Free TON, a decentralized blockchain network derived from Telegram’s TON blockchain, is launching the first community contests to power its network. Starting Monday, users, developers and validators are invited to participate in three separate contests, with Free TON planning to distribute thousands of TON Crystals, or Tons, as rewards. On Monday, the Free TON Community officially introduced proposals for the first community contests on the Free TON forum. Each contest aims to distribute at least 50,000 Tons among winners, participants and juries. The three contests are expected to close on May 25. Free TON contests are the only way to …

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 Bitcoin price charts hint at the most exciting breakout in over a year The halving has been and gone — and so far, it hasn’t been the cataclysmic event that some in crypto circles feared. Some market analysts have now set their sights on what will happen next. Cointelegraph’s Keith Wareing says Bitcoin is on …

On May 12, Telegram officially terminated its involvement in its planned blockchain project, the Telegram Open Network, and its corresponding GRAM token. Apparently ending its long-running legal battle with the United States’ regulators, Telegram still needs to sort out $1.7 billion raised in an initial coin offering, or ICO, in 2018. Prior to abandoning the troubled TON project, Telegram CEO and founder Pavel Durov introduced a reimbursement scheme, offering TON investors two choices — immediate 72% refund, or a 110% refund in 12 months. Major $70 million investor is preparing to quit with 72% According to a May 16 report …

Sergey Solonin, co-founder of the Qiwi group, and TON investor to the tune of $17 million has decided to reissue his investment as a loan to Telegram, according to a report by Forbes Russia, May 16. Telegram Open Network troubles Following Telegram’s well-documented court battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company missed its April 30 deadline to launch the TON network and was prohibited from distributing its Gram tokens. Investors were given until the end of Friday, May 15 to decide whether to accept an immediate refund of 72% of their initial investment, or provide the …

Telegram Open Network is off to a very uncertain future. Earlier this week, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced his company’s “active involvement with TON” was over, following a drawn-out legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The project remains decentralized, however. Although TON lost its main ideologist, an independent community of validators has recently launched the blockchain platform separately from Telegram. So, what is TON without Durov’s supervision, and should other high-scale crypto projects — such as Facebook’s Libra — be even more worried about the SEC coming after them? What was Telegram’s idea for TON? TON …

Dr. Steven Waterhouse, a founding partner of Pantera Capital and the CEO of Orchid (OXT), believes that the U.S. government will not let a private enterprise challenge the dollar. In an interview recorded prior to Telegram announcing it had given up on its blockchain project, Dr. Waterhouse said the U.S. government perceives cryptocurrencies issued by companies with hundreds of millions of users as a real threat to the dollar: “The idea that some random startups are going to build their own stablecoins, perhaps with hundreds of millions of installs of a messenger client, whether it's Facebook or Telegram or someone …

Per a May 12 message from Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the company is calling it quits on the Telegram Open Network (TON) and the linked Gram tokens following a lengthy battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. After announcing the TON network and Gram token back in 2017, Telegram is now officially terminating its involvement with the project, Durov said. U.S. court breaks sovereignty of global jurisdictions, Durov argues In the post, dubbed “What Was TON And Why It Is Over,” Telegram CEO said that they made the decision in response to a U.S. court prohibiting Telegram from …

Telegram has filed an order of consent agreeing to provide a trove of communications and documentation requested by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on May 7. The communications concern the distribution of Telegram’s Gram (GRM) tokens and purchase agreements relating to its 2018 initial coin offering. Telegram’s consent comes amid the Free Telegram Open Network community’s decision to launch a version of the TON blockchain via a "fork." The SEC halted Telegram’s offering in October 2019 for conducting an unlicensed offering of securities. After six months of proceedings, New York District Judge P. Kevin Castel issued a preliminary …

In a May 7 post, Telegram founder Pavel Durov called the United States a “police state” and discouraged entrepreneurs from moving their businesses to Silicon Valley. Perhaps exhausted by the legal battles around Telegram’s beleaguered token offering, Durov berated the U.S. in his latest post “7 Reasons Not To Move To The [Silicon] Valley.” In the post, he criticized it both as a place to do business and a place to live. The post was only announced in Durov’s Russian language Telegram channel and was published in Russian. Telegram was pressured by FBI The number one reason, in Durov’s opinion, …

Free TON Community, an independent group of developers and users, have just launched a free version of the Telegram Open Network, or TON. During the launch event on May 7, community members answered major questions about the Free TON Blockchain launch. At the launch Zoom call, a number of users were wondering whether the Free TON Blockchain represents a fork of Telegram’s original TON. According to a key community member, the Free TON Blockchain should not be referred to as a fork. “There is no network to fork” Mitja Goroshevsky, CTO at TON Labs — a third-party group of TON …

The Free TON community, an independent group of software developers, validators and users are launching the "Free TON Blockchain" today, May 7. The blockchain would appear to be based on the Telegram Open Network, the blockchain originally created by encrypted messenger app Telegram. The TON community had previously declared that it would release the network, despite Telegram's long-running legal dispute with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the agency's continuous efforts to block the network's launch. According to an announcement shared by TON Labs, the community will launch the Free TON Blockchain along with free "TON" tokens to …

South Korean IT experts claim that investigators in the Telegram Nth room case could have trouble identifying users who used crypto payments to access illicit videos via the chat platform. Overseas exchanges’ transactions could be an issue According to local media, Maeil Kyungjae, it is more difficult to trace payments made via international crypto exchanges versus local exchanges. A police officer involved in the investigation told Maeil Kyungjae: "It is complicated to realistically track the money that criminals have exchanged in foreign exchanges into Korean Won through illegal exchange offices." South Korean law enforcement members also warned that when illegal …