Bitcoin Forum

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2019-212


What detrimental effect would this have on other firms using their existing tools/software which are widely used and are then used to offer tokens to their massive user base?

Do you think this is just nit-picking by the SEC or do you think these are real concerns and not just technicalities which resulted in them halting the token sale?

What do you think Telegram should do next?

I think that now the team will direct all forces to the settlement of the situation with the SEC, otherwise it can cause great harm to the company, because soon the launch of the platform should take place,in case of bad luck it is possible and will postpone the launch

I totally disagree with this decision SEC always took action very late against big ICOs why not they awake on the right time and now again people will lost their money without getting any refund. This is really unprofessional behavior what happening in this case because SEC has fishy track record.

Definitely nitpicking by the SEC and while I'm not one to push or agree with conspiracy theories, the timing - so close to TON's distribution by the end of the month - smacks of ulterior motives. It seems to also follow the ongoing Facebook/Libra saga in which we have an influential, social media company issuing crypto that's bound to have far-reaching networking effect. However, this is one case I feel they're bound to lose because Telegram has been very tight-lipped about development, token issuance, and even any marketing of any sort that could result in that "only speculation, no utility" argument these agencies love to use.

Worst case scenario, settlement agreement.

Yes the SEC could have easily made a decision a very long time ago but for them to do it at the 11th hour to a project that raised $1.7 billion is beyond a monumental PR failure for both Telegram and the SEC.

I share your views but there is another factor to keep in mind too. Just look at what happened to the OneCoin" project. Ruja Ignatova (the self-styled crypto queen) has vanished along with over $4 billion of the ICO funds therefore maybe they are taking pre-cautions.

Obviously there is probably more to this than meets the eye because the SEC holds all the power here but nevertheless things should not have unfolded like this.

Before Telegram started their private sale, SEC had long hinted that they will go after crypto crowdfundings. That is why you see many ICOs before barring US citizens from participating in their token sale. Telegram knew that and the risk involve but they still took it. I'm not saying what the SEC is doing is good either, they probably targeted telegram because of that huge money coming from US investors.


It probably took them time to figure that out but who knows? It could also be their strategy to kill telegram for whatever reason.

They are getting more and more crazy with this amounts of money!
They saw new way to take money from people easy and it is not called TAX

I don't support Telegram and Gram coin in any way, but this is just getting silly

$1.7 B can't just be ignore so SEC has to step in.

I guess today there ain't much left for Telegram to do but wait for the SEC's decision. I don't know if can make arrangement to pay SEC, all it needs is just money to collect. Shove some cash to their mouths and Telegram can move on. They can refund all those who invested but distributes their token freely, I don't know if SEC can get money from them with this.

In my view worst case scenario is not a settlement, there is a possibility the SEC will never grant permission for Telegram and its TON to go ahead.

And about Libra, there is still a chance no matter how small that Libra will not get off the ground, partners have pulled out leaving Facebook standing alone with several smaller lesser known partners.

The SEC is obviously sending out a strong signal to Telegram and others but its end game or objective still has not been made known. Surely it goes well beyond disruption and in to something else. Either the SEC will make future ICOs or token shares very difficult (or near impossible) or they are just laying down new parameters of what is expected by prospective organisations to comply with legislation before embarking on these types of projects.

im sure they wanna a bite, this situation will be resolved sooner or later,
this book wont be left open for much time, someone will close it

all the sales had been private, so sec is on to get a share or find the buyers to catch them and earn something from them =))

The issue of digital token sales and the principle of securities is a well known thing. I think there is fault on both sides. First on the side of the token issuer - they should have obtain approval upfront before starting the token sale. On the side of SEC they should have acted earlier as the risk of funds being lost is higher now.

This precedent can clearly become a reference point for the future of crypto assets in the United States. So the commission is trying to finally settle all the legal subtleties of the process.
Especially surprising that right at such stage of TON chain development some authorities started discussions about whether Gram Coin is a cryptocurrency or a security paper ?

I think their end game and objective has just become much more plainer: https://www.coindesk.com/sec-cftc-fincen-warn-crypto-industry-to-follow-us-banking-laws
Good ol' US of A retaining it's global, financial dominance and the dollar still reigning supreme. Certainly interesting times ahead for the global financial system, especially with certain states (and even countries - France, Portugal) pro-crypto via Bitcoin

I hope it won't effect the project development, because it seems like SEC cutted a lot of money from Telegram devs. We will see what the reaction of Pavel Durov and his team members would be to keep other investors in game.

The regulators always do that kind of thing. They handle a case like "We will say if you get the permission to do business under the regulation Wing or not" yet they knew already that the answer is a big NO. They will wait until the project collect money and sue the project right after they collect money. Many startup companies still risking to this kind of funding without the green light from SEC and believing that they will get approval because they are bigger and many
people already invested to them. I don't believe that the team behind this kind of project didn't know what to do & how to walk in the right path.

TON sucks in short. Sorry for telegram team. You can't mess with regulation. You'll be stripped of credibility or fined.

I think they are more likely to do what is in this article:

Report: Telegram’s ‘Force Majeure’ Clause Curbs Investor Compensation (https://cointelegraph.com/news/report-telegrams-force-majeure-clause-curbs-investor-compensation)

In the end, investors are the biggest losers and they get the big losses

one and a half billion rubles is not a small amount, I think they will lose investors, respectively, is also not enough. This amount simply blocked I as understand, but kogdato its can unlock and then will at all boom on the side telegram

Hi peers! GRM coin has started? Where can I buy it?

Do they accept fiat? Or only crypto to crypto payments?

And as for the speed of transactions, how fast does bitrexchange operate? I do not want to sacrifice time

And FIAT? I do not have much on wallets.

They probably have no intention of killing Telegram but they do have some sort of agenda. It might be to show others out there the power lay with the SEC.

Something does not stack up. Why did the SEC pull the rug from under Telegram and its TON/GRAM at such a late stage? With 44% of the tokens being offered and all being taken up by investors it will make so many problems for them and their investors.

It does look fishy and the idea flexing their power to send a strong message (again) to all kinds of token sale in US territory makes a lot of sense. We can only guess but one thing I think is for sure, they (SEC) will get their money from telegram.

Because Telegram is a very secured communication app. The CIA cannot spy on it, reason why SEC cannot approve it.

Can Telegram just cease its US offices and relocate somewhere friendly to them? Many people in the US would still use it anyways with VPNs. 

The first paragraph of the SEC filing had me shaking my head in amazement at the part that I put in bold:


I had heard TON being discussed recently, but I had no real idea of what it was.  Thank you op for posting this link, because it's very informative.

By the way, this news should not shock anyone.  The U.S. had declared ico's as securities a while back, which is why people in the states don't (or can't) invest in them.  The ICO issuers don't register them with the SEC, so they can't be sold to potential investors in the states.  That is my understanding at least.  Anyway it'll be interesting to see what comes of this.

I think that these delays are caused artificially, perhaps they see the new project as a payment platform that is suitable for the bank’s activities, it will be difficult to guess,  what the team should do, I think the project has the best minds of mankind, and with such resources they can solve this problem

it's not about having an agenda but that makes sense for SEC provides more protection to the US customers caused by

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/11/sec-blocks-the-1-7-billion-token-sale-for-telegrams-cryptocurrency/

It's a lot of money, that makes sense if SEC goes wild after seen that before.

Oh my. Had no idea there was such a clause with the contract. Kudos to them for anticipating possible force majeure and outlining them clearly rather than leave it for a courtroom to decide. Looks like BTC halving is the only thing the SEC can't hammer on at this rate /s

Both Facebook and Telegram are having trouble with regulators on their own cryptocurrency projects. The common point of both hectares is that they have a large number of users, is this the cause of the difficulties of both?

I think the telegram has a legal team that will look for loopholes in this SEC regulation. Aside from telegrams, Libra Coin also faces regulatory constraints, but I am optimistic that this will not stop the emergence of new projects from large companies.

You are absolutely right! whether they refund the money or not, the investors are still losing because of the time wasted for their investment. i can't help but to agree on other comments that SEC is hitting Telegram on purpose, particularly on the timing of SEC to halt Telegram token launch despite that they tried to engage with the regulators for the past 18 months regarding the TON blockchain.

SEC plays a big role in huge token sales and expecting a silent move by the regulators is not smart idea. Telegram developers should make an agreement, settlement with the SEC and this is one of the reasons why teams avoid to accept the investments from the citizens of the US. Using the user data for acceleraing the token sale looks like a serious accusation for the social media platforms, I just saw this on the Reddit.

To be perfectly honest, the SEC acted right this time based on the following claims from Coindesk reporting "The SEC cited a “pitch to one United States-based investor around January 2018.” To attract the investor, “Telegram spoke of its “A+ engineering team” and the “chance for 0x-50x returns on the investments.”" (https://www.coindesk.com/sec-draws-on-investor-communications-to-halt-telegram-token-launch). With the above, they've matched the requirements for Howey test:
1. An investment of money.
2. In a common enterprise.
3. With an expectation of profits predominantly from the efforts of others. (https://www.manhattanstreetcapital.com/faq/for-fundraisers/how-determine-if-token-security-howey-test)
The made people invest with the offer of profits from the efforts of their A+ engineering team.
They should have known better

I agree this is really getting silly. Things did not have to get to this stage.

What sort of example are the SEC setting and also why did Telegram go ahead with the $1.7 billion token share before they approached the SEC and made some sort of deal where they could satisfy all requirements put to them?

guys its the new economic model, its not silly at all, the main reason ppl like you think that way is we had seen too many scammers using this method and make their pockets larger and larger to be able to hold all the funds they gain!




although telegram is truly decentralized service, but its a russian based product and its wont be hard to understand why they didnt thought of SEC, but recent reactions to the SEC news in last few days, shows they may be getting ready to legalize that for USA users

the good news is that, project got even more attention by SEC, and will be moving forward even faster very soon

Technically what they need is a regulation, maybe not directly in a reason that they need to spy on it, they just need to provide some guidance and regulation in order for telegram to stay right on track and without violating much of the rules/protocols that the SEC has. But the amount of 1.7Billlion token sale is too big for telegram, maybe that is also the reason why they blocked telegram, a potential leading market communication platform.

Did SEC put a permanent stop to the token sale or halted it due to regulation issues? I think if telegram meets required regulatory terms, they will scale through with the token sale. There was so much hype around telegram coin and TON blockchain, I do wish them success based on some features I look up to. If the token sale is permanently stopped, I don't really think it has any major effect on the market. I'm more interested in the TON blockchain than the coin actually.

I do not think it is as easy as Telegram paying a fee then getting the go-ahead. With disastrous scams such as Onecoin raising $4.9 billion and its founder in hiding it seems highly unlikely the SEC will simply ignore ICOs when they are involving US citizens.

Maybe the SEC will force Telegram to return funds and start from the beginning after they submit an application and go through the appropriate process.

I think that any company that has an existing product will most likely continue to be classified as a security if they offer their tokens up for ICOing.

That's just the plain hard truth right now. It doesn't matter whether or not if you think it is right, based on SEC's definitions of what a security is, these tokens are probably are. And besides, telegram doesn't have the best reputation within law enforcement, even though it's probably unfair.

Kik went through something similar. Future businesses should certainly beware.

Why do you think SEC and US government halted big companies that started a big move with cryptocurrency? First, they halted libra and now Telegram, I don't know why US is afraid of cryptocurrency. For sure this will have some massive adoption given it has massive users. Looks like they are halting the next bullrun.

It is obviously sabotaging the cryptocurrency industry. Knowing Telegram had successfully raised more than what they expected they have been alarmed and try to hampered it. See how they continuously reject the bitcoin etf application?  It is very much obvious, they dont want this kind of industry to prosper.

I think this country wants everyone to use USD to trade and don't want this crypto market to interfere with their world. In my opinion, the Telegram project will be successful because this is a project that is not under the control of the United States so even if the SEC does not accept this coin, it will be sold in the near future.

I think this is a project that deserves to be accepted in this market and should not be banned for development because now Telegram is still working very well and is interested by a lot of investors.

latest telegram reaction shows that they are not gonna leave the project, they will fight back soon

current offer to halt the project temporary means they will start negotiation to be able to have usa-users back in project;
exactly as it was predicted few days back

next step will be getting a license and paying the sec shares to have the free pass

The main point being why did Telegram go ahead and sell tokens when they did not a deal with the SEC before starting the process of the token sale?

They sold out the tokens in quick time, it was such a short period before they $1.7 billion was raised. They should have at least come to an arrangement with the SEC and their lack of foresight means they will have to face the consequences.

There has been news for some months now that telegram will be having their token launch and I have also asked people if they are sure that it is actually telegram which was verified, so all these whiles, what have they been doing if they were not ok with the plan? Why do they have to wait till the dyeing minute before they take this action, and also, to be fair to telegram, because I know they are not scam coin, why do they have to block their project also?

The major question now is what they intend doing after they have blocked the project with 1.7 billion dollars, and what exactly would be happening to the money of investors now? Would they be able to refund it because if they don’t, I will just term this as a conspiracy move by both of them to actually dupe people?

This problem is solvable. But it is possible that the SEC will not approve decentralized cryptocurrencies for a very long time. Now the SEC has started to be more loyal to stablecoins and I think telegram will be fine. We need a little more time. Investors have nothing to fear the project will be implemented in any case. Today's hype around telegram and Libra is a very good catalyst for the cryptocurrency industry.

The fact that telegram already had a ton of money in their pockets and also they were doing very well as a business as well and decided to do tokens instead of IPO which would mean that people who hold the tokens would have no profit sharing at all and would have no control over the company like a shareholder would meant that telegram would raise as much money or even more money on token sale than a company that does IPO and opens its stocks to public which means shareholders will make profits (dividends or stock price increase) and will have a controlling interest if they end up getting 51%+ of it and can even vote to remove the CEO so they have a decent strength.

SEC made a good decision, token sale is for stuff that needs money to exist and created, not for companies who are already doing well to make even more money just because they can without giving up anything.

telegram has not started earning from its messenger YET!
we already know they have too many great plans for their platform to make a huge nice money in future, even without the TON

and unfortunately (for those who were happy) we are gonna hear good news in next few days, it seems they are handling the problem with sec very fast and coperation has worked out

get ready for next bump

I don't think that will work. This matter is not as simple as giving a share or maybe what you mean is paying the full taxes from all of the money gathered(?)
The massive amount of money that is raised is whooping $1.7Billion and it's like they are a shining object that could attract attention and waiting for the authority to come after them. Such massive amount will indeed can't be taken lightly and that's probably why SEC is willingly to block the token sale and even worse is the fact that the token is a cryptocurrency which the government is trying to create bias among citizens that it's a bad thing while it is actually not.

As far as I know, they did not consult with SEC. Maybe because their project doesn't have the capability to be anonymous. I think we just need to wait for SEC's jury with this but, I'm still rooting for their project. TG is a big company with a big community in its platform.

The SEC was under no obligation to do anything and they used their power to bring matters like this.

Why they decided to flex their muscles in this way against Telegram at this late is not known. Maybe things will be known about their motives in the coming days.

This must be the reason

https://financefeeds.com/sec-files-emergency-action-telegram-group-alleged-1-7bn-unregistered-digital-token-offering/

SEC is under an obligation to protect the US market and not only US investors.
Telegram has already promised the early investors can sell the billions of TON to the US market. SEC has seen it as a serious problem that will disrupt the US market with the flooding of the TON as an unregistered security. That's actually putting US market into the disaster.

If it might become a precedent then the SEC are going in very strong and very heavy laying down the law. It might be a future blueprint or it might be something else but they have certainly come out looking better than Telegram. The SEC are holding all the cards and can dictate terms to any company (such as Telegram) that seeks US citizens investment.

It can't be a permanent stop but rather a halt. Telegram has probably commenced funded raising through ICO without fulfilling the requirements of the SEC commission. All they have to do is likely, pay the fine for conducting ICO sales outside the ambients of the law, fill the other necessary paper works and then recommence sales. But its up to the Telegram team to do what's best for their project and community anyway

It seems like nobody is really scared of those regulations. According to the last report from ICOdrops, more than 70 percent of all investors agreed to postpone the launch and do not want their money back.

They should refund all clients because it seems that Telegram has same problems with SEC like Libra. They can try to launch the project, probably they will only get a fine, but they are also in a risk of a total shutdown.

when there is nothing to hide, and all the purpose is crystal clear, nobody scares of anything, scare comes to game when you are trying to do sth and want to hide the real purpose and show sth else among followers


telegram issue is selling a token without sec approval, but in libra case, there is all different,
somehow the government afraid of losing its power to control the monetary system which will be the terrible nightmare for everyone

It stands to reason that the SEC take in to account how things will impact the fiat banking system. With so many powerful banking giants having their own lobby groups influencing policy in political circles we should not be surprised by this.

this is what i was talking about, always moving forward https://wallet.ton.org/
just need to be cautious,
telegram is doing his job to achieve the goal they have and no one can stop them

we will hear more good news in near future

What concessions will they have to make in order to satisfy what the SEC wants? They can plan and make progress all they want but they should ensure they do not do anything unless they come to a deal with the SEC.

There is no doubt the SEC seem to be over cautious about this token sale but it was never fully understood why no matter what they stated about looking after US citizens and ensuring things happened in a proper legal manner.

Whatever $1.7 billion for an ICO that too for a simple project like ton is definately very high. This won't give much profit to investors. Even though it has a good brand name telegram. But it won't be enough for convincing someone to shell out so much money. There are many investors in US but SEC blocking will hit it very bad.

they will get certified, no matter when, but they will
max will be they enter us market with a little delay


how much info have you gathered about TON? its not a simply crypto and like libra it has already a huge market; thanks to their messenger service which has been very welcomed by crypto world

Why do you think that TON is a simple project? They claim to achieve TPS rate like Visa or Mastercard have while maintaining decentralization.
But as we can see, it is really decentralized when SEC prohibited further activity?