GRAM

GRAM is a jetton on TON blockchain. It rolled out as the first Proof of Work (PoW) jetton as an experiment. GRAM minted in January 2024, distributing 5,000,000,000 to the PoW Givers.

Gram logo

Mining

GRAM is mined using lolMiner, which allows computers with NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel GPUs to mine various cryptocurrencies. Mining officially began on 30th January 2024, with the price of GRAM starting at about 0.00024 TON (approximately $0.00011 with TON trading at $2.13), to hitting a high of $0.084 on 1st April, resulting in a 736x rally. The miners are able to draw GRAM from the POW givers via the gram mining pool, a service that allows them to pull together resources to increase their chances of mining the jettons.

A screenshot of the mining pool page showing mined GRAM for the day (21st May 2024).

The givers are meant to allow GRAM to be mined up to early January 2026. Approximately 965,000,000 GRAM are in circulation today, which is about 19.3% of the total supply, give or take the unknown amount burnt so far.

A screenshot of installation instructions of the miner on Linux, with options for other operating systems.

Gram DNS

In March 2024, Gram DNS was introduced as a platform where one could mint domain names with the .gram extension.

.gram domain name page

Background

Gram coin was originally created in 2018 by the Telegram team led by Pavel Durov as a cryptocurrency on an in-built blockchain platform that allows users to transact and store it in ID verifiable wallets (Grams Wallet) within the app.

Telegram had raised $1.7B from investors during the first course of bidding between February and March 2018. The release of Gram to depositors by October 31st the same year was interrupted by the SEC which stated that Telegram’s business model was opaque. The SEC saw Grams as securities which were supposed to be registered before being offered for sale. Telegram’s stand on TON’s Grams was that it was a medium of exchange between users in TON ecosystem.

Eventually, The Open Network community continued with the work anyway, and came up with what we now know as TON chain.

The current version of GRAM is being traded on TON blockchain (ston.fi, dedust.io, ton.diamonds, kibble.exchange, Mars DEX, etc)

Centralised exchanges that trade GRAM include MEXC, Bitget, BitMart, EXMO.ME, Azbit, etc.

Controversy

A similar GRAM token had been created around 2 weeks before the PoW GRAM was minted. The creators of the former token claim that the idea was originally theirs, pitching the project as a community project supporting the continuation of where Durov left off — «The unfinished business of Pavel Durov».

In 2020, Pavel Durov wrote an article where he warned TON enthusiasts to beware of imitation projects — «I am writing this post to officially announce that Telegram’s active involvement with TON is over. You may see – or may have already seen – sites using my name or the Telegram brand or the «TON» abbreviation to promote their projects. Don’t trust them with your money or data. No present or past member of our team is involved with any of these projects. While networks based on the technology we built for TON may appear, we won’t have any affiliation with them and are unlikely to ever support them in any way. So be careful, and don’t let anyone mislead you».

Links