Gram (prev. Toncoin) (GRAM) - Fundamental Analysis September 2026

Core definition and technology

Gram, formerly Toncoin and previously identified by the ticker TON, is the native cryptocurrency of The Open Network, a sharded Layer-1 blockchain originally designed by Telegram and later continued by independent open-source developers and the TON community.

The blockchain remains named The Open Network (TON). The June 2026 change affected the asset’s displayed name and ticker, changing Toncoin/TON to Gram/GRAM. It was reported as a 1:1 rebrand, not a new token launch or blockchain migration. Balances, wallet addresses, smart contracts, staking positions, transaction history, and supply mechanics remained unchanged, and holders generally did not need to claim or swap tokens.

The name “Gram” comes from Telegram’s original 2018 blockchain plans. It should not be confused with unrelated assets using similar names or tickers, such as GRM or GRAMPUS.

Blockchain architecture

TON is designed as a high-throughput, multi-chain network. Its architecture separates coordination, execution, and transaction processing across several layers.

TON’s design is based on dynamic sharding. When activity increases, the network can split shards to process more transactions in parallel, then merge them when demand falls. TON documentation describes a theoretical capacity of up to (2^{32}) workchains and up to (2^{60}) shardchains per workchain, although the live network uses only a small fraction of these theoretical limits.

Smart contracts communicate through asynchronous internal messages rather than relying solely on synchronous execution. This makes it possible for independent operations to run concurrently across shards, which is important for high-volume applications, but it also means developers must carefully manage delayed messages, cross-shard state changes, and transaction outcomes.

TON stores contract code, account state, and messages in a tree-like structure known as cells. Cells support compact serialization, cryptographic hashing, and Merkle-proof verification. Smart contracts run on the TON Virtual Machine (TVM), a stack-based virtual machine designed specifically for this architecture.

The smallest unit of Gram is the nanoGram, with one Gram divisible into 1 billion nanos.

Primary use cases

Gram has utility within the TON network and in applications connected to Telegram.

Network fees

Gram is used to pay for:

• Standard transfers.
• Smart-contract execution.
• Cross-shard message forwarding.
• Jetton and NFT transactions.
• Contract deployment and storage-related operations.
• Validator deposits and other network services.

TON’s official website has cited typical transfer costs of approximately 0.00039 Gram, while transfers of native USDt have been cited at approximately 0.001 Gram. Actual fees vary by transaction type and network conditions.

Staking and validation

Gram is the economic asset used by validators, nominators, and liquid-staking protocols. Validators lock Gram as collateral, participate in consensus, and receive newly issued Gram as rewards. Users who do not operate validator infrastructure can delegate through nominator pools or liquid-staking applications.

Examples of staking models include:

• Direct validator participation.
• Nominator pools, with TON documentation citing a 10,000-Gram minimum deposit for the referenced program.
• Liquid staking through protocols such as Tonstakers, Bemo, and Hipo.

Liquid-staking systems may issue a transferable representation of staked Gram, but withdrawal periods, fees, governance rights, and smart-contract risks differ by protocol.

Governance

Staked Gram can be used in validator-based governance. Validators vote on certain protocol proposals, network parameters, and upgrades. This gives Gram a governance function, although practical influence is weighted toward participants with enough capital and infrastructure to operate or support validators.

Telegram payments and Mini Apps

The central commercial use case is Telegram-linked activity. Gram can support:

• Mini App payments and payouts.
• Bot-based payments.
• Creator and advertising payouts.
• Digital collectibles, gifts, emojis, and stickers.
• Subscriptions and in-app purchases.
• Telegram-related digital-asset transactions.
• DeFi applications embedded in or linked from Telegram Mini Apps.

TON Connect provides the wallet-to-application connection layer, allowing Mini Apps and other applications to request signatures and transactions without controlling users’ private keys.

TON DNS, storage, and decentralized services

TON DNS provides .ton domains that can point to wallet addresses, TON Sites, subdomains, or TON Storage files. This gives users and applications human-readable identifiers instead of relying exclusively on long wallet addresses.

TON Storage uses distributed, torrent-like data delivery combined with smart contracts and storage proofs. TON Sites and TON Proxy extend this model toward decentralized websites, files, and access infrastructure.

DeFi, NFTs, and Jettons

The TON ecosystem supports:

• Decentralized exchanges.
• Liquidity pools.
• Lending and yield applications.
• Liquid staking.
• Jetton fungible tokens.
• NFT marketplaces.
• Games and social applications.
• Cross-chain bridges and wrapped assets.
• Wallets and payment services.

Native USDt launched on TON in April 2024, improving the network’s usefulness for payments, trading, liquidity provision, remittances, and Telegram-based commerce.

Project history and founding team

Telegram’s original TON project

Telegram began developing its blockchain around 2017 and 2018 under the name Telegram Open Network. The planned native asset was Gram.

The original project was principally associated with:

• Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder and chief executive.
• Nikolai Durov, mathematician and computer scientist, and a principal technical architect of TON.
• Telegram’s engineering teams, which developed the initial network and technical specifications.

In early 2018, Telegram and its subsidiary TON Issuer raised approximately $1.7 billion through private placements. Investors received contractual rights to approximately 2.9 billion future Grams. The planned token distribution was connected to Telegram’s development of the network and its anticipated future market.

Court documents indicated that approximately 28% of the planned Gram supply was intended for a TON Foundation reserve, which would support governance and ecosystem operations.

SEC litigation and the 2020 settlement

On October 11, 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency action against Telegram Group and TON Issuer. The SEC alleged that the Gram investment contracts constituted an unregistered securities offering. The agency stated that approximately 2.9 billion Grams had been sold to 171 initial purchasers, including more than 1 billion Grams to U.S. purchasers.

On March 24, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction preventing Telegram from distributing the tokens. The court concluded that the broader arrangement, including Telegram’s development role and the anticipated resale of tokens, constituted an unregistered securities offering.

Under a settlement approved on June 26, 2020, Telegram agreed to:

• Return more than $1.2 billion to investors.
• Pay an $18.5 million civil penalty.
• Provide advance notice of certain future digital-asset transactions for a specified period.

Telegram then stopped its direct work on the original Telegram Open Network. The Gram distribution planned through Telegram’s private financing was not launched in its original form.

Community-led relaunch

Independent developers continued working with the publicly available TON codebase. The community-operated network adopted the name The Open Network, and its asset became commonly known as Toncoin.

Key milestones reported by TON Foundation materials include:

The community’s initial distribution through Proof-of-Work Giver contracts is distinct from Bitcoin-style proof-of-work consensus. TON’s production network uses Proof of Stake; the Giver contracts were primarily an initial distribution mechanism.

June 2026 rebrand from Toncoin to Gram

The June 2026 rebrand restored the name used in Telegram’s original whitepaper. The blockchain retained the TON name, while the cryptocurrency adopted Gram and the ticker GRAM.

The change affected:

• Asset name.
• Ticker.
• Exchange, wallet, index, and ecosystem branding.

It did not affect:

• Wallet addresses.
• Balances.
• Smart contracts.
• Staking positions.
• NFTs or DeFi positions.
• Transaction history.
• Underlying supply mechanics.
• The TON blockchain itself.

The reported governance vote received approximately 81.22% support, and the change took effect around June 15, 2026 at 12:00 UTC. Exchanges generally updated the displayed symbol, and community notices emphasized that a migration contract, bridge, or claim process was not required.

The rebrand was intended to reconnect the asset with Telegram’s original identity and support a broader Telegram-focused development strategy, sometimes described in reporting as the “Make TON Great Again” initiative.

Community reactions were mixed:

Social-media discussion was most active around the June announcement, then shifted toward exchange implementation, wallet functionality, staking, .gram domains, derivatives, security testing, and actual application adoption. The available social research found no evidence of a network-wide disruption or balance-loss event caused by the rebrand, but many of the more optimistic adoption and price claims came from community accounts rather than audited research.

Tokenomics and supply

Current market snapshot

CoinStats data supplied for this report showed the following market metrics:

These figures are time-sensitive. The market-capitalization and fully diluted valuation difference indicates that a significant portion of the estimated supply was not counted as circulating by that provider.

Supply figures

Supply data varies by provider and date because of differences in the treatment of locked wallets, staking balances, reserves, scheduled releases, inactive addresses, and ecosystem holdings.

CoinStats reported:

• Total supply: 5,241,183,754 GRAM.
• Circulating supply: 2,778,231,647 GRAM.
• Maximum supply: Not explicitly provided.

Other 2026 research reported different figures:

• Approximately 5.18 billion total Gram and 2.7 billion circulating Gram in one institutional note.
• Approximately 5.13 billion total Gram and 3.55 billion circulating Gram in another ecosystem analysis.
• CoinMarketCap figures near 5.15 billion total supply, with differing circulating-supply calculations.

The discrepancy does not necessarily indicate a change in the underlying protocol. It primarily reflects different measurement dates and methodologies. A live blockchain explorer or the specific market-data provider being used should be consulted for an up-to-date supply figure.

Gram does not have a permanently fixed maximum supply like Bitcoin. The supply can increase through validator rewards.

Distribution

The current supply emerged from several stages:

1. The original Telegram project planned a private-sale-linked Gram distribution.
2. That distribution was halted following the SEC litigation and 2020 settlement.
3. The community-operated network distributed much of its initial supply through Proof-of-Work Giver contracts.
4. New Gram continues to be created as validator rewards.
5. Some tokens remain in locked, inactive, reserve, development, or otherwise non-circulating addresses.

Some reports describe a release schedule beginning in October 2025 under which approximately 37 million Gram entered circulation every 30 days over 36 installments, potentially continuing into late 2028. This relates to specific locked or allocated balances and is separate from ongoing validator issuance.

Inflation and fee burning

Gram’s supply model combines ongoing issuance with fee destruction:

Net supply change = newly issued validator rewards minus Gram burned through network fees.

A June 2026 institutional analysis estimated validator emissions at approximately 95 million Gram per year, or roughly 0.6% of total supply, although the exact rate depends on protocol conditions and parameters.

TON also burns a portion of transaction and storage-related fees. Historical TON Foundation proposals discussed burning a significant share of fees, including a 2023 proposal to burn 50% of validator rewards or network fees depending on the implementation described by the source. Earlier estimates cited approximately 350,000 to 400,000 TON burned daily against around 71,000 TON of daily issuance, but those historical figures should not be treated as current.

Available 2026 research indicated that validator issuance still exceeded fee burning, meaning Gram remained net inflationary under ordinary conditions at that time. Higher network usage could increase fee burning and reduce net inflation, but the available data does not establish that Gram is currently structurally deflationary.

Consensus mechanism and security

TON uses Proof of Stake. Validators lock Gram and participate in block production, transaction validation, and consensus. Nominators and staking pools allow other participants to delegate capital to validators.

TON’s consensus system historically used Catchain, a Byzantine fault-tolerant protocol for coordinating validator groups across the masterchain and shardchains. Catchain 2.0, activated on April 9, 2026, was described as using the Simplex consensus approach.

Reported effects of Catchain 2.0 included:

• Block intervals reduced from approximately 2.5 seconds to about 400 milliseconds.
• Transaction finality reduced to approximately one second.
• Estimated throughput improvement of roughly 10 times.
• More frequent validator reward distribution.

These improvements are intended to make TON more suitable for high-volume applications, especially Telegram Mini Apps, games, and payments.

The network’s security model depends on:

• The economic value of staked Gram.
• Distribution and independence of validators.
• Correct operation of Catchain.
• Validator-group rotation.
• Cryptographic verification between the masterchain and shardchains.
• Penalties for malicious or damaging behavior.

TON documentation describes stake confiscation and burning as possible consequences for validator misconduct. Consensus generally requires a supermajority, commonly described as approximately two-thirds of validator stake, for agreement on key network actions. Activating a new workchain also requires substantial validator support because validators must upgrade their software to process it.

The principal security trade-off is potential stake concentration. A Proof-of-Stake system can remain technically Byzantine fault tolerant while still becoming economically or politically centralized if a small number of validators, custodians, foundations, or ecosystem entities control a large share of voting power.

Telegram partnership and ecosystem integrations

Telegram is TON’s most important strategic relationship.

In January 2025, the TON Foundation announced that TON would become the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem. The arrangement supported:

• TON Connect as the wallet connection standard.
• Gram-based Mini App pay-ins and payouts.
• Telegram advertising payments.
• Telegram Stars and related digital services.
• Tokenized gifts, emojis, stickers, and other collectibles.
• Web3 applications distributed through Telegram bots and Mini Apps.

Telegram reported more than 950 million monthly active users in the 2025 partnership announcement, while TON’s website described the broader reachable Telegram audience as exceeding 1 billion users. This gives TON an unusually large potential distribution channel compared with most Layer-1 networks.

The ecosystem also includes:

• Native USDt on TON, launched by Tether in April 2024.
• Wallet providers.
• Decentralized exchanges.
• Liquid-staking services.
• NFT marketplaces.
• Bridges and cross-chain infrastructure.
• Developer grants and hackathons.
• The Open League incentive program.
• TON Connect, WalletKit, AppKit, Blueprint, SDKs, and TypeScript libraries.

TON’s official website displayed dynamic ecosystem figures including approximately 393 validators, 1,022 nodes, 179.7 million smart contracts, 2.2 million monthly active wallets, and 4.1 million transactions over 24 hours. These are dashboard readings that can change and should not be treated as permanent network statistics.

Competitive advantages

Telegram-native distribution

The strongest differentiator is distribution rather than raw technical specifications. Telegram Mini Apps and bots can expose blockchain applications inside a familiar messaging environment. This may reduce the need for users to discover a separate decentralized application, install a dedicated wallet, or learn a standalone blockchain interface.

High scalability design

Dynamic sharding, asynchronous messaging, and parallel execution are designed for large numbers of accounts and transactions. This architecture is particularly suited to payments, gaming, social applications, and other use cases requiring frequent low-value interactions.

Fast and inexpensive transactions

The Catchain 2.0 upgrade’s reported 400-millisecond block interval and approximately one-second finality target improve TON’s suitability for interactive consumer applications. Low transaction costs also make micropayments and Mini App activity more practical.

Integrated Web3 services

TON combines payments, smart contracts, naming, storage, sites, proxy services, wallets, staking, and application connectivity. TON DNS and TON Storage give the ecosystem infrastructure beyond basic token transfers.

Native utility

Gram is not solely a governance or speculative asset. It is required for network fees, staking, validator security, smart-contract interactions, and selected Telegram-linked payments. If network usage grows, these functions could create demand tied to actual blockchain activity.

Limitations and risks

The principal structural limitations include:

• Telegram dependence: A large proportion of TON’s adoption thesis depends on Telegram’s product decisions, distribution, regulatory status, and continued support.
• Validator concentration: Large validators, custodians, foundations, or Telegram-linked entities may gain disproportionate influence.
• Ongoing inflation: Gram has no fixed maximum supply, and validator rewards create continuing dilution.
• Supply uncertainty: Market-data providers report materially different circulating-supply figures.
• Non-EVM architecture: TVM and TON’s asynchronous design provide specialized advantages but can make Ethereum-compatible application migration more difficult.
• Regulatory history: The original Gram project was halted after SEC litigation, and future Telegram-linked digital-asset activity may continue to attract regulatory attention.
• Brand confusion: The Gram name overlaps with historical Telegram materials and unrelated tokens, increasing the importance of verifying the blockchain and contract address.
• Execution risk: Telegram distribution does not guarantee sustained on-chain usage, high-quality applications, or decentralized adoption.
• Market skepticism: Social-media critics argued that the rebrand itself did not address liquidity, open interest, application quality, or relative market performance.

Current development activity and roadmap

As of September 1, 2026, development is focused on performance, Telegram integration, wallet usability, payment infrastructure, and developer tooling.

Reported 2026 initiatives

Reporting around the “Make TON Great Again” roadmap described seven stages, but the remaining stages had not been fully disclosed in the cited public reports by mid-2026.

Telegram was also reported to have become TON’s largest validator, with one report citing approximately 2.2 million Gram staked. This reinforces the Telegram distribution thesis but also highlights the network’s governance and centralization trade-off.

Overall assessment

Gram is the renamed native asset of TON, not a newly created cryptocurrency. Its fundamental role remains the same: it pays network fees, secures the blockchain through staking, supports governance, and facilitates payments and applications connected to Telegram.

The project’s strongest value proposition is the combination of:

1. A scalable, dynamically sharded Layer-1.
2. Fast and relatively inexpensive transactions.
3. A broad integrated application stack.
4. Direct access to Telegram’s Mini App, wallet, bot, advertising, and payments ecosystem.

Its main challenges are equally important: dependence on Telegram, validator concentration, continuing token issuance, inconsistent circulating-supply calculations, non-EVM development requirements, regulatory history, and the possibility that the Gram rebrand improves recognition without materially increasing economic activity.

The most important indicators to monitor are real Mini App transaction growth, active wallet retention, fee revenue relative to validator issuance, validator concentration, stablecoin and DeFi liquidity, exchange ticker consistency, and whether Telegram integration produces sustained usage rather than short-term announcement-driven activity.