Launched on May 7, 2020, the blockchain truly decentralized token is yet to sell any token.
According to TON Labs CTO Mitja Goroshevsky, a year later, Free TON still hasn’t and won’t, per Cointelegraph AMA.
However, generally relies on validators who stake a fair amount of a project’s tokens to ensure good behavior, that’s unique for a proof-of-stake blockchain.
Again, rising from the ashes of Telegram messaging service’s Telegram Open Network blockchain, very little is normal about the Free TON project
In that incarnation, Telegram presold $1.7 billion worth of tokens to investors. But the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in, calling the sale an illegal securities offering, and forcing Telegram to return $1.2 billion to investors and abandon the project.
With so much work done, however, 17 other TON developers decided to keep the blockchain going, but make it “one of the largest social experiments in the world in terms of truly decentralized governance,” according to Alexander Filatov, CEO of Free TON core developer TON Labs. “Nobody runs or owns this project. There is no foundation. There is no legal entity. It’s a fully community-driven project. We did not do any ICO or token sale in any shape or form.”