They banned Monero. Removed it from 73 exchanges. Binance removed it. Kraken removed it. Chainalysis flagged it. EU regulators called it criminal money.
But Monero kept running anyway.
Every transaction still works. Every single day.
There’s no CEO to arrest. No office to shut down. No server to unplug.
That’s not a weakness. That’s the whole idea behind it.
$XMR still went up 120% during all of this.
That’s not just traders gambling. That’s real people using it quietly - journalists, dissidents, and people living under broken systems who need privacy.
Now compare that to $ZEC . If privacy only works when regulators allow it, then it’s not real privacy.
Monero is probably the most targeted and censored crypto asset, yet it still works.
Monero doesn’t ask for permission. And that says everything.
In 2018, he raised $1.7 billion for the project. It became the second biggest ICO in history.
But in 2019, the SEC stepped in. They said the token was a security. The court agreed.
The project was stopped everywhere, not just in the US.
Durov had to pay $18.5 million. He also returned $1.22 billion to investors. In May 2020, he officially shut the project down. He wrote a goodbye message saying the world is controlled by American finance and American technology. He said escaping that system is almost impossible.
Then he walked away. But the developers didn’t stop.
They took the same code, renamed it “The Open Network” (TON), and quietly kept building for years.
Almost nobody noticed. Then Telegram slowly came back to TON. Not through big announcements, but through products.
Telegram Premium uses TON. Telegram Stars uses TON. Telegram Ads use TON. Mini Apps use TON.
Today, Telegram has 950 million users. TON has 32 million holders. And the network handles around 67 million transactions every month.
TON had already become Telegram’s blockchain,just without the official name. Then April 2026 changed everything.
Block times dropped to less than one second. On May 1st, transaction fees became almost zero.
Then on May 4th, Durov posted again. Telegram announced it was replacing the TON Foundation. Telegram also became the network’s biggest validator.
The website changed too. “MTONGA” Make TON Great Again.
Durov lost his blockchain because of regulators. He watched it survive for six years without him.
This isn’t a meme coin pump. This isn’t hype from influencers. This is real growth from strong fundamentals.
Here’s what changed:
- Fees dropped 6x overnight - Transactions are now faster than Solana - Costs are cheaper than Solana - New developer tools are coming in 2–3 weeks - Telegram is becoming the main driver of the ecosystem
And this is the biggest part👇
Telegram has 950 million daily users. Every user already has access to a TON wallet inside Telegram.
That means TON doesn’t need to search for users. The users are already there.
Solana spent years building its community. #TON starts with 950M users from day one.
The market is finally waking up to this. TON market cap: $3.6B → $7.3B in just 4 days.
And many believe this is still early.
Once Telegram fully pushes the TON ecosystem, money and liquidity could enter very fast. $TON