Telegram’s plans to launch a multi-billion-dollar initial coin offering for its Telegram Open Network project hit the skids upon news that early-accredited investments met Telegram’s fundraising goal.
Per a report by The Wall Street Journal[1], a "person familiar with the matter" of Telegram's fundraising exploits said the company canceled the public portion of its ICO, following the collection of $1.7 billion from fewer than 200 private investors in the Telegram Open Network (TON).
Note: The TON whitepaper refers to its blockchain's representative cryptocurrency as "TON coins" and "Grams" interchangeably.[2]
Historically, the prices of many post-presale tokens have jumped when they were first listed on digital asset exchanges, at least temporarily. According to the report, Telegram – which extended its fundraising goal from $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion before pulling the plug on the public sale – has stated it plans to use the money raised for TON to "build out its technology and further redevelop and maintain its main messenger service." A total of 12 million TON coins were sold.
ETHNews contacted the Telegram ICO team, which identified itself as a "reseller of TON coins" separate from Telegram's management. Stating its collective "opinion," the team confirmed the cancellation of the public ICO sale. "By our information, there is no ICO, due to overwhelming demand by fiat investors," the ICO team told ETHNews. "You can treat TON fiat investors as 'new money' in the cryptocurrency [world] and this is a good thing for crypto, in our opinion."
It is possible that Telegram opted out of the public sale to prevent undue regulatory scrutiny, including the ongoing probe by the US Securities and Exchange Commission[3] into a number of ICOs, which include BitConnect, Munchee[4]
