Telegrams TON to Begin Public Tests On Sept. 1

Telegram will reportedly be spending its weekend launching a series of public tests for the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain. 

TON Public Testing

According to a report by Russian news outlet Vedomosti, Telegram will begin public testing for the TON blockchain on Sept. 1.

The messaging platform is also planning to release the code and instructions for running and setting up a TON node as a part of the ongoing testing. The report claims that TON’s consensus mechanism and sharding scheme will be available for public testing. 

News of public testing for TON follows on the heels of a New York Times report earlier in the week which claimed Telegram was preparing to send the native token GRAM to initial investors within the next two months. 

Telegram gained prominence for its massive 2018 initial coin offering (ICO) which raised $1.7 billion in funding, second only to the record-breaking raise by Block.one’s EOS at $4 billion. GRAM and the TON network have been highly anticipated by investors since the original ICO, despite unfavorable market conditions for crypto plaguing the project through most of last year.