By the late 2010s, crypto had a adoption problem that no one could quite solve. The technology worked — in theory. But actually using a blockchain meant downloading unfamiliar wallets, backing up seed phrases, navigating gas fees, and hoping the network wouldn't grind to a halt during peak hours. For the vast majority of people, the barrier to entry wasn't skepticism about decentralization. It was the sheer friction of getting started. Crypto kept building for crypto people, and the other seven billion just scrolled past.
The team behind Telegram — brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov — understood distribution better than almost anyone in tech. Their messaging app had quietly amassed hundreds of millions of users by doing something deceptively simple: making encrypted communication feel effortless. In 2018, they applied the same instinct to blockchain, launching what was then called the Telegram Open Network. The SEC intervened before the initial token launch could materialize, and the project was shelved. But the underlying technology didn't disappear. An open-source community of developers picked up where the Durovs left off, rebranding the effort as The Open Network — TON — and building it into something the original whitepaper had only sketched out.