Toncoin (TON) Jumps 15% Amid Rebranding Announcement
BITmarkets Team
Jun 02, 2026
In a Telegram post published on Monday, Telegram founder and TON creator Pavel Durov said: “Gram was the original name of TON’s currency in the first white paper.”“We’re returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter.” According to Durov, the rebranding process is expected to take approximately three weeks and is intended to help prepare the network for its next phase of development.
The proposed change brings back the original token name introduced in TON’s 2018 white paper. The Gram branding was ultimately abandoned after the US Securities and Exchange Commission halted Telegram’s $1.7 billion initial coin offering (ICO) in 2020.
Community vote and roadmap progress
The rebranding initiative follows Telegram’s recent move to become the primary driving force behind TON, replacing the TON Foundation and taking on the role of the network’s largest validator.
On Monday, The Open Network launched a governance vote on the proposal, emphasizing that the change would be purely cosmetic from a technical perspective. The network stated that users will not need to swap or migrate their tokens. There is no token conversion, bridge process, claim mechanism or balance transfer required. Existing wallet addresses, smart contracts, holdings and positions will remain unchanged. At the time of publication, approximately 1.8 million TON had been pledged in support of the proposal, representing nearly 80% of the votes cast.
Durov described the rebrand as part of the broader “Make TON Great Again” roadmap. The proposed name change represents the fourth major milestone in that plan, following several key developments earlier this year, including upgrades to Catchain aimed at improving blockchain performance, lower transaction fees and Telegram’s expanded operational involvement in the network. TON stated: “These changes mark a milestone for the network — and a natural moment to refresh how the token is known publicly.”
Telegram's Web3 ambitions drive the next phase
The long-term objective behind the initiative is to support Telegram’s vision of creating a seamless Web3 ecosystem for its global user base of more than one billion people. The company aims to transform Telegram into a platform that combines payments, mini-applications, digital ownership tools, artificial intelligence agents and other blockchain-powered services within a single user experience.
The announcement generated a strong market reaction, with TON rising more than 15% shortly after the news broke. The token climbed from around $1.95 to above $2.25 during Monday trading. However, some of those gains were later erased. By Tuesday morning, TON had retreated to approximately $2.07. Despite the recent rally, the token remains about 75% below its all-time high of $8.25 reached in June 2024, according to CoinGecko data.
Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-open-network-ton-native-currency-plans-to-rebrand-to-gram
