Huobi, Kucoin, Others Lead $250M Toncoin Ecosystem Fund

Toncoin is independent from Telegram, though does have the messaging service's endorsement.

By Jamie Crawley

Apr 11, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. UTC

Updated Oct 12, 2022 at 12:29 p.m. UTC

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Jamie Crawley

Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.

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The venture arms of cryptocurrency exchanges Huobi and Kucoin are among the backers of a new $250 million ecosystem fund to support projects built on Toncoin, the reincarnation of failed blockchain project TON.

Along with Huobi Incubator and Kucoin Ventures, MEXC Pioneer Fund, 3Commas Capital, Orbs, TON Miners and Kilo Fund have committed $250 million to support the fund.
The fund will support developers building on The Open Network (TON) blockchain through incubation, investments and grants, the TON Foundation announced on Monday.
TON is a layer 1 proof-of-stake blockchain compatible with messaging service Telegram. Unlike its predecessor, however, Toncoin is independent from Telegram, though CEO Pavel Durov gave the project his endorsement at the end of last year.
Furthermore, the plan is for Toncoin to be integrated into Telegram, making it available to the messaging app's 500 million monthly users.
Telegram shut TON down in August 2020 following a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) around allegations of running an unregistered securities sale in 2018 that had brought in $1.7 billion.
Members of the TON community, however, continued to develop the blockchain, rebranding the project Toncoin. Now the Ton Foundation has launched its first ecosystem fund to support projects wishing to build on it.

CORRECT (April 12, 14:46 UTC): Corrects TON's full name in second bullet point. An earlier version called it Telegram Open Network.

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