The Founder of Telegram Pavel Durov has been arrested in France under charges executed under a French Warrant and has been detained by the National Anti Fraud Office on accusations that Telegram is facilitating crimes like terrorism, narcotics trafficking and fraud as well as other accusations, whilst TON Blockchain’s coin TON loses around 16% of its value.

Since his arrest, the TON network price has seen a dive with Ton Coin losing around 16% of its value reaching $5.7. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #10, with a live market cap of $13,959,766,595 USD. It has a circulating supply of 2,527,167,308 TON coins and the max. supply is not available.

The relationship between Telegram and TON is not clear. In 2020, Telegram settled with the US regulator, agreeing to return the ICO proceeds and pay an $18.5 million penalty. Following the settlement, the TON Foundation emerged as a separate entity from both the Telegram Open Network and Telegram itself.

Although Toncoin is independent from Telegram, Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov posted on Telegram about the project in 2021. He gave his endorsement to Toncoin while maintaining that Telegram has no remaining links, financial or technological, to $TON.

TON announced that Tether tokens could also be issued on its blockchain, allowing Telegram users to send the stablecoin to each other within the app. In April 2024, Stablecoin operator Tether strengthened ties with Telegram’s Web3 ecosystem by launching its U.S. dollar-pegged USDT. Tether also noted it would launch the gold-pegged Tether Gold (XAUT) stablecoin on TON as well.

TON has been doing very well in terms of partnerships. In a strategic move, Animoca Brands became the largest validator for The Open Network (TON) blockchain, as announced by the TON Foundation. This collaboration signifies a promising effort to advance digital property rights within gaming and the open metaverse. Animoca Brands’ Mocaverse also in July 2024 announced a strategic partnership with MOCA Foundation and The Open Network (TON) Foundation to implement an identity and reputation-based consumer network across Moca Network and TON Blockchain ecosystems. 

In 2023 MEXC Ventures, a subsidiary of MEXC’s global cryptocurrency exchange MEXC, announced a significant investment in TON the largest layer-1 investment the firm has ever made. This investment worked alongside a strategic partnership with The Open Network (TON) Foundation.

Copper, one of the industry’s leading digital asset custodians, also integrated with The Open Network (TON), into its infrastructure.

So despite the fact that The Founder of Telegram was arrested, it seems that TON is taking the brunt of the hit, yet why given that both are different platforms with different utilities.