Telegram’s TON is Over: What Happens to the Blockchain Project Next?

On May 12th, 2020, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov announced the Telegram Open Network (TON), the messaging company's highly anticipated blockchain platform. The news that Telegram had been forced to abandon its TON project symbolized sustained pressure from regulators in the U.S to impede social media-backed cryptocurrency ventures. That said, the project's source code remains freely available on Github, so other developers can technically use it to develop their version of the Telegram Open Network. The original TON development…