Free TON Network Launched — Telegram Open Network Fork
By Marko Vidrih on The Capital
The startup TON Labs, which participated in the development of the Telegram Open Network (TON), on Thursday, May 7, launched its version of the blockchain called Free TON.
The initiative, which is supported by 13 validators, uses TON Labs code. During a video conference in Zoom, a genesis block of a new blockchain was generated.
“The network must not be censored, it must go to the world,” TON Labs CTO Mitya Goroshevsky said on the call.
Free TON is launched with a native token called TON Crystal (not Gram).
According to Alexander Filatov, CEO of TON Labs, Telegram did not participate in the launch of the project: “It’s an independent launch of the open-source software,” he said in a comment for CoinDesk.
The launch of TON, which was originally scheduled for October 2019, was delayed after the SEC sued Telegram. In late April, the team of Pavel Durov decided to postpone the launch of the Telegram Open Network blockchain platform indefinitely.
However, since the code for TON is publicly available on GitHub, it is technically possible to launch the blockchain without Telegram.
Author: Marko Vidrih
Featured image credit: Telegram
