With the support of Binance and the promotion of the TON ecosystem, has the MEME coin resisted Dog REDO to become the cultural king of the TON chain?

Author: Followin

On Binance, the TON icon has been changed to the image of this dog.

This REDO was born in January 2024, currently has a market cap of $81 million, and has increased by 148% in the last 24 hours.

Image: Resistance Dog

This dog is named Resistance Dog, which aligns with the spirit of resistance of Telegram, especially after the recent arrest of Telegram's founder in France, giving Resistance Dog immediate symbolic significance. It is likely to become the MEME leader of the TON ecosystem and even a symbol of advocating for freedom of speech and resisting censorship in the crypto industry.

What is REDO?

REDO was personally drawn and named by Telegram founder Pavel Durov in 2018, with the full name Resistance Dog, a dog wearing a hat.

According to X user ttty, REDO first appeared in 2009 during the internal resistance movement against Putin in Russia. On that day, Durov received an email from the Kremlin requesting him to cooperate in shutting down Alexei Navalny's VK account and provide relevant account data.

Durov replied with a photo of a small dog sticking out its tongue and wearing a blue hoodie, adding, "This is my response," in case they didn't understand.

In 2014, Ukraine erupted in turmoil, and Russian troops entered the Crimean Peninsula. Subsequently, Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia. One day, Durov received another email asking him to hand over information about a Ukrainian politician.

Durov replied that this was difficult, as his mother was Ukrainian and his father was Russian—"these two countries are likely the closest relatives in the national family."—he didn't want to take sides.

So, he sent back two photos of small dogs.

Since then, the image of a dog wearing a hat has become the spiritual totem of Telegram, and in many subsequent tweets, Telegram's official account has interacted with REDO Resistance Dog.

Thus, REDO has since been the (unofficial) mascot of Telegram's vision to "resist" censorship.

What is the TON ecosystem doing?

On Saturday night, Durov was arrested in Paris. The reason was his involvement in a preliminary investigation, with charges including terrorism, drug trafficking, fraud, money laundering, and child abuse.

Durov's arrest was due to the social software Telegram. After the incident, both Telegram and the TON public chain ecosystem actively posted to support the rescue of Durov. Musk also posted, and Sun Yuchen offered $10 million from his family inheritance…

Among them, one campaign has garnered particular attention, called Digital Resistance, initiated by members of the TON Foundation, aimed at using technological means to uphold and defend personal freedom, privacy, and information security.

In this campaign, REDO, the MEME coin of the TON ecosystem, has gained significant attention due to its symbolic meaning, seemingly becoming the spiritual totem of the movement.

We see that the official X account of the TON chain has already changed its profile picture to the image of REDO. Its pinned post on X also mentions: suggesting the community change their profile pictures to Resistance Dog.

The change of profile pictures began with the TON community account TON Society, which posted yesterday:

"Today, we stand with Telegram's creator Pavel Durov. To support Digital Resistance, we have updated the Toncoin logo and profile picture on the TON community channel to the global symbol of digital resistance—Resistance Dog. Pavel Durov initiated this movement while fighting to maintain Telegram users' privacy and protect freedom of speech."

This post, somewhat like a battle proclamation, also suggested participants change their profile pictures to Resistance Dog.

The head of the TON community even @mentioned Musk, suggesting that the verification process on X for those who change their profile pictures to REDO be expedited. "This is a movement with significant cultural meaning."

This seems to be a marketing strategy; previously, Musk had already voiced support for Durov and mentioned that freedom of speech is very important.

Currently, the TON image on Binance has been changed to this dog.

It is expected that REDO's future trends are likely to be closely related to the entire movement.

At present, in terms of price, among the MEMEs related to Durov's arrest, a MEME coin with a certain market value has appeared in the TRON ecosystem, called FREEDUROV, which surged after Sun Yuchen's support but has now fallen back, with a market cap around $1M. In the TON ecosystem, there are also several MEME coins performing well, one of which has a market cap exceeding $2M, but trading volume is very low.

Trading volume may be a characteristic of TON ecosystem MEME coins; comparatively, investors may still not be accustomed to using on-chain products of TON. Currently, OKX's WEB3 wallet is one of the more convenient paths for depositing TON from DEX to the TON chain, and it comes with DEX functionality.

It is worth mentioning that DOGS had its TGE on the 26th, and as another MEME coin in the TON ecosystem, also featuring a dog image, it will certainly be affected by this event.