China’s Telegram Open Network spin-off, TONCommunity.org has announced that its testnet is now live.
After announcing plans for a separate TON network in late May, TONCommunity.org has launched the testnet on July 28 as said by the project’s founder Tooz Wu.
Meanwhile, TONCommunity.org is also holding an airdrop of mainnet tokens, known as “TONcoins.”
https://t.co/Vq2OEAxfWd Testnet Launch and Airdrop Ready. Welcome TON testnet2 validator join https://t.co/Vq2OEAxfWd testnet3. $TON 🚀🚀🚀https://t.co/aZvBNe6ywR — TON Community (@TONCommunity) July 28, 2020
The latest airdrop is available for all Telegram users and features 10 million TONcoins.
Referred to as the “testnet3,” the Chinese TON Community’s testnet poses itself as a continuation of the official TON testnet, which is often referred to as “testnet2.”
As the official TON developer announced that their testnet will be shut down by Aug. 1, 2020, TONCommunity.org invited the community to join the new testnet as validators to continue using the network.
Established in China, TONCommunity.org has been going international since it was set up in May 2020 where the project’s key members now include people from countries like China, Singapore, and Russia.
Backed by the Chinese TON Community, TONCommunity.org is not the only successor to the official TON network.
There are at least two other NewTON and Free TON that decided to implement Telegram’s original open-source blockchain technology after Telegram had to terminate the project followed by an unsuccessful legal battle with United States regulators.
Prior to Telegram officially abandoning the TON project on May 12, the Free TON community launched the “Free TON Blockchain” on May 7.
Free TON has recently distributed 1,342,000 Ton tokens in a series of contests for developers and network validators.
On July 21, the SEC’s Hester Peirce or “Crypto Mom” criticized authorities for shutting down Telegram’s blockchain project.
The Commissioner publicly stated that she did not support the SEC’s action against Telegram’s blockchain project since day one.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Unsplash