What Is Toncoin (Now GRAM)? TON Blockchain and Telegram, Explained

For most people GRAM is the money layer of Telegram. It buys Stars, Premium, collectible usernames and anonymous +888 numbers on Fragment, Telegram's official marketplace. It is what creators receive when they withdraw the Stars they earned from paid posts, subscriptions and gifts. It moves between friends inside Telegram Wallet, and it is the currency mini apps connect to through TON Connect.

Outside Telegram, TON works like any smart-contract blockchain: decentralized exchanges such as STON.fi and DeDust, NFT markets, stablecoins (USDT runs on TON), and staking. Upgraded Telegram gifts can even be moved onto the TON blockchain as NFTs.

In a TON Vote poll that closed on June 8, 2026, about 81% of voters backed renaming the coin from Toncoin to Gram, changing the ticker from TON to GRAM and updating the logo. The change took effect on June 15, 2026. 'Gram' was the name of the coin in Telegram's original 2018 plan, so the rename brings it back.

Only the name changed. Balances, addresses, smart contracts, NFTs and staking positions were untouched and nothing had to be migrated. The network itself is still called The Open Network — which is why wallets and Fragment show 'GRAM · TON'. Any message telling you to 'swap TON for GRAM' or 'migrate your tokens' is a scam.

Telegram designed TON and in 2018 raised about $1.7 billion from investors to launch it. In October 2019 the US SEC went to court to stop the token launch, and in June 2020 Telegram walked away: it agreed to return about $1.2 billion to investors and pay an $18.5 million penalty.

The code was already open source, so independent developers launched the network themselves as The Open Network, with the coin named Toncoin, and it grew without Telegram. Telegram came back as a partner rather than an owner: Fragment launched on TON in 2022, Stars payouts arrived in 2024, and in 2025 TON became the blockchain for Telegram's mini apps. Telegram builds on TON; it does not control it.

On April 9, 2026 the network activated Catchain 2.0, which cut block production from roughly 2.5 seconds to about 400 milliseconds, according to a June 2026 CoinShares research note. Payments now confirm in well under a second, and ordinary transfers still cost a fraction of a cent.

The upgrade also raised validator rewards: CoinShares measured network-wide gross staking yield jumping from 0.34% in March to 1.39% in April 2026 — about 16.7% a year. That is why staking GRAM now pays around 13% after pool fees, against roughly 4% before.

Telegram Stars are Telegram's own in-app currency. They are priced in dollars (about $0.02 each in the app, $0.015 on Fragment), live only inside Telegram and cannot be traded on exchanges. They pay for digital goods in bots and mini apps, paid posts, gifts and reactions.

GRAM is a cryptocurrency on a public blockchain: it trades on exchanges and its price floats. The two meet in two places — you can buy Stars with GRAM on Fragment, and creators withdraw their Stars as GRAM, at about $0.013 per Star.

Tonkeeper is a self-custody wallet: you hold the 24-word recovery phrase, nobody can freeze your coins, and it connects to Fragment, staking and TON apps. Write the phrase on paper, keep it offline and never type it into a website.

Telegram Wallet (@wallet) lives inside Telegram and lets you buy GRAM with a card and send it to contacts in a couple of taps. Its main account is custodial — the service holds the coins for you — which is convenient for small amounts, but for savings a self-custody wallet is the safer home.

Price: GRAM can lose a third of its value in weeks. Hold only what you can watch fall without selling in a panic.

Dilution: tokens that unlock through 2028 add supply. CoinShares suggests treating the real return from staking as roughly half the headline yield over that period.

Scams: fake 'migration' sites, fake airdrops and staking bots promising daily returns target exactly the people who just heard about GRAM. Use only wallets and sites you typed in yourself, and never share your recovery phrase.