Messaging service Telegram, in partnership with the Open Network Foundation, has announced the rollout of a self-custodial crypto wallet, TON Space, on its platform. This is coming after a three-year sabbatical brought on by regulatory difficulties.
TON, a proof-of-stake blockchain platform, was ditched by Telegram in 2020. After 2.5 years of development, it was supposed to launch, but Telegram’s involvement was halted by a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC).
Telegram was reported to have settled with the SEC over the alleged unregistered securities offering that raised $1.7 billion through Grams tokens and promised a refund if TON didn’t go live.
The Open Network Foundation was founded by the creators of Telegram and later split off after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the messenger over a significant initial coin offering, creating the wallet.
The new self-custodial wallet, TON Space, was jointly introduced by the pair on Wednesday at the Token2049 cryptocurrency conference in Singapore, which draws over 10,000 people.
The move is expected to strengthen the popular chat app’s position in the vibrant crypto community that has grown out of its chat platform and may help draw more people into the cryptocurrency industry. The app has 800 million active monthly users.
According to the firms, starting in November, the TON Space will be accessible worldwide, except for some nations like the United States, which has launched several crackdowns on the cryptocurrency industry and urged numerous crypto apps to geofence users.
The Foundation, on the other hand, said that the projects built on TON will get priority access to the messaging app’s advertising platform, Telegram Ads. Meanwhile, following the announcement, the TON token price is said to have been boosted by 7% and hopes to jump high in the next few days.
