TON heats up again on the GRAM rebrand plan

Toncoin ($TON) surged from around $1.94 to above $2.25 within an hour on June 1 after Telegram founder Pavel @durov confirmed the network's native token will be renamed Gram, an 18% move on the day. Trading volume pushed past $570 million as fresh capital chased the announcement.

A name with history

The Gram name is not new. It was the token name during Telegram's initial TON push, which raised approximately $1.7 billion before the SEC intervened in 2020. Telegram abandoned the project, refunded investors, and open-sourced the code, after which the community relaunched it as Toncoin under the TON Foundation. Reviving the original label now carries symbolic weight: it signals deeper integration and a new chapter for the project.

Importantly, this is a branding exercise only. The transition, which takes roughly three weeks, involves no token swap and leaves the TON blockchain name unchanged. Holders will see no effect on balances, staking positions, or DeFi activity.

The MTONGA roadmap in context

The rebrand is step four of seven in Durov's Make TON Great Again (MTONGA) roadmap. Earlier steps included Catchain 2.0 for sub-second finality, fee reductions of roughly six times to near-zero, and Telegram becoming @ton_blockchain's largest validator.

Network fees now sit at around $0.0005 per transfer, positioning TON as one of the cheapest layer-1 networks for micropayments. Telegram is the blockchain's largest validator, with a Telegram-associated wallet holding around 28.2 million TON and 2.2 million TON actively staked in validator operations.

The Gram rebrand is the latest step in a run that has made $TON one of the more closely watched names in crypto this year. TON previously surged between 23% and over 100% following Durov's earlier May takeover announcements, climbing from approximately $1.30 to peaks near $2.80 amid heavy volume and staking inflows. The Gram name adds symbolic weight and potential branding clarity for Telegram's approximately one billion users, boosting utility across Mini Apps, payments, and creator tools.

Still, risks remain. As the largest validator, Telegram holds significant influence over protocol decisions, and critics note that a blockchain controlled by one entity lacks decentralization, potentially deterring DeFi purists and institutional investors concerned about neutral governance. With Telegram driving development, the next steps on the roadmap include enhanced developer tools, a revamped ton.org, TON Pay upgrades, and Bitcoin liquidity bridges.

Sources:
BeInCrypto: Pavel Durov Rebrands TON Coin to GRAM
Crypto Briefing: Telegram rebrands TON coin to GRAM
CoinTelegraph: Telegram To Become TON's Largest Validator, Durov Says