GRAM, the token formerly known as Toncoin, faces a cliff unlock of about $52 million on September 22, a release equal to roughly 83% of the token’s typical daily trading volume. DeFiLlama schedules the TON Believers Fund unlock for 7:19 PM UTC, with 36.58 million GRAM entering circulation, about 1.3% of the circulating supply.
The size matters less than the ratio to liquidity. GRAM’s 24-hour trading volume sits near $25 million to $39 million depending on the tracker, so a single-day release worth $50 million or more can overwhelm normal bid depth. Tokens rarely dump instantly on unlock dates, but sellers who received allocations at vesting prices often have every reason to reduce exposure when the tokens become liquid.
GRAM trades near $1.44 on DeFiLlama’s feed, giving the token a market capitalization around $3.9 billion against a circulating supply of 2.78 billion. The TON Believers Fund locker holds close to 1.25 billion GRAM, worth about $1.82 billion at the explorer’s price, so Monday’s release is a small slice of a much larger overhang that will keep dripping into the market for years.
Tonviewer, the block explorer’s unlock tracker, shows the next batch of roughly 37 million GRAM due October 7, with monthly allocations expected to continue for three years. The two trackers disagree on the exact schedule: DeFiLlama lists September 22 as the cliff unlock date, while Tonviewer points to October 7 for the next payment. Neither reconciles the discrepancy, so the September 22 date should be read as DeFiLlama’s cliff date rather than a distribution confirmed by the explorer.
Why the token changed its name
The community approved renaming Toncoin to GRAM on June 15, 2026, with the ticker moving from TON to GRAM. The Open Network kept the TON name for the blockchain itself, and the network’s official media account explicitly distinguishes between Gram as the coin and TON as the chain. Messari’s overview of the network describes the token’s roles as paying network fees, staking and payments linked to Telegram, the messaging app whose hundreds of millions of users remain the ecosystem’s main distribution channel.
The rename followed a period of strategic repositioning for the network. Telegram’s wallet integrations made TON one of the most distributed tokens in crypto by holder count, but trading activity and developer attention lagged the user numbers. A fresh ticker and branding were part of an attempt to reset the token’s market identity separate from the chain’s technical brand.
Where the locked tokens came from
The Believers Fund dates to the network’s early fundraising era. Telegram raised roughly $1.7 billion in a private sale for its original token plan in 2018, then abandoned the project in 2020 after a US court sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission, returning most of the money to investors. The open-source community continued the chain without Telegram, and tokens tied to early contributors and supporters have been vesting in scheduled batches ever since. The fund’s remaining 1.25 billion GRAM is the largest single locked pool still feeding into circulating supply, which is why each release shows up on unlock calendars and why the market watches it.
Monthly releases of this size will continue for years under the current schedule. At 37 million tokens per month near current prices, the fund alone would add roughly $1.3 billion of potential supply to the market over a year if every allocation were sold, against a circulating supply that grows proportionally. Dilution of that pace is not unusual for networks still in their vesting tails, but it does mean GRAM’s effective float keeps expanding faster than most large-cap tokens.
How unlocks move markets
Cliff unlocks concentrate what would otherwise be a gradual drip into a single event. Research across past unlock cycles shows prices tend to weaken in the weeks before a large unlock and recover afterward, a pattern consistent with front-running rather than with the unlock itself doing the damage. The effect is strongest when unlocked tokens go to early investors whose cost basis sits far below the market price, which is the case for a fund named Believers that took its position years ago.
For GRAM the arithmetic is uncomfortable. Even if only a fraction of the 36.58 million tokens hit the market in the first week, that selling would exceed a full day of organic volume. Market makers typically widen spreads around unlock dates to compensate, which amplifies any downward move. The counterargument is that the market has known about this schedule for months and the overhang is priced in, a claim that is hard to verify until the tokens actually move.
Broader market conditions complicate the picture. Bitcoin pushed above $86,000 on Monday, its highest level since late January, after a short squeeze forced out more than $600 million in bearish bets and spot ETF inflows returned. A strong tape gives unlocked tokens somewhere to go. In a weak market the same release would land on thinner bids.
Traders watching the event have a few reference points. The unlock lands at 7:19 PM UTC on a Monday, when US market hours are still open and liquidity is at its weekly peak. GRAM’s price held near $1.41 to $1.44 through the day, showing no obvious pre-unlock slide. Whether that composure holds after the tokens hit wallets depends on how much of the allocation moves to exchanges in the following days, a flow that on-chain trackers will show within hours.