Following Telegram’s shattered hope of becoming a full-fledged blockchain project, a few of its major investors have threatened to sue Pavel Durov, the CEO at Telegram for full refunds or equity.
Most investors would not mind a major setback on an investment deal, especially when these deals break down due to understandable reasons. In Telegram’s case, this doesn't seem to be the case.
It all started when, following the shutdown, the Team at Telegram proposed to either return only about 72% of investors investments immediately, as the contract stipulates, or hold off refunds and make 110% refunds in April 2021 (about one year from now).
It is believed that the Team had spent about $405 million out of $1.7 Billion it raised from the sale of its token. Now, following the pull of the plug of the project, the Investors believe that since there was no recorded returns to the investors, there should be no reason to hold of on possible talks for Telegram’s equity.
While a few of these investors are forthcoming with legal actions they have outlined, some clothes are believed to be working behind the scenes to profit from the disaster of the TON blockchain project.
For over 700 days, TON blockchian had been under strict scrutiny. The United States Security Exchange Commission won in federal court against Telegram. The argument as put by the US SEC was simply that the proposed gram Tokens were unregistered securities.
Speaking to investors following this disappointing defeat, Durov had this to say
“For the last 2.5 years, some of our best engineers have been working on a next-generation blockchain platform called TON and a cryptocurrency we were going to name Gram, but a U.S. court stopped TON from happening.”
While some investors have cut their losses, and taken back only 72% of their investments as provided in the contract, some others are pushing for more and even seek to cash in on the unfortunate setback indicating their interest in equity.
One of the investors who received their funds is Anatoly Knyazev, executive director of the investment firm Exante. While BitScale Capital founder Zurab Kazhiloti, opted to loan the investment to Telegram. Could this be in the spirit of sportsmanship?
Meanwhile, the trust between the team and her investors has obviously dwindled and this is possible as many believe that the company has been rather unpredictable - pointing out that communication with investors had not been so great.
“They showed the investors their place: They don’t want all those various gram purchasers to become shareholders,” the fund manager said. “And it’s disrespectful. You take money from these people but you share the upside with others. You’re spending your investors’ money. Won’t you consider their interest?”
“There is a group of investors who believe they deserve equity, and they are going to fight for it,” Yakov Barinsky, CEO of HASH CIB
It is obvious that this fight is not just between high level investors and Telegram teams, but also the community has taken on a huge campaign against the move by telegram to make TON a free Token.
It is obvious a lawsuit is cooking. However, whether Durov will be dealt a second blow in court would be news for another time!
Join our Telegram news Channel to get updates on all our quality contents today!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://lightblocks.live/full-refunds-or-equity-investors-tell-telegram-ceo/