Having received a $ 1.7 billion investment in the form of Gram cryptocurrency futures (they sold from $ 1.33 per 1 Gram), Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer Inc. (both registered in the British Virgin Islands) are currently developing the TON (Telegram Open Network) platform with its own blockchain, on which various services will be based, including cryptocurrency.

According to the description of the developers, the Telegram Open Network (TON) will become a “third generation blockchain” (after Bitcoin and Ethereum) with new-level capabilities.


TON Preliminary Roadmap, published before the investment round in February 2018

According to the prospectus for investors , the start of the development of TON and the launch of the payment platform took place in the second quarter. 2017, and the development of the Telegram External Secure ID identification service was planned for Q1. 2018 year. For obvious reasons, these services do not roll out in open access.

But services should be available to TON users, including investors. It seems that they act as a kind of beta testers.

Fortunately, the general public also has a chance to learn something about what is happening, because some beta testers are sharing information with the press. Reportedly, the first service for the TON platform has already been created and is being tested in closed mode. This is the Telegram Passport Identity Service (probably a new name for the planned Telegram External Secure ID). Among other things, the new service will make it possible to identify the identity of the Telegram user, the Vedomosti newspaper reports , citing “two people close to the person’s messenger”.

Telegram Passport

Telegram Passport allows you to upload all necessary documents and data to the TON platform once, so that you can instantly transfer them to partner services via Telegram and use their services both within Telegram and on the main service sites, one of the sources told “Vedomosti” members of the technical team Telegram people. It is likely that Telegram Passport will work in open mode by the beginning of the summer of 2018, that is, until the end of May.

Telegram Passport will be able to collect passports, passports, driver’s licenses, utility bills, bank account certificates and other documents, and will also ask you to take a photo. This is stated on the closed page of the telegram.org site.

Reportedly, Qiwi payment system has already received access to the technology.

Investor identification is very important for financial industry regulators, says Alexander Filatov, partner of SP Capital - this investment consulting company invested in TON itself and helped Telegram attract other investors to this blockchain platform. Telegram Passport will allow you to get away from the anonymity of cryptocurrency payments, which will remove the lion's share of the concerns of regulators who are struggling with money laundering through cryptocurrency.

Documents are uploaded to the Telegram server in encrypted form, protected by a user password. The messenger does not have access to them. The service will receive this data only if the user confirms their consent to transmit them, it is said on the closed page of the telegram.org site. According to the person close to the messenger, the partner services, having received and decrypted the original data, will verify them themselves in accordance with their standards.

TON: third generation blockchain

So, the Telegram Open Network (TON) will become the “third generation blockchain” (after Bitcoin and Ethereum) with the capabilities of a new level.

As Pavel Durov said, “a whole new economy will appear, filled with goods and services, which can be paid for with the help of cryptocurrency”. In fact, finally, the cryptocurrency will become a full-fledged payment instrument and will be able to normally replace the archaic payment systems Visa and MasterCard. As we know, bitcoin and ether do not pull on such a role: the first performs the function of a kind of digital gold, means of long-term capital preservation and a tool for speculation, and ether is a platform for smart contracts that did not receive much acceptance, even though several hundred ICO based on smart contracts over the air.

The new cryptocurrency called Gram on the third generation blockchain will become the main currency of the domestic economy of the Telegram, hundreds of millions of people around the world will use it, the creators are sure.

Apparently, many investors also believe in such a prospect - and are ready to invest billions of dollars in a new platform. Against this background, a conflict with Roskomnadzor and the “detuning” of the Russian developers of the TON platform from the current leadership of the Russian Federation, as such associations undermined the credibility of the global financial platform, happened just in time.