommended network participants save all their relevant data and stop their testing processes. Despite the testnet being set to shut down less than a month from now, network participants will still be …

Shortly after lifting the country’s Telegram ban, Russian authorities began investigating potentially fraudulent offerings involving the company’s unlaunched token, Gram. The token was at one time meant to serve a new blockchain ecosystem known as the Telegram Open Network, or TON. Reports indicate that Russian prosecutors are set to investigate a British firm that allegedly sold fraudulent tokens related to Telegram’s terminated blockchain project. The news was reported on July 3 by the local news agency, Baza.io. According to the report, the action was brought to a local investigative committee by “several Russian entrepreneurs” that claimed to have purchased $11.7 …

Telegram, the creator of the failed Gram (GRM) token and the Telegram Open Network, or TON, was well into investor reimbursement weeks before a court in the United States ruled that the firm had to return $1.2 billion. A U.S.-based TON investor tells Cointelegraph that he got his 72% refund from Telegram in late May 2020. According to a bank statement seen by Cointelegraph, the investor received $7.2 million out of the original $10 million investment through a wire transfer. Telegram CEO says that the firm has repaid over $1.2 billion already The investor’s statement backs up Telegram’s recent announcement …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week PayPal is hiring crypto engineers amid rumors of Bitcoin integration There have been a lot of rumors surrounding PayPal this week. A report suggested that the online payments giant plans to allow hundreds of millions of users to buy and sell crypto directly. Job vacancies for crypto and blockchain experts have added fuel to the …

The Korea Internet and Security Agency, or KISA, plans to develop an artificial intelligence-based software to trace cryptocurrency transactions on the dark web in response to the Telegram Nth Room sexual ring case. According to New Daily, the government has been working on solutions since January, as authorities faced difficult obstacles amid the investigation of the child porn case in South Korea, where people could buy access to videos with sexually explicit content containing minors. The KISA says that such software relies on machine-learning technology, which automatically traces inside South Korean’s dark web sites that process crypto transactions. The authority …

On June 26, Judge Kevin Castel signed the final judgment in the SEC v. Telegram case, which will require Telegram pay back $1.2 billion to investors in their ICO for the failed Telegram Open Network. Cointelegraph reported on the final judgment proposed yesterday. What has changed is the approval of the court, putting an end to a legal drama that began with the SEC ordering a stop to Telegram’s impending distribution of GRAM tokens. Per the SEC’s announcement on today’s approval: “New and innovative businesses are welcome to participate in our capital markets but they cannot do so in violation …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note The largest city in the United States and the world’s financial capital for most of the past century, New York City is also used to playing a starring role in the worlds of art, music, literature and film. What with all the attention, the Big Apple sometimes gets a big head. But this week, it’s also earned the spotlight as the stage for a marathon of fintech law dramas. Given New York City’s status, it’s not uncommon for Americans …

The United States’s Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has filed a proposal for final court judgement in regard of the terminated Telegram Open Network project. In a proposed final judgment filed on June 25, the SEC has asked the New York Southern District Court to order million dollar penalties to multiple defendants related to the case. “Defendants are jointly and severally liable for disgorgement of $1,224,000,000,” the SEC wrote in the proposed judgement. As of press time, the judgement has been received by the court. Although the court has “reviewed and approved as to form” the proposed judgment, it …

Telegram, a major privacy-focused messaging app, has suffered a data leak that exposed some personal data of its users on the darknet. A database containing the personal data of millions of Telegram users has been posted on a darknet forum. The issue was first reported by Russian-language tech publication Kod.ru on Tuesday. According to the report, the database contains phone numbers and unique Telegram user IDs. It remains unclear exactly how many users' data was leaked while the database file is about 900 megabytes. About 40% of entries in the database should be relevant Telegram has reportedly acknowledged the existence …

In a sudden turn of events, Russia’s communications watchdog — Roskomnadzor — issued a public statement on June 18, announcing that it has lifted its ban on the popular messaging app Telegram. This decision comes after a two-year period of the Russian government unsuccessfully attempting to block the popular social media messaging app and its various activities within its borders. On the matter, a number of local media outlets claimed that the reason behind the move was the government’s incompetence to curb Telegram’s use within the country. However, a spokesperson for Roskomnadzor made it clear that that the decision was …

Russia’s decision to lift its two-year Telegram ban is going to mark the beginning of a broader movement to protect privacy-focused apps like Telegram, the company’s CEO says. Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, issued a statement in response to Russian authorities officially terminating the ban on the messaging app in the country last week. Telegram’s progress in Russia to help other countries In a June 21 Telegram post, Durov said that the company will not rest on its laurels, and is planning more efforts to support Telegram in other countries like China and Iran. According to Durov, the …

Editor’s note: The week has been remarkably active for policy, possibly as a result of economies showing signs of heading slowly back to normal. While crisis remains, it seems like everyone has gotten numb to crisis mode. Recent news has been quite kind to crypto all over the world. We may in fact be seeing a trend that many predicted back in March when COVID-19 lockdowns first took hold. Beyond the immediate importance that a disease that can be transmitted by cash gave to digital payments — or even the need to send money to hundreds of millions of people …