According to sources familiar with the project, Telecom Open Network (TON) is set to release the code required to operate the TON node on September 1^st. The ambitious blockchain-focused project was announced by the Telegram messaging application last year.

One of the sources is working with TON Labs, which is a technology start-up founded by the investors of Telegram’s token sale. One of the investors in the token sale confirmed the reported date. 

Telegram has kept up a very high level of secrecy and hasn’t disclosed any details about TON, refusing to speak on the project in public. TON Labs was launched to primarily focus on building developer tools for Telegram. It claims to have maintained a regular interaction with Telegram’s developer team, becoming the only vocal technology firm to be associated with the project.

As of now, there is only one operational node being run on TON’s test platform, by Telegram itself. A larger number of users will be enabled to run their own nodes after the release of the upcoming node. Even so, as per the purchase agreement for Telegram’s token sale in 2018, users can only operate these nodes on testnet, expected to release on October 31^st. 

Russian leaks

Vedomosty, a Russian publication, reported on Wednesday that the launch will consist if a code for the node, as well as the instructions to deploy a node.

The report also noted that interested developers will be enabled to run their nodes for testing the protocol’s sharding and consensus mechanisms.

As per details from a leaked white paper, TON will also leverage Byzantine-fault-tolerant proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus with the ability to support 292 shardchains (49 followed by 26 zeros) and also “infinite sharding”. 

Telegram has purportedly received at least $1.7 billion as funds from investors based in the U.S., Russia and various other countries in the token sale in 2018. Telegram would have to refund its investors, sans extra expenses regarding the development, if TON fails to launch by the end of October.

A broad range of investors, Telegram users, and the crypto community as a whole have been equally interested to know about the blockchain project by Telegram. It was initially envisioned to release in December last year, before being postponed.