[2018-01-08] Telegram $500 Mln Pre-ICO Aims To Be Largest Ever

[cybersofts]

Telegram $500 Mln Pre-ICO Aims To Be Largest Ever



Private messaging app Telegram is considering the biggest Pre-ICO in history to fund its new Blockchain platform and cryptocurrency.

As TechCrunch reports today citing ‘multiple sources,’ Telegram is aiming to raise up to $500 mln in private sales.

Its forthcoming Telegram Open Network (TON) would use the tokens for internal user payments.

Cointelegraph originally reported on TON in December, the scale of the endeavor only now becoming apparent.

According to sources, a series of private presales alone would raise “as much as $500 mln,” while the subsequent public distribution phase is planned to drive the value of the token to between $3 to $5 bln. This would make Telegram’s ICO easily the largest ever to have launched, dwarfing Block.One’s $700 mln offering last month.

Investors “beyond the inner circle” of CEO Pavel Durov may face a minimum $20 mln buy-in, TechCrunch continues, while others may be restricted to purchasing TON tokens with fiat, rather than Bitcoin or Ethereum as with previous ICOs.

“Top-tier institutional investment firms have expressed interest, but Durov is said to be wary of accepting their cash,” the publication reports as Russia continues its uncertain regulatory treatment of public digital token sales.

Telegram has faced controversy in recent months specifically in Russia after it refused to hand over user data to authorities in line with privacy laws.

A potential launch for the Telegram wallet has been set at Q4 this year, with the full package of services following in 2019.


Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/telegram-500-mln-pre-ico-aims-to-be-largest-ever

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[Ligareaux]

Very doable, even without a fancy marketing campaing

This is the first step get a new types of ICO's

[man22555]

This will ofcourse be a milestone in cryptocurrencies' history. But i'm asking myself why the hell they need 500 Mln$ ?? This is so inaccurate; no development or marketing would need so much funds.

To be honest, i think this is just an attempt of entering the hype train. Somehow "FOMO by Telegram". It will be fascinating to see how the world will react to this.

[hatshepsut93]

Ok, let's think critically, why would Telegram need $1.2 billion to develop their Telegram Open Network (TON)? Is developing software really such a resource consuming process? I think not, since Satoshi managed to create cryptocurrency from scratch, and more recently Lightning Network is being developed by only 10 people and Elizabeth Stark, one of the contributors told that money is not a problem, there's simply not enough talented people who can work on cryptocurrency protocols.

Also, the part when they want to keep 52% of coins to "protect the nascent cryptocurrency from speculative trading and to maintain flexibility" sound very shady to me, having majority of your coins concentrated in developers' hands is pretty bad for decentralization.