Telegram proposes renaming Toncoin to Gram in bid to return to network’s founding vision

Telegram has proposed renaming $TON’s native cryptocurrency from Toncoin to Gram as Pavel Durov advances his “Make $TON Great Again” (MTONGA) roadmap.

Durov announced the move on Monday via his official Telegram channel and described it as a return to the project’s roots and the start of a new chapter. The rebrand is part of step four of his seven-step MTONGA plan.

$TON rallied approximately 9% to trade above $2 after the news broke. The asset previously more than doubled following Durov’s statement that Telegram became $TON’s largest validator.

According to $TON, Gram was the name originally assigned to the token in the project’s whitepaper and has never been removed from the underlying code. The rebrand would not affect the $TON blockchain, user balances, addresses, contracts, NFTs, staking positions or DeFi applications, eliminating the need for any migration process.

The proposal comes as Telegram takes on a leading role in the network. The team stated that recent developments have boosted blockchain performance tenfold while lowering fees by approximately six times.

The transition will take approximately three weeks, Durov said.