They banned Monero. โจRemoved it from 73 exchanges. โจBinance removed it. Kraken removed it. โจChainalysis flagged it. EU regulators called it criminal money.
But Monero kept running anyway.
Every transaction still works. Every single day.
Thereโs no CEO to arrest. โจNo office to shut down. โจNo server to unplug.
Thatโs not a weakness. Thatโs the whole idea behind it.
$XMR still went up 120% during all of this.
Thatโs not just traders gambling. โจThatโs real people using it quietly - journalists, dissidents, and people living under broken systems who need privacy.
Now compare that to $ZEC . โจIf privacy only works when regulators allow it, then itโs not real privacy.
Monero is probably the most targeted and censored crypto asset, yet it still works.
Monero doesnโt ask for permission. And that says everything.
In 2018, he raised $1.7 billion for the project. โจIt became the second biggest ICO in history.
But in 2019, the SEC stepped in. โจThey said the token was a security.โจThe court agreed.
The project was stopped everywhere, not just in the US.
Durov had to pay $18.5 million. โจHe also returned $1.22 billion to investors. In May 2020, he officially shut the project down. โจHe wrote a goodbye message saying the world is controlled by American finance and American technology. โจHe said escaping that system is almost impossible.
Then he walked away. But the developers didnโt stop.
They took the same code,โจrenamed it โThe Open Networkโ (TON),โจand quietly kept building for years.
Almost nobody noticed. Then Telegram slowly came back to TON.โจNot through big announcements,โจbut through products.
Telegram Premium uses TON.โจTelegram Stars uses TON.โจTelegram Ads use TON.โจMini Apps use TON.
Today, Telegram has 950 million users.โจTON has 32 million holders. โจAnd the network handles around 67 million transactions every month.
TON had already become Telegramโs blockchain,just without the official name. Then April 2026 changed everything.
Block times dropped to less than one second. โจOn May 1st, transaction fees became almost zero.
Then on May 4th, Durov posted again. Telegram announced it was replacing the TON Foundation. โจTelegram also became the networkโs biggest validator.
The website changed too. โMTONGAโโจMake TON Great Again.
Durov lost his blockchain because of regulators. โจHe watched it survive for six years without him.
This isnโt a meme coin pump. โจThis isnโt hype from influencers. โจThis is real growth from strong fundamentals.
Hereโs what changed:
- Fees dropped 6x overnightโจ- Transactions are now faster than Solanaโจ- Costs are cheaper than Solanaโจ- New developer tools are coming in 2โ3 weeksโจ- Telegram is becoming the main driver of the ecosystem
And this is the biggest part๐
Telegram has 950 million daily users. โจEvery user already has access to a TON wallet inside Telegram.
That means TON doesnโt need to search for users. โจThe users are already there.
Solana spent years building its community. โจ#TON starts with 950M users from day one.
The market is finally waking up to this. TON market cap: โจ$3.6B โ $7.3B in just 4 days.
And many believe this is still early.
Once Telegram fully pushes the TON ecosystem, โจmoney and liquidity could enter very fast. $TON