Telegram, one of the most popular encrypted messaging platforms, is facing a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over their $1,7 billion ICO.
Telegram launched its ICO in 2018, with investors purchasing $1,7 billion worth of Gram tokens – Telegram’s native token. Despite the success, the SEC filed a complaint against the token sale in the U.S.
Telegram sent a note to the investors, citing a plausible postpone of the release date, set initially for October 31st, 2019. According to the SEC, the offering had to be registered with the agency before the ICO launch. Investors in the U.S. alone managed to raise $425 million for Telegram’s token project.
The price investors made their initial purchases is expected to settle at a reference of $3,62, meaning investors could sell their tokens with a tripled price. Telegram stated that the company has been in touch with the SEC for the past 18 months. “We are disappointed by SEC’s choice to file a lawsuit against us under these circumstances,” the note to investor says.
Telegram’s token plans a part of a much bigger ecosystem – the Telegram Open Network (TON). In its Whitepaper, the company reveals the operation of the network as a “flexible, multi-blockchain platform, including P2P, file storage, proxy, and payment systems.
A total of 5 million tokens would be released, with Telegram remaining possession of 52% of the total amount. Another four percent would go to Telegram’s team, and the remaining 44 percent would be in circulation for trading.
Telegram aims to be the worldwide equivalent to WeChat, which blossomed out of the messaging world into a default payment method for the majority of Chinese teenagers and young people. Telegram’s co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov created the TON network to grant its users with a payment system without “governmental interference.”