Telegram announced that it will cease active participation in the TON blockchain. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced this in a message to Telegra.ph dated May 12, 2020, which officially announced the completion of Telegram with TON. Durov announced:
“I am writing this post to officially announce that Telegram’s active participation in TON is over.”
This news came shortly after an independent development group decided to abandon the TON Telegram version. The newly created Free TON celebrated its independence day on May 7th, along with its own Declaration of Decentralization.
However tuesday in a sad message Durov questioned the ability to ever bring decentralization to a centralized world. The depressed Durov wrote:
“We are in a vicious circle: you cannot bring greater balance to an overly centralized world precisely because it is so centralized. We still tried.
2,5 years of pain for Telegram
Telegram's decision to terminate cooperation with TON was made after a long legal battle with the US courts. Telegram's plans to integrate the TON blockchain stalled from the start when a US court ruled that the blockchain's currency, GRAM, is a security token that cannot be traded in the US or anywhere else.
Durov does not mention how this will affect Telegram's ongoing battle with US regulators. Has the project suddenly crashed completely? Durov does not speak. However, Telegram has already proposed return to investors 72% of their initial investment. They also offer to pay investors 110% of their investments by April 30, 2021, if they keep their funds blocked in Telegram for now.
Telegram CEO condemned the ability of the US government to use arbitrary power that affects the lives of people around the world. But, despite Durov’s obvious anger at the tenacity of the legal system, he left the door open for future generations of entrepreneurs who, he said, would enter the fray.
“We leave it to the next generation of entrepreneurs and developers to take the flag and learn from our mistakes,” Durov wrote.