Telegram with its own Blockchain platform?

One of the most popular messaging applications on the market, namely Telegram, is about to release the main-net and token for its platform Telegram Open Network. TON is a block-chain based platform that will appear on the market not earlier than in March 2019. A source that provides us with this information is known to be close to Telegram crypto founder and CEO Pavel Durov.

Telegram, as one of the fastest developing messaging applications, can boast with a number of active users of over 200 million. Because of that, the rankings all around the world place it in the top ten most popular messaging applications in the world. It is also worth to note that Telegram managed to raised nearly $1.7 billion worth of ICO. It is initial coin offering, quite often used as a source of product financing.

According to the source’s knowledge, the CEO and founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, refused to provide an exact date of implementing TON.

Taking into account another source, The Bell, which is a Russian business outlet, the investors of TON were informed that the progress of works estimates at 90%. However, it is possible for the delays to occur, because of, as the source claims: “innovative nature of the development”.

From what we learned, it is possible that TON is going to introduce us with a “new way of exchanging data”. What’s more, the native cryptocurrency known as “Gram” will be the base for it.

Although there have been rumours that Roman Abramovich, the former owner of English football club Chelsea FC, supported the project, it was not confirmed. Up to date, there are two verified investors – co-founder of payment service Qiwi and co-founder of dairy giant Wimm-Bill-Dann.

According to the news from October, where it was said that TON was “70 percent ready”, the Iraqi government decided to introduce further bans and restrictions on the messaging app. What’s more, they stated that any and all cooperation with the application that is supposed to facilitate the process of starting Gram token would be in contrast to the law and it will be an act against the national security of the country and its economics. It is worth to remind that the initial surge of bans started in April 2018 and it has been on since then. Besides that, the application has been effectively blocked on Durov’s birthplace, namely Russia. Everything started also in April 2018, when Durov decided not to share encryption keys with the government and authorities, who invoked the telecommunications laws. At the time, there were around 10 million users of Telegram in Russia.