The Impact of Telegram CEO’s Arrest on TON Blockchain

TON OF TROUBLE. With Telegram CEO Pavel Durov set to appear in a French court on Wednesday, blockchain analysts are weighing the possible impact on the closely affiliated TON blockchain, officially called The Open Network. Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of research, reminded investors in a report that the value of the TON blockchain and its native token, toncoin (TON), are “substantially dependent” on the project’s integration with Telegram. The TON price tumbled after the news that Durov was arrested on Saturday – detained as part of an investigation into crimes allegedly planned or broadcasted on Telegram. The TON blockchain has more than 350 validators globally, but it is unclear how many of these Telegram operates, if any, according to the Galaxy report. (A source told The Protocol that Telegram doesn’t operate any of them, although our attempts to reach the supporting TON Foundation for comment were unsuccessful.) It’s not clear “how resilient TON can be in the case that France or any other major governments attempt to attack it or to take it down as part of Durov’s arrest,” Thorn wrote. The TON Society, describing itself as a community organization affiliated with TON, circulated an open letter condemning Durov’s arrest and calling upon France to release him. In a very crypto-style interlude to the saga, the TON blockchain suffered a near-six-hour outage on Wednesday, caused by a surge in network traffic – and possibly linked to the recent airdrop of a TON-based memecoin called DOGS. In a post on X, the TON blockchain team explained that “Several validators are unable to clean the database of old transactions, which has led to losing the consensus,” assuring that “no cryptocurrency assets will be lost due to the issue.”