TON Blockchain registers DLT Foundation in ADGM UAE

TON Blockchain registers DLT Foundation in ADGM UAE

The TON Blockchain has registered its DLT Foundation at ADGM in UAE under ADGM’s DLT Foundations framework.

The TON DLT Foundation aims to contribute to the adoption of TON Blockchain with a strategic focus on expanding the network’s presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as well as Asia Pacific regions.

It wants to reach 500 million users in MENA and APAC by 2028.

Recently OKX Ventures, the investment arm of leading crypto exchange and global onchain technology company OKX, announced a $5 million investment in TON Ventures, a venture capital fund dedicated to accelerating growth within The Open Network (TON) blockchain ecosystem. The investment is aimed at establishing a network of experienced builders to develop best practices for TON applications.

This move complements OKX Ventures’ recently launched $10 Million Telegram Growth Hub, in partnership with The Open Platform and Folius Ventures, by focusing on technical expertise and development standards. With direct access to Telegram’s 950 million monthly active users and successful mini-apps like Notcoin, OKX Racer and Catizen, TON continues to demonstrate strong potential for mass adoption.

Having secured $40 million in initial funding, TON Ventures combines deep ecosystem expertise through its founders Ian and Inal. The fund typically deploys investments of up to $500,000 for early-stage projects, while maintaining flexibility for larger opportunities. In the coming months, TON Ventures will focus on supporting the emergence of midcore gaming experiences, an expansion of monetization tools available to creators and the continued growth of the decentralized finance sector on TON.

Tether to issue AED Stablecoin on TON blockchain

Tether to issue AED Stablecoin on TON blockchain

On the same day that Tether the issuer of the USDT stablecoin announced that USDT is now on TON Network on MobeeID, Alessandro Giori, Tether’s senior strategic partnership manager based out of Dubai UAE, speaking at the TON Gateway event in Dubai UAE, announced that the upcoming USDT AED stablecoin will be launched on the TON Blockchain network.

The announcement was made during the TON Gateway annual event for the TON community. As per the website the TON Gateway event aims to power TON Blockchain and put crypto in every pocket by acting as a gateway to Web3 for millions of Telegram users. The Gateway brings the TON ecosystem together to collaborate and drive this mission forward.

During the event Giori was speaking on the topic of USDT on TON. He was followed by Oleg Andreev CEO of Ton Apps, who spoke on gasless payments on TON, while Victor Mendes, Director of BD of Top discussed stablecoin adoption on TON.

Giori stated, that Tether and Ton have a strong relationship because they both focus on emerging markets. He noted that Tether is focusing on Brazil, Argentina, and Turkey. While Tether has 400 million users, TON has 1 billion users.

He states, “ In Just six months since we launched USDT on Ton, we have seen 1 billion USDT transacted on Ton chain, the fastest adoption for Tether in its history. We have been around for 10 years, on Ton we have seen 160,000 transactions per day and 7.6 million wallets.”

He noted that for example Turkey has inflation of 80%, Tether is used to protect value. They save in USDT, from the fisherman in Turkey to guy in Argentina who sells meat, Tether allows them to save in a currency that is more stable than theirs.

He also noted, that TON and Tether have been jointly educating people on stablecoin and Blockchain in nine universities in Africa. He explains this is very important given that 3 billion people around the world are unbanked because they don’t have enough money for banks to accept to open accounts with them.

In his final comments he stated, “As you might have heard about our announcement with joint venture UAE Phoenix Group and Acorn Group for the launch of a dirham backed stablecoin, we are happy to announce we will do Tether AED stablecoin on TON.”

Tether in August 2024, announced its plans to offer an AED pegged stablecoin set to be launched in collaboration with UAE based Phoenix Group. The Tether dirham backed stablecoin will need to be licensed from the UAE Central Bank which recently came out with its Payment Token services regulation. The regulation notes that only dirham backed stablecoins can be used as legal tenders for the purchase of goods and services within the UAE. Tether’s USDT can only be used for the purchase of virtual assets.

Soon afterwards in October, AED Stablecoin LLC announced that the Central Bank of UAE had provided it with in principle approval to launch and establish its own stablecoin, AE Coin. This comes after the Central Bank of UAE announced the “Payment Token Services Regulation”; Circular No. 2/2024, dated 7 June 2024, to be licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are shifting towards stablecoins as their preferred asset class. In Saudi Arabia, stablecoins accounted for 46.1% of the total crypto value received, while in the UAE, they accounted for 51.3% — both higher than the global average of 44.7%

TonCoin loses 18% of its value on Telegram’s 11th anniversary and Durov’s arrest

TonCoin loses 18% of its value on Telegram’s 11th anniversary and Durov’s arrest

While Telegram Founder Pavel Durov awaits an appearance in court today in France, the crypto world and the defenders of Freedom of speech are speaking out loud about the infringement that is happening when it comes to Telegram, which celebrated its 11th anniversary this week.

The Russian government, once against Telegram is now defending Durov. Deputy Speaker of Russian State Duma Vladislav Davankov stated, ” Hardly anyone else has done more for the development of digital services in Russia and the world. We need to get him out of there. His arrest could be politically motivated and used to gain access to personal information on telegram users. We cannot allow this.”

Yet the TONCoin continues to face downward loss in value now reaching 18% decline. Last night it had lost 16% when Durov’s arrest was made public.

Ton Network and its associated Toncoin had been doing quite well. This year Toncoin had launched a $40 million fund, through its Open Network TON venutes, a new venture capital (VC) firm. The aim of which was to support early-stage crypto projects growing on the TON ecosystem. The new venture firm is founded by former senior members of the TON Foundation.

The launch comes amidst a growth of projects fuelled by the Toncoin Telegram partnership. The Toncoin price has also been on the rise. Analysts had noted that it was predicted a that Toncoin would potentially surge 2X in the coming weeks.

But today with Pavel Durov, under investigation for lack of moderators on Telegram allowing criminal activity to go untouched, He could face indictment today ( Sunday 25th), the Toncoin is under duress.

Durov faces possible indictment on Sunday, according to French media.

This all comes as Telegram celebrated its 11th birthday this week, adding new ways to support content creators with Star Reactions and Star Subscriptions, allowing admins to post as their profile or other channel in Super Channels and more.

The Ethereum co-founder responded to reports of Pavel Durov’s arrest, saying the outlook for freedom in Europe looked very bad “I’ve criticized Telegram before for not being serious with encryption. But (given the info available so far: the charge seems to be just being “unmoderated” and not giving up people’s data), this looks very bad and worrying for the future of software and comms freedom in Europe.”

Formerly in an interview in the Tucker Carlson show, Pavel Durov discussed how US agencies tried to gain a backdoor to Telegram. Followed by Israel’s request to censor them which Telegram refused. 

However, Telegram has on many occasions been considered as platform for spams, thefts, and other criminal activities. Russian based Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence team analyzed shadow Telegram channels. Their findings reveal a troubling trend: cybercriminals are increasingly using Telegram as a platform for underground market activities. Cybercriminals actively operate channels and groups on Telegram dedicated to discussing fraud schemes, distributing leaked databases, and trading various criminal services, such as cashing out, forging documents, DDoS attacks as a service and more.

According to Kaspersky’s Digital Footprint Intelligence data, the volume of such posts surged by 53% in May-June 2024 compared to the same period last year. “The growing interest in Telegram from the cybercriminal community is driven by several key factors. Finding or creating a community on Telegram is relatively easy, which, combined with other factors, allows various channels, including cybercriminal ones, to gather an audience quickly,” explains Alexey Bannikov, analyst at Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence.

The question remains what is the main reason for the arrest today, politics, war cabinets, or the fight against criminal activity?

Founder of Telegram gets arrested while TONcoin gets price hit

Founder of Telegram gets arrested while TONcoin gets price hit

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.

UAE and Bahrain regulated CoinMENA allows crypto users to send USDT on TON Blockchain

UAE and Bahrain regulated CoinMENA allows crypto users to send USDT on TON Blockchain

UAE and Bahrain regulated CoinMENA crypto broker has added Telegram’s The Open Network (TON) to its platform, allowing users to send USDT via the TON blockchain. According to the announcement CoinMENA becomes the first regional platform to enable USDT withdrawals via the TON network.

TON joins Ethereum’s ERC-20 and TRON’s TRC-20 as the third blockchain available to CoinMENA users for sending USDT.

CoinMENA Co-Founder and Managing Director Dina Sam’an expressed her excitement in a LinkedIn post saying “Users can seamlessly swap their local currencies to USDT at the most competitive market rates and send them to over 900 million Telegram users. I am extremely excited and proud of the team for mobilizing quickly and becoming the first regional platform to enable USDT withdrawals via TON just 10 days after Tether announced launching USDT on TON.”

CoinMENA Co-Founder and CEO Talal Tabbaa added “Stablecoins, particularly USDT, stand out as crypto’s “killer app,” constituting approximately 70% of on-chain transactions and providing access to U.S. dollars for millions worldwide. The rapid adoption of USDT regionally is unsurprising, given its superior and more convenient experience compared to traditional USD wire transfers. Additionally, with many regional currencies pegged to the dollar, using USDT as a medium of exchange mitigates exposure to FX risk. I’m thrilled about this addition and proud that CoinMENA is leading the charge as the first crypto company to offer this in the region”

The announcement adds that this aligns with CoinMENA’s mission to become the simplest and safest way to onboard people onto crypto by providing a reliable onramp to stablecoins, the most popular use case thus far.

CoinMENA has had a string of partnership announcements with formidable players over the past months. The crypto broker recently partnered with Zodia Markets, enhancing liquidity for its platform. It also partnered with Network international to offer secure onramp from Fiat to crypto, and even partnered with Onramp Bitcoin.