News linked to both this project and an event.
According to the official TON announcement, the TON Vote community referendum concluded on June 8. A total of 81.22% of voters supported renaming TON’s native token “Toncoin” to “Gram,” changing its ticker from “TON” to “GRAM,” and updating the logo accordingly. The rebranding will officially take effect on June 15, 2026, at 12:00 UTC. The blockchain network name—“The Open Network”—remains unchanged. User balances, addresses, smart contracts, NFTs, and DeFi positions are unaffected; no migration or action is required. Exchanges and ecosystem projects are expected to display the asset as “Gram (prev. Toncoin)” during the transition period and complete full updates by June 22. The official notice warns that any claims requiring users to “migrate” or “exchange” TON for GRAM are fraudulent.
Nasdaq-listed company TON Strategy disclosed that it received approximately 3.3 million TON in rewards in May from staking about 227 million Toncoin, valued at roughly $5.6 million at market prices, with an initial annualized staking yield of around 1.48%. The company staked nearly all of its TON holdings and supported a series of network upgrades that have taken effect in the latest governance proposal, including improvements to smart contract execution efficiency, block synchronization, and validation capabilities, aimed at enhancing throughput and scalability. (The Block)
a report released by Messari shows a clear divergence in the TON ecosystem during the first quarter of 2026. Its cross-chain NFT market share grew by 130.4% quarter-on-quarter, reaching 35.5%; relying on Fragment settlement, revenue from Telegram-related products reached $88.5 million. However, multiple ecosystem metrics declined. TON's total value locked (TVL) in USD fell by 34.9% quarter-on-quarter, daily active addresses decreased by 8.8%, and the average daily USDT transfer volume dropped to $77 million, down 32.5% quarter-on-quarter. Additionally, after the end of the first quarter, TON has implemented 4 out of the 7 initiatives outlined in the MTONGA upgrade plan.
According to The Block, Payward—the parent company of Kraken—announced that it will open up access to IPO offering-price subscriptions for U.S. publicly traded companies to Kraken users and select partner platform users via the xStocks framework in the coming weeks. Users may submit non-binding subscription indications prior to listing; Payward will aggregate demand and coordinate with underwriting syndicates to allocate tokenized shares at the offering price on the listing day. These stock tokens are fully backed 1:1 by the underlying equities held in custody by regulated entities and are tradable across blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, and TON. Payward stated that it plans to expand into additional markets and onboard more partners to the xStocks Alliance in the future.
xStocks, a framework under Kraken parent company Payward, will launch services allowing users on Kraken and partner platforms to participate in US stock IPOs at the offering price. Users will receive on-chain tokenized shares with a 1:1 correspondence to the underlying stock, which will be held by regulated custodians.Users can submit non-binding subscription intentions via partner platforms weeks before the IPO. Payward aggregates demand, coordinates with the underwriting syndicate for share allocation, and completes pricing, allocation, and token issuance on the listing date. xStocks tokens will be tradable across multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, and TON, and can be integrated with DeFi protocols. (The Block)
Odaily Telegram CEO Pavel Durov stated that the native token of The Open Network (TON) will be renamed to Gram, reverting to its original name as outlined in the project's early whitepaper. TON will remain the name of the blockchain network, while Gram will serve as the name of its native currency.Durov noted that this renaming is the fourth step in the seven-step "Make TON Great Again" plan, and the entire transition is expected to take approximately three weeks. The remaining three initiatives have yet to be disclosed.Previously announced steps include the TON network upgrade, increased transaction settlement speed, significantly reduced fees, and Telegram's plan to replace the TON Foundation as the ecosystem's primary manager and largest validator.
: Multiple institutions including Robinhood, MetaMask, and eToro, along with Fireblocks, Checkout.com, Cross River Bank, Securitize, Wintermute, and others, jointly announced their participation in the "Open Transaction Layer (OTL)" initiative, aimed at establishing a unified transaction coordination protocol layer for on-chain finance.OTL is positioned as an open protocol stack for coordinating identity verification, compliance validation, transaction messaging, and execution processes among wallets, institutions, and AI agents, addressing the integration fragmentation problem currently plaguing cross-institutional interactions in on-chain finance, where entities operate in silos.The current coalition members include payment companies, trading platforms, wallets, market makers, and custody and stablecoin infrastructure providers, including Robinhood, MetaMask, eToro, MoonPay, SoFi, Wintermute, among others, as well as foundations from multiple public chains such as TON, Solana, Stellar, and Polygon. (Financefeeds)
TAC stated that its cross-chain layer on the TON side was exploited by external attackers, resulting in approximately $2.8 million in losses involving USDT, BLUM, and tsTON. TAC confirmed that the TAC token, TON, and all ERC-20 tokens bridged from Ethereum remain unaffected. The bridge has been temporarily suspended, and the team is conducting forensic analysis and implementing fixes. Additionally, the team plans to legally structure a sale of the foundation’s TAC token treasury reserves to restore bridge liquidity and compensate affected users. A post-mortem report and further details will be released within the next 48 hours.
According to the official announcement, HTX has officially launched its “7th Leveraged Trading Competition,” with a total prize pool of 30,000 USDT to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day. From May 12 at 18:00 to May 24 at 18:00 (UTC+8), new users who complete their first leveraged trade will receive a 50 USDT leveraged trading interest coupon—limited to the first 2,000 recipients on a first-come, first-served basis. During the event period, users whose leveraged trading volume reaches or exceeds 1,000 USDT will receive a 5%–20% rebate on trading fees. Additionally, leveraged trades in BTC, ETH, DOGE, TRX, TON, ZEC, FIL, and JST will count three times toward the user’s total trading volume. Users can participate by clicking “Register Now” on the campaign page.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov posted on X platform, stating that TON development efficiency has increased by 10 times. The new toolchain Acton makes the creation, testing, and deployment of smart contracts more convenient and is fully AI-ready. This toolchain replaces TON's previously fragmented tool stack, forming a unified development process.
According to the official announcement, Binance will list the MEGA/USDT, TON/USDT, and TON/USD1 spot trading pairs on May 12, 2026, at 16:00 (UTC+8). Simultaneously, Binance will launch its Spot Algorithmic Order Trading Bot service for these trading pairs. Additionally, Binance will introduce a zero-maker-fee promotion for eligible users on the MEGA/USDT and TON/USDT spot and margin trading pairs, effective from May 12, 2026, at 16:00 (UTC+8); the end date of this promotion will be announced separately. The announcement states that taker fees for these trading pairs will continue to be charged at standard rates, and trading volume will count toward VIP tier calculations.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov stated that transaction fees on the TON network have been reduced by 6 times. He also revealed that Telegram will replace the TON Foundation to become the largest validator on the network, and plans to launch new development tools and performance upgrades within the next 2 to 3 weeks.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov tweeted that TON network fees have dropped by approximately 6x, approaching zero. Next, Telegram will replace the TON Foundation as the primary driver of TON and become its largest validator, shifting its development focus toward technical performance. Additionally, TON plans to launch an updated official website, developer tools, and performance upgrades within the next 2–3 weeks.
According to The Block, TON Tech—the infrastructure team under The Open Platform—has announced the launch of an AI-powered autonomous trading agent that supports independent on-chain actions on the TON blockchain, including transfers, token swaps, DeFi operations, automated trading, staking, and basic portfolio management—all without requiring users to surrender their private keys.
According to the Belarusian state news agency BELTA, Alexander Yegorov, First Deputy Chairman of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus, revealed at the “Digital Banking–2026” conference that Belarus has adopted Decree No. 19, formally establishing a regulatory framework for crypto banks. Under the decree, crypto banks will support 26 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), TON (Toncoin), Solana (SOL), and multiple stablecoins. They will also be authorized to conduct 11 types of operations, such as crypto deposits, crypto lending, crypto staking, crypto collateralization, crypto transfers, issuance of proprietary tokens, and crypto storage and exchange. Yegorov stated that the current list of supported cryptocurrencies and permitted operations is not final and will be continuously updated and refined in response to investor demand and emerging ideas.
According to CoinDesk, amid the Iran conflict, Binance has offered its approximately 1,000 employees in the UAE the option of temporary relocation to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok. Binance stated that its UAE operations continue normally, with some employees choosing to remain locally, and global user services remain unaffected. This measure follows regional unrest that has disrupted major cryptocurrency, business, and sports events in the UAE—including the postponement of TOKEN2049 Dubai to 2027 and the cancellation of TON Gateway due to security and travel concerns. The UAE government reported having intercepted hundreds of missiles and drones since late February. Binance is deepening its collaboration with local authorities through Abu Dhabi’s global regulatory framework, and its global operations are backed by Abu Dhabi.
According to The Block, AlphaTON Capital has announced plans to raise $43 million through a strategic partnership with Vertical Data Inc. to expand its AI compute infrastructure; the transaction is expected to close in Q2 2026. AlphaTON CEO Brittany Kaiser stated that the funding will be used to deploy additional NVIDIA B300 GPUs, with the core objective of advancing the convergence of AI, digital assets, and confidential computing—and scaling up the platform’s overall compute capacity. On the business front, AlphaTON not only holds a substantial amount of TON tokens as corporate treasury assets but also actively participates in building infrastructure for the Telegram and TON ecosystems, with key investment focus areas including Cocoon, Telegram’s decentralized AI platform. Background-wise, AlphaTON was formed through the restructuring and transformation of former biotech public company Portage Biotech Inc., which had previously focused on cancer therapy research; the company completed the spin-off of its cancer therapy subsidiary in February this year.