CANTO V: THE GRAM THAT NEVER WAS

In 2019, Pavel Durov makes a fateful decision. He will not be satisfied with a messaging application that cannot be controlled. He will build a blockchain, a technology that no single entity can own or control. He will create a cryptocurrency called GRAM and a blockchain called The Open Network, and he will integrate it with Telegram's existing nine hundred million users. He will create, in essence, a new financial system that exists outside the control of central banks and nation-states.

The announcement is made, and immediately the world's powers recognize the danger. A messaging application with nine hundred million users is powerful. A messaging application with nine hundred million users that also controls a blockchain, that can conduct financial transactions, that can move money across borders without permission, this is not a business problem. This is a security problem for every government on the planet.

Durov announces that GRAM will launch through a traditional ICO, an Initial Coin Offering. He explains that this will raise funds without depending on venture capital, without owing favors to American investors, without accepting any strings attached. The plan is meticulous: raise money, build the network, achieve true decentralization, and transform not just communication but the entire financial system.

On 12 May 2020, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram was ending its involvement. The SEC settlement announced on 26 June 2020 provided for returning more than $1.2 billion to investors and an $18.5 million penalty. Withdrawal and settlement were separate moments in Veles’s first fall.

The ICO is halted. The SEC wins. The GRAM project stalls. And here, in this moment, the story of TON, The Open Network, begins to become something more than a technology story. It becomes a story about the struggle between those who build things that cannot be controlled and those whose power depends on controlling everything.