Tremendous move that has just taken Telegram with which aimed to become the largest and most successful ICO in history. According to the sources of The Wall Street Journal, Telegram is canceling the public offer for the investment of its cryptocurrency Gram, thus giving a hard blow to investors who are already making plans. That is, we can say goodbye to that idea of democratizing how blockchain-based projects are financed.
After months of speculation, leaks of the white paper, and an idea of something that would revolutionize the ICO market, Telegram decided that it would be best not to make public its ICO, this after having raised 1,700 million dollars from private investors, money that today is more than enough for your projects.
It remains a project only for rich and hidden before the eyes of regulators
The Telegram ICO was offered as one of the largest cryptocurrency investment opportunities in history, which would not only benefit investors, but also the Telegram itself, which was looking for a strong injection of money that would help them implement several new features. changes in your platform. And so it was, at least in one part, since the money already has it, and it is now when they have realized that the public offer of sale is no longer necessary.
Here we must remember that we are navigating the land of speculation, since Telegram never confirmed its ICO and therefore this public cancellation is not official. So how is this? What happens, supposedly, is that everything moved between private investors to avoid regulations.
According to the information, Telegram would have collected in February, in a first presale, 850 million dollars from 81 investors; By March, another 850 million of 94 new investors would have arrived. That is, 1,700 million in two pre-sales and with a total of 175 investors, among which are some venture capital firms such as Benchmark and Sequoia Capital
The idea behind the Telegram Blockchain, known as the 'Telegram Open Network' (TON), was to "connect the world" as well as to offer people the opportunity to financially support and profit from a good idea, at least they sold it in The white paper. However, this has not been the case, since those who are participating in this "good idea" are "accredited investors", which were eligible to buy in the Telegram ICO with a discount.
As mentioned, another of the alleged reasons for the cancellation of the public offer was to avoid regulatory scrutiny, since today it is still unknown how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will regulate the ICOs, so that There is a lot of uncertainty in this issue before a risk of freezing investments.
According to the white paper, Telegram only intended to spend 400 million over the next three years to develop its ambitious open network TON. Now with 1,700 million in the stock market, it is believed that the remaining money would help build a network that would serve as an alternative to Visa or MasterCard, but the reality is that up to this point no one is sure of anything.