Mitja Goroshevsky, CTO of TON Labs, a startup building tools for TON developers, confirmed the authenticity of the email to CoinDesk, adding that TON Labs itself “will run and manage its own validation pool.”
Telegram Open Network (TON) is on track for its planned launch, according to an email from the company sent to TON investors on Wednesday.
“Original investors received emails from the Telegram core team”, a post in the Telegram channel dedicated to the project said, adding that investors need to provide Telegram with their public keys by Oct. 16 using the key generator in order to receive the tokens, or “grams”, they bought.
Notably, the message also mentions governance matters, saying Telegram itself will recuse itself from running the network:
“Investors have to select validators. Neither Telegram nor the TON Foundation will serve as validators post-launch.”
As CoinDesk reported, the code for TON was released in early September, allowing the broad community to try out full nodes, validator nodes and a block explorer.
The project is scheduled to launch no later than Oct. 31, according to existing agreements with TON investors. The blockchain, which raised $1.7 billion in early 2018, has been built in near-total secrecy. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has never publicly announced TON’s existence.
The only official confirmation so far has been the registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the project’s SAFT (simple agreement for future tokens) – featuring the names of Telegram Group, Inc., Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov, the CEO’s brother who is also TON’s chief architect.
Telegram’s TON Board ‘Takes a Break,’ Removes All History From Channel
On Oct. 12, TON Board channel on Telegram announced a temporary halt of work due to the increased level of regulatory uncertainty.
Following a recent red flag from United States. regulators, a private Telegram channel for Telegram Open Network (TON) is taking a break.
Temporary halt for more clarity
TON Board has also deleted all previous posts on its Telegram channel, making the latest announcement the sole post on the channel at press time.
As noted in the channel description, TON Board is a private channel created by investors and for investors in the TON as well as for future major holders of Grams. The channel has around 2,400 subscribers at press time.
In the announcement, TON Board stated that it is taking a break to analyze new information and adapt policies. The channel noted that they are planning to come back as soon as they have more clarity on the legal status of the TON and Gram, as well as an allowed type of analysis that may be published about them.
SEC flags Gram weeks before launch
The move comes after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) abruptly announced that Telegram’s $1.7 billion Gram token sale in 2018 was illegal. On Oct. 11, the regulator filed an emergency action and restraining order against Telegram and the TON in order to prevent the initial investors from being able to acquire Grams.
The regulatory announcement took place just weeks before the much-anticipated TON launch in late October, as officially planned by the firm. In preparation for the launch, Telegram released the terms of use for its native cryptocurrency wallet Grams Wallet on Oct. 8, noting that Telegram should not be used in jurisdictions where its services are prohibited by any applicable law, regulation or rule.
One day before the emergency action, major U.S. crypto exchange and wallet service Coinbase announced that it plans to provide its digital custody support for Gram as soon as it goes live. Previously, a digital asset custodian of software firm Anchor Labs declared that it will be the first entity qualified to support institutional custody for Gram, noting that the token will launch on Oct. 31.
