Gram since the rebrand: why Telegram's takeover has not lifted the token
Telegram now steers TON, fees are near zero and a native wallet is rolling out. Gram still trades well below its June level. Supply, demand and the February question.
TON & TELEGRAMPRICE ANALYSISANALYSIS
Sofia Marchetti
10/28/20263 min read
On paper, 2026 should have been the best year in TON's history. Telegram stepped back in as the network's main steward, fees fell to fractions of a cent, blocks got faster, the token reclaimed its original name and a self-custodial wallet began reaching Telegram's user base. Yet Gram, formerly Toncoin, traded around $1.21 in late October according to CoinMarketCap, below the roughly $1.75 it fetched on the day of the rename in June. The gap between the headlines and the price says a good deal about how token markets value this kind of news.
A pattern of fading rallies
The price path has a clear shape. When Pavel Durov announced on May 4 that Telegram would take over the TON Foundation's leading role and become the largest validator, the token jumped about 37% to near $1.89 within a day, from a range of $1.30 to $1.35 the week before. On June 15, after a community vote passed with 81.22% support, Toncoin became Gram at a price of about $1.75, according to CoinGecko data compiled by CryptoTicker. Two weeks later it was near $1.59.
October repeated the pattern. When Telegram widened access to Money, its self-custodial Gram wallet, on October 9, the token rose roughly 8% to 9% to about $1.49. By October 14 it was back near $1.38, with a market capitalization of about $3.9 billion, outside the top 30, and 24-hour trading volume of around $31 million, less than 1% of its market value. Thin volume relative to size means sentiment moves the price quickly in both directions, but it also suggests limited active demand.
The supply side
Part of the explanation is supply. Unlock trackers such as Tokenomics.com list monthly releases of roughly 45 million tokens to the community allocation, the latest on October 26, with similar tranches scheduled each month into early 2027. More significant is February 2027. In February 2023 TON validators voted to freeze about 1.08 billion tokens held in 171 dormant wallets that had never sent a transaction, for 48 months. That freeze is due to end in February, and unlock trackers flag it as the largest single supply event on the calendar, at more than a fifth of total supply.
How much of that ever reaches the market is unknown. Wallets that never moved funds in years may belong to holders who lost access, early miners who are simply patient, or entities that will act the moment they can. Traders tend to price the worst case ahead of time, and that overhang likely weighs on the token now.
Network economics have shifted too. Faster blocks raise validator rewards, and crypto.news estimates that the speed upgrade will lift annual inflation from about 0.6% toward 3.6%. At the same time, near-zero fees, about $0.0005 per transfer according to network figures cited after the fee cut, mean the fee-burn mechanism removes less supply than before. For users that is a feature; for holders it changes the balance of issuance and burn.
The demand side
Demand for Gram depends on whether Telegram's products require it. Money handles Gram transfers and purchases of Telegram gifts and collectible usernames, and advertisers on Telegram pay in the token. But Walt, the custodial app formerly called Wallet in Telegram, lets users and their AI agents trade perpetual futures without using Gram for margin or fees, according to details reported on October 20. Many of the most active financial flows inside Telegram run on stablecoins rather than on the native token.
Market signals are mixed. On October 24, Gram traded at a 1.46% discount on South Korean exchanges, according to TokenPost, the widest among the assets in that comparison, which points to soft local demand. On October 16 Coinbase reported delayed Gram withdrawals while noting that the network itself was running, an operational glitch that did not help confidence.
What could change the picture
Three developments would test this reading. The first is adoption data for Money: Telegram has not published user numbers, and evidence of millions of active self-custodial wallets would make a stronger case for organic demand than any announcement. The second is the handling of the February unfreeze, including any transparency from validators about which wallets are involved. The third is whether Telegram's remaining roadmap steps, three of which have not been disclosed, create uses that require holding Gram rather than just moving it.
Until then the market is treating Telegram's commitment as necessary but not sufficient. Ownership of the network's direction removed one risk, an absentee sponsor. It did not answer the question every platform token faces: why users should hold the asset rather than simply pass through it.