The Open Network (TON) Society cofounder Jack Booth talked to Cryptonews at The Gateway event in Dubai about Telegram retaining privacy features and the use case for Tether’s Dirham-Pegged Stablecoins.
TON Society is the core group focusing on all TON community operations, and Booth heads up the organization. Its main purpose is to drive engagement within the TON community, providing resources and networking opportunities for developers, builders, and enthusiasts interested in TON.
During The Gateway event, TON made numerous announcements, discussing upgrades to Telegram apps as well as the TON Foundation launching a new governance model called Society DAO.
One Tether executive went on stage to say the Dirham-pegged stablecoin will be built on the TON Blockchain.
Telegram’s ICO and its Chequered Past
It seems TON is making a strong comeback as a community-driven blockchain, gaining momentum. Since the high-profile failure of the Telegram initial coin offering (ICO) project in 2018, a controversial venture in the blockchain space, the group has come a long way in rebuilding its image.
For those unaware the ICO involved Telegram raising around $1.7 billion from private investors. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intervened in 2019, arguing that the sale of GRAM tokens constituted an unregistered securities offering.
In 2020, Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov announced that Telegram would abandon the TON project to comply with the court’s decision. Fast forward to 2024, TON and Telegram are both back in the spotlight and have built a stronger leaner community. Telegram has integrated a TON-based crypto wallet called TON Space directly into its app for its massive user base, which has over 800 million users.
TON Society co-founder Booth told Cryptonews how the revamp came about.
“The turning point came September 2023 when a Telegram got back involved with the project. So after the ICO they stopped involvement in the project entirely….they turned over all of the Testnet tokens, all of the Testnet access to GitHub and all of the community channels and TON.org they gave it all over to the open source community.”
Booth says many open-source communities were battling to gain access to all the assets. In the end, Kirill Emelianenko and Anatoly Makosov were the core developers who won a contest and became the core devs of the new TON.
“So after the the core devs took over they started developing Wallet they began to build in this Telegram Mini Apps ecosystm,” says Booth.
Strong Use Case for Dirham-Pegged Stablecoin
“The Dirham (stablecoin) is interesting, because sending money remittance out of Dubai is the largest remittance, one of the largest corridors on the planet. So Dubai to India, Dubai to Philippines are two of the largest remittance corridors,” said Booth.
Booth explains that billions of dollars are flowing from Dubai to countries like India and the Philippines. He highlights this significant volume of remittances, emphasizing Dubai’s role as a central hub.
“So the Dirham could be really an effective way of onboarding new users to crypto that are based here in the UAE and want to send money back home.”
Durov Arrest Was Horrible Moment for TON Community
Booth describes Pavel’s recent arrest as a deeply troubling moment, especially for freedom of speech, suggesting it seemed politically motivated.
“That [Pavel’s arrest] was a horrible moment, terrible for the freedom of speech it seemed very much like a politically motivated arrest to to say that he’s not doing the thing,” said Booth.
He notes the accusation that Pavel wasn’t taking action to remove illegal content from the platform, despite his active efforts to censor and moderate such channels. Booth believes Pavel has since clarified his commitment to removing illegal activities, aligning with what French authorities may have been expecting him to do all along.
Telegram’s Recent Privacy Updates
Booth suggests that while some may worry about Telegram’s lack of end-to-end encryption, he believes it’s clear from Telegram’s actions and public statements that they are actively moderating and removing illegal channels. Booth explained:
“They’re [Telegram] not giving away the keys to the back the back end of the platform, and so they are still protecting the privacy. It is very hard for like a government to come in, analyze every single channel themselves without having that key.”
He emphasizes that this doesn’t mean Telegram is compromising user privacy by giving authorities backdoor access to the platform. Without access keys, it would be challenging for governments to independently monitor and analyze every channel, making it difficult for them to identify illegal content without Telegram’s cooperation.
For more news and exclusive talks during TON’s Gateway event, check out Tanzeel Akhtar’s full coverage here.
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