A Brief History of GRAM
In 2018, Telegram, the popular cloud-based instant messaging service, published the Telegram Open Network White Paper. The project was originally called Gram and was under active development until 2020, funded by private sales of Gram tokens. In the spring of 2018, it raised 1.7 billion dollars, large purchases of tokens were made by companies around the world, the project was gaining more and more popularity.
Initially, the founder and CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, tried to conduct an ICO under US jurisdiction, but the SEC considered Gram a security and the sale of tokens as an unregistered distribution of securities. Despite attempts by Telegram to negotiate with the SEC, the project eventually lost the court. In May 2020, Pavel Durov ceased his participation in the development of the blockchain and began to return funds to investors.
The community picked up where the company left off with open source. The project was renamed The Open Network, and the token became known as GRAM. The network uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus model to ensure network scalability and reliability. The main goal of the project is to create a full-fledged ecosystem with decentralized services, a domain name system and an instant payment platform.
Features of GRAM
- The project does not stand still, continues to implement its plans. The GRAM eco system already has a platform for distributing GRAM Apps applications, a GRAM DNS service for assigning custom names to crypto wallets, smart contracts and websites, GRAM Payments for transparent and instant transactions with zero commission between users, a decentralized data warehouse TON Storage, tools for creating their own decentralized applications and their own NFT marketplace.
- When sending a transaction, sometimes you need to specify a Comment. Some wallets and services use one common address to receive transactions, in which case Comment is needed to identify it.
- The GRAM token is multifunctional. Users can already use it to pay for goods and services, as well as for staking. Over time, the possibilities of the token will increase.
- The project is completely decentralized and has an open source code, which significantly increases trust.
- The network is designed with privacy in mind and uses zero-knowledge proofs.
Disadvantages of GRAM
- GRAM has a difficult history: repeated name changes, litigation with the SEC, many accusatory rumors against developers.
- Difficult words for those who want to become validators. The validator must have at least 350,000 GRAM. It does not have to be personal funds, the validator can attract users and borrow coins from them for a while through a special smart contract. Now there are more than 200 validators in the network, over time their number will increase, as a result of which the minimum entry limit will also increase.
Rebranding TON - GRAM
On June 15, the TON token was officially rebranded as GRAM after receiving support from 81.2% of the community. The blockchain itself will continue to operate under the name The Open Network (TON). Token holders were not required to take any action, and the full transition to the new brand was completed on June 22.
