Toncoin Renamed to Gram: What Actually Changes (and What Doesn't)

On June 1, 2026, at 15:48 UTC, Pavel Durov posted in his Telegram channel: “We’re returning to our roots — and starting a new chapter. This is step 4 of 7 to Make TON Great Again.” Moments later, the team confirmed: TON’s native coin is being renamed from Toncoin to Gram, and the TON ticker is becoming GRAM.

This is the fourth step of the MTONGA initiative Durov launched in spring 2026. Steps 1–3 have already shipped — the network is 10× faster, fees have dropped near zero, and Telegram became the largest validator. The rebrand symbolically completes Telegram’s “return to TON.”

This article covers the facts: what actually changes, what doesn’t, what holders should do, and how the market reacted.

What was announced

Exact scope of change:

• Native coin: Toncoin → Gram
• Exchange and wallet ticker: TON → GRAM
• Blockchain name remains The Open Network (TON) — unchanged
• No token swap is required
• Contracts, balances, addresses, staking positions, NFTs, DeFi, jetton balances — not touched
• Transition window: approximately three weeks

Announcement timeline

What does NOT change

To avoid panic and rebrand phishing, it’s important to understand what requires no action:

• Wallet balances. If you held 100 TON in Tonkeeper, it stays 100 — soon shown as 100 GRAM in the UI.
• Addresses. Your TON address (in UQ... or EQ... format) is unchanged. All exchange deposit addresses continue working.
• Seed phrases and private keys. No new seeds. No wallet migrations. Whatever you wrote on paper still works.
• Staking. Deposits in Tonstakers, Whales Pool, bemo, Hipo don’t need to be withdrawn. Rewards keep accruing under the new name.
• DeFi positions. Liquidity in STON.fi, DeDust, swap.coffee stays put. LP tokens remain valid.
• NFTs and gifts. Collectible Telegram gifts, Fragment usernames, .ton domains — all unchanged.
• Jetton balances. USDT-TON, NOT, DOGS, stTON, tsTON and every other jetton are completely unaffected — they are separate tokens on top of the network.

What actually changes in practice

Technically — nothing. From the user’s point of view, four things happen over the next three weeks:

1. Wallet UIs switch to GRAM

Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, Tonhub, Wallet in Telegram — all will display balances as GRAM instead of TON. Timing varies; most should land within 2–3 weeks. We track this in our wallet catalogue.

2. Exchanges flip the ticker

Listing changes by exchange:

• Bybit, OKX, MEXC, Bitget, HTX — will switch to GRAM/USDT within days, some with dual-label transition windows
• Binance — no comment yet, but historically Binance moves fast on rebrands (Matic → POL, Crypto.com → CRO)
• Kraken — typically takes 1–2 weeks for any ticker change

If you have open orders, they continue working as the exchange swaps the display name. No order cancellations or re-issuance needed.

3. Aggregators and DEXes

CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, DefiLlama, Dexscreener will update the asset page to show both names. Old URLs (/currencies/toncoin/) will live and redirect to the new ones.

TON-ecosystem DEXes (STON.fi, DeDust, swap.coffee) will update labels at the next UI release. The internal TON-side jettonMaster address (for pTON, the native wrap) stays unchanged.

4. Documentation and media

ton.org, developer docs, SDK references — terminology updates rolling out gradually. No code changes are needed in SDKs: the token is called nano in JSON-RPC and never had TON or Toncoin in the bytecode-level protocol.

The catch: there is already another “Gram”

We wrote a separate piece on how to tell native Gram from the Gram jetton — strongly recommended reading before any new buys.

Why “Gram” rather than a fresh name

The choice to revive the original name is symbolic. In December 2017, Telegram published the Telegram Open Network whitepaper. The native coin was called Gram — invoking the gram, a unit of weight, the image of “small, easily transferable value.”

In 2018, Telegram conducted a private ICO of Gram and raised $1.7 billion from accredited investors. In October 2019, the U.S. SEC blocked Gram distribution, classifying it as an unregistered security. In May 2020, Telegram abandoned the project.

The open-source community picked up the code and relaunched the network as Free TON (later just TON), renaming the native coin to Toncoin to legally distance from the Gram/SEC history.

Six years later, Telegram is reclaiming operational ownership (via MTONGA), and naturally restores the original name. It signals that Telegram now formally treats TON as a Telegram product, not an “independent community network.”

For the full backstory, see our history of TON from Gram to 2026.

The legal context: SEC and risks

Reasonable question: if the SEC blocked Gram in 2019, can it happen again?

The fundamental difference:

• 2019: Telegram sold a non-existent coin in an ICO. Buyers contributed money expecting tokens at launch. That’s the textbook Howey-test “investment contract.”
• 2026: Gram is an already-circulating coin on a decentralized network. Telegram is not running a primary sale. Renaming an existing decentralized asset is not within current SEC enforcement practice.

In addition, since 2024 the SEC has materially softened its crypto stance under the new administration: the Coinbase case was dropped, the Binance suit was withdrawn, regulation shifted from litigation-by-enforcement to public rulemaking.

That said, risks are non-zero: the SEC could focus on the promotional aspect of the rebrand, on Telegram’s role as the largest validator, or on future features attached to Gram. If any of that materializes, we’ll cover it separately.

Where is TON Foundation in this?

As of June 1, 2026, 19:00 UTC, the TON Foundation has not published an official position. Per unattributed reports, the Foundation coordinated with Telegram on the rebrand during April–May 2026.

Contextually, the Foundation already lost its role as “the network’s driving force” in MTONGA step 3 (May 4, 2026), when Telegram became the largest validator and took operational ownership. The rebrand is a continuation: the Foundation remains as a development coordinator and grant fund but is no longer the face of the product.

Our full analysis on what this means for decentralization is in Telegram takes over TON: the centralization tradeoff.

Market reaction

Per CoinMarketCap at the time of writing:

• TON (soon GRAM) price — up roughly 10% in the first hour after the announcement
• Spot trading volume — up ~3× versus the prior 24-hour window
• Futures open interest (Bybit, OKX) — up ~25% over the first two hours

This is in line with prior market reactions to MTONGA announcements — step 3 (Telegram validator) delivered +23% in 24 hours, step 1 (Catchain 2.0) about +15%.

Not financial advice: rebrand news-driven moves are typically short-term. Long-term performance depends on what Telegram actually does with Gram integration into its products — Stars, ads, Mini Apps, NFT usernames.

What to do right now (if you hold)

A short checklist to avoid phishing and unnecessary moves:

1. Don’t trust “swap to Gram” websites or Telegram bots. No swap is required. Anyone offering “TON → GRAM exchange” is a scammer.
2. Don’t enter seed phrases on “migration” or “Gram verification” sites. This is the textbook rebrand attack pattern — we saw the same on ETC, MATIC → POL, and others.
3. Update wallet apps from official sources (App Store, Google Play, official browser-extension stores). Don’t sideload APKs from chat links.
4. Don’t buy “discounted Gram” in DMs. Either it’s the jetton GRAM (not native) or a straight-up scam.
5. For exchanges: wait 2–3 days before large operations, until tickers stabilize.

To track which wallets ship the GRAM-ticker UI first, watch our wallet catalogue. We update each entry as UI updates roll out.

What comes next — steps 5, 6, and 7

Durov has not disclosed the remaining three MTONGA steps. Reasonable hypotheses (with low-to-medium confidence):

• Deep Gram integration into Telegram payments — possibly replacing parts of Stars functionality with Gram-payments
• Gram as the currency for Telegram ads (instead of current TON-payments)
• Gram staking as a mechanism for Telegram Premium — holders unlock built-in features
• Trust-less Bitcoin bridge (Teleport) — announced earlier, possibly launching this summer
• Layer-2 or further sharding — to scale under projected Telegram load

We’ll publish a dedicated forecast in MTONGA steps 5–7: what Durov might announce next based on Durov’s public statements and Telegram-filed patents.

Sources

• Pavel Durov’s post, June 1, 2026, 15:48 UTC — t.me/durov
• BeInCrypto — “Pavel Durov Rebrands TON Coin to GRAM”
• Unchained — “Telegram Replaces TON Foundation as Network’s Driving Force”
• Vedomosti — “Durov announced renaming TON to Gram”
• CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko — price and volume monitoring

Article updated June 1, 2026, 19:00 UTC. We’ll add reactions from exchanges, wallets, and the Foundation as they appear.