Bitcoin Forum

Persons on international sanctions lists, their relatives, and those from sanctioned territories are among those barred from Telegram’s closed token sale rounds, local Russian business journal RBC reports today, March 15.

According to RBC, which claims to have a copy of the contract allegedly issued by Telegram to participants of its private presale, any person listed in the sanction lists of the US, UK, European Union, or the United Nations Security Council are not allowed to participate in any round of the closed ICO. The restriction also includes relatives of sanctioned individuals, as well as residents of territories under sanction, including Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria.

Relatives affected are “children, spouses, parents, brothers and sisters” of sanctioned individuals, the publication adds.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/chat-app-giant-telegram-bans-sanctioned-individuals-territories-from-ico-report

That's perfectly acceptable. I don't mind such exceptions. But this is contrary to the principles of confidentiality and decentralization. It seems to me that the money invested in ICO should help in the implementation of the necessary project. The government's obligation is to ensure that potential beneficiaries of the exemption list are not allowed to use their money. Why their work should be done by the ICO?

The governments of the world implements their policy through intermediaries of the financial system across the world. So banks, financial institutions like exchanges, etc do the grunt work through KYC norms. Invariably, you will see ICOs being subject to such regulations as well. Telegram's ICO is not small - it is the largest ever and there will be many governments watching to see if illegally-earned money of money from sanctioned individuals flows into it.