[NEWS] U.S. Regulators Sue Crypto Startup Telegram Over Initial Coin Offering

[bbc.reporter]

It appears that some ICO investors might have the right connections in the American government and would allow the ICO they hold pay a fine to continue operating in American soil undisturbed. Some do not and are sued.

Next ICO buying strategy, research and be certain which venture capitalists and hedgefunds that invested in the ICO are politicaly connected hehehe.



U.S. regulators sued a company that raised $1.7 billion through a cryptocurrency offering that became one of the largest such deals ever.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday said it obtained a legal order to halt Telegram Group Inc. from distributing its crypto asset, known as gram. Telegram, founded by two Russian brothers, developed a messaging app that is popular with cryptocurrency traders and developers.

The SEC’s order seeks to block the company from distributing as soon as next week in the U.S. an asset that regulators say can’t legally be traded in the country.

“Our emergency action today is intended to prevent Telegram from flooding the U.S. markets with digital tokens that we allege were unlawfully sold,” said Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division.

Earlier this month, an overseas-based startup behind another large coin offering agreed to pay $24 million to settle the SEC’s allegations that its deal violated U.S. law.

The SEC has said many of the fundraising deals violate U.S. securities laws because the startups behind them didn’t provide investors with required disclosures that explain the company’s finances and business model.

Read in full https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-regulators-sue-cryptocurrency-startup-telegram-over-initial-coin-offering-11570834242

[NathanJB]

LOL. The US is worse than china now. It seems the largest hindrance for the development and spread of cryptocurrency is the US government itself. It is totally understandable if a certain ICO or its distribution is stopped because an outstanding case or legal complaint is filed against it by an investor or by a partner or any aggrieved party for that matter. If there is none and the SEC will still proceed to stop it bringing such shallow excuses as unlawfully sold or didn’t provide investors with required disclosures, everybody knows it is pure desperate BS.

[ivan1975]

SEC is a famous ransomware and just want a ransom.
I think Telegram will be able to pay off them,  taking into account the amount collected on ICO.

[NathanJB]

SEC is a famous ransomware and just want a ransom.
I think Telegram will be able to pay off them,  taking into account the amount collected on ICO.

A ransomware indeed. LOL. But you need to consider that the ransom price will also be commensurate to how much they are currently worth. And that worth will of course include the total amount they collected in the ICO, that was 1.7 Billion USD. There is going to be another easy money for SEC if Telegram will fall for it and pay.

[Bttzed03]

I was actually wondering when they (US regulators or SEC) start raising their concern about Gram  
Libra might have taken a lot of their attention before.

Earlier this month, an overseas-based startup behind another large coin offering agreed to pay $24 million to settle the SEC’s allegations that its deal violated U.S. law.

How government makes eazzy $money  

[CryptoBry]

LOL. The US is worse than china now. It seems the largest hindrance for the development and spread of cryptocurrency is the US government itself. It is totally understandable if a certain ICO or its distribution is stopped because an outstanding case or legal complaint is filed against it by an investor or by a partner or any aggrieved party for that matter. If there is none and the SEC will still proceed to stop it bringing such shallow excuses as unlawfully sold or didn’t provide investors with required disclosures, everybody knows it is pure desperate BS.

This is not surprising at all. Well, I think that rules and regulations are already published and known beforehand so any project that is planning to accept USA investors should comply otherwise there will really be a big problem. This is not a hidden nor obscured to anyone in the world of finance, investments and cryptocurrency. 

In fact, I am really a little surprised that telegram was not careful as they allowed $424.5 million from the USA token buyers. And that is a lot though figures is coming from SEC so this can be bloated somehow. Let's see if SEC and Telegram can soon reach a compromise on this issue and how much can the fine be applied. Just recently, Block.One which raised $4 billion successfully reached an agreement with SEC and secured a $24 million fine resulting into Block.One not anymore required to register EOS as a security.

I am predicting that Telegram and TON is going to be paying $15 millions in fine fees. With the $1.7 billion it raised so far, that can be peanuts!

[Jating]

Very weird, I think Telegram is just a medium here, US SEC have been targeting a lot of ICO's in the past and successful sue them, but I think they've step up against Telegram here. I think they are barking on the wrong tree here. It seems that they go on a shortcut, so instead of cutting the arms, they directly go the head. Anyways, let's see how it goes for gram.

Sad to be a American crypto enthusiast today,

US SEC's intention is to stop Americans from investing on crypto because they want to protect them. But it doesn't mean that they are a hindrance or trying to obscure crypto for that matter.

[Novatech8]

Aw, not again SEC, why are you guys so desperate about money this days? you are trying to protect people from crypto but crypto has turn into your money gate way , never mind telegram is capable, they will pay you whatever you need this time

[Vitamin_52]

Very weird, I think Telegram is just a medium here, US SEC have been targeting a lot of ICO's in the past and successful sue them, but I think they've step up against Telegram here. I think they are barking on the wrong tree here. It seems that they go on a shortcut, so instead of cutting the arms, they directly go the head. Anyways, let's see how it goes for gram.

Sad to be a American crypto enthusiast today,

US SEC's intention is to stop Americans from investing on crypto because they want to protect them. But it doesn't mean that they are a hindrance or trying to obscure crypto for that matter.

and I think they do not care about the Americans, why protect them from investing?! on account of the telegram I will say one thing, and it was blocked and hacked, he survived. he'll survive that too

[bbc.reporter]

Everyone might not have understood what is happening or what my comment on the article was saying. What occured might be the beginning of a form of failure by the SEC to regulate the industries and end up with the industries dominating the SEC.

Why was EOS only asked to pay a fee to continue operating while Telegram was sued?

[TGD]

Everyone might not have understood what is happening or what my comment on the article was saying. What occured might be the beginning of a form of failure by the SEC to regulate the industries and end up with the industries dominating the SEC.

Why was EOS asked to pay a fee to continue operating while Telegram was sued?

EOS ICO was already finished while TON is ongoing so I believe they sue them to stop the ongoing ICO. They can never revert back what's already done by EOS tho.
By the time EOS launch there ICO, SEC role on crypto is not yet fully established compare on current condition which they have full authority on handling ICO.

[bvg96634]

What US regulators do is the stupidest thing I've seen in my life. These attempts to destroy everything that can change and improve our lives cause enormous damage to our future. When will it end? When will laws work for the benefit of people?

[tsaroz]

Durov brothers are not those who give up their plans easily. When the Russian government forced them to share the personal data of users from their social network VK, they refused and forced to leave not only VK but also their home country to create a truly privacy focused messaging service.
They won't move backwards due to some government organization threatening them.

[nxnqauff]

Its a very nice thing to do. SEC should act like this only. Howcome a channel like telegram ask for so much money from the public? Insane. I am curious to see the next steps of both telegram and SEC.

[bbc.reporter]

Everyone might not have understood what is happening or what my comment on the article was saying. What occured might be the beginning of a form of failure by the SEC to regulate the industries and end up with the industries dominating the SEC.

Why was EOS asked to pay a fee to continue operating while Telegram was sued?

EOS ICO was already finished while TON is ongoing so I believe they sue them to stop the ongoing ICO. They can never revert back what's already done by EOS tho.
By the time EOS launch there ICO, SEC role on crypto is not yet fully established compare on current condition which they have full authority on handling ICO.

Is that how the SEC should allow or disallow ICOs? They should be consistent. If any ICO cannot pass the howey test, they should stop it. I reckon that they should give Telegram a similar treatment they gave EOS which they left alone to collect more than $1 billion for 1 year or sue all of them. Consistency.

Read this very good article.



The complaint (PDF) is thirty-one pages. It has the sort of listing of facts and legal rationale that I was surprised not to see in the recent settlement with EOS.

The SEC investigated thoroughly, and spoke to both Telegram and multiple investors in Grams. The complaint’s riveting just as journalism — though the SEC has rather greater powers of fact-finding than most journalists.

The Howey test is simple, straightforward and broad — “a contract, transaction or scheme whereby a person invests his money in a common enterprise and is led to expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party.”

The SEC’s argument that the Grams themselves are securities is that “the Initial Purchasers and subsequent investors expect to profit from Telegram’s work.”

Telegram repeatedly emphasised their own role, and the expertise of Pavel and Nikolai Durov, in making money for the initial purchasers.

If Telegram builds the promised functionality, the investors who bought billions of Grams cheap will profit:

… they will be able to resell billions of Grams on the open market to the investing public. Telegram and/or its affiliates will facilitate these sales on digital-asset trading platforms. Once these resales occur, Telegram will have completed its unregistered offering with billions of Grams trading on multiple platforms to a dispersed group of investors.
Telegram sold the tokens to accredited investors — i.e., rich enough to know better — and duly filed exemptions from registration as a security, as restricted offerings under Regulation D section 506(c). This is fine.

But it’s one thing to run a restricted offering to a hundred or so accredited investors — it’s quite another to disperse what you sold to any number of non-accredited retail buyers, so that the investors can profit:

Defendants essentially seek to obtain the benefits of a registered public offering without assuming the disclosure responsibilities and legal strictures designed to protect the investing public.

You may remember that puzzling September blog post from Coinbase, listing all the *cough* minor altcoins that they’re looking to list. Who cares about all these near-dead altcoins, anyway?

It turns out it was a push by the crypto venture capitalists who bought large piles of the coins cheap — because they’d really like to offload their coins onto retail suckers.

Read in full https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2019/10/13/sec-blocks-the-telegram-ico-what-this-means-and-what-happens-now/

[NathanJB]

Well, this is the role of SEC. They sue and sue and sue and sue. This is endless suing. But such suing will never stop progress. This suing will only make the US an unpleasant country to start an innovative project, or even a country for these projects to operate. These promising projects will be looking for another country which is more friendly and welcoming. This will just worsen the ongoing exodus of brilliant minds and huge companies from the US.

[bbc.reporter]

News update.

It appears Telegram will lose their case while EOS and some of the other ICOs were only given a slap on the wrist and were only required to pay a fee to the SEC. A gentle reminder, to invest in an ICO, first information to find is who the investors, the founders behind it are and know if they have the political connections to manipulate the SEC.

I reckon EOS might have those political connections. Dan Larimer's financial sponsors might have political connections that might stretch out as far as China.



New York Federal Judge has decided that the SEC will likely be successful in proving that the Grams ICO was an illegal and unregistered sale of securities.

This preliminary injunction is needed in order to prevent Telegram from giving tokens to initial purchasers. That would lead to Grams tokens being traded on crypto exchanges and would be a further violation of securities laws.

The court case is not technically over, but inevitably Telegram is likely to lose. The standard protocol in these ICO cases is that the ICO issuer has to return all investor’s funds and register as a security. That could open up a major can of worms for Telegram if they don’t have all of the $1.7 billion anymore.

Read in full https://cryptoiq.co/federal-court-brings-down-the-hammer-on-the-1-7-billion-telegram-ico/

[bbc.reporter]

This is what the project developers should do! Our cryptospace should not be taken down on the urge of people behind government. Let us support the TON community and their developers in their attempt.



Developers of the TON blockchain are still considering deployment, despite injunctive ruling by the U.S. court.
Fedor Skuratov, a spokesperson for TON Community Foundation, a community of TON developers, told Cointelegraph that the recent unfavorable decisions by the U.S. court did not catch them by surprise:

“The community was ready for this (or another) scenario. We have several options, including the launch of TON by TCF [TON Community Foundation]. I will say more, no one (no one) can prevent the launch of TON by any other entity, person or community, cause TON is a decentralized open-source solution. Already, there are two different test networks, and within the community, there is at least one group planning to launch.”

Read in full https://cointelegraph.com/news/ton-community-no-one-can-prevent-the-launch-of-ton

[bbc.reporter]

What can the American judge from New York do if Telegram's tokens were listed on exchanges located in China, Russia or North Korea hehehe. The judge is clearly overstepping his authority.

In any case, support the TON community and their developers in their attempt to turn the plaform on!



A New York judge has ruled that the injunction barring Telegram from issuing its Gram tokens extends to all entities in the United State and overseas.

On April 1, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, responded to the encrypted messaging firm’s request for clarification as to the scope of the court’s March 24 preliminary injunction. He denied Telegram’s move to distribute tokens to the non-US-based participants of its 2018 initial coin offering (ICO).

Approximately $1.27 billion of the funds raised to finance the development of the Telegram Open Network (TON) came from overseas-based investors

Source https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-york-judge-says-telegram-cant-distribute-grams-outside-us-either

[bbc.reporter]

News update.

It appears that the TON developers have received the right amount of pressure from the SEC to postpone their launch again. Why does the SEC not make them settle? EOS' Block.one and others did it. Are the SEC only choosing the projects they like which are allowed to settle?

What if the SEC have been corrupted by billionaires who hold ETH, EOS or XRP? 



Messaging app giant Telegram has further postponed the launch of its TON blockchain network -- this time by one more year.

The company was scheduled to launch Telegram Open Network (TON) today, but it has now been delayed to April 30, 2021, according to Telegram’s letter to investors on Wednesday (the letter was posted by a Russian forum).

Telegram cites "recent U.S. district court decision" as the reason for the delay. Last month, a U.S. judge ruled that the company cannot launch its blockchain or issue gram tokens until its case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is resolved.

Telegram and the SEC have been in a legal battle since October 2019, when the regulator sued Telegram for conducting an “illegal” sale of its gram tokens and allegedly violating securities laws. Telegram raised $1.7 billion in 2018 by pre-selling its gram tokens.

The legal battle first forced Telegram to delay the TON launch from October to April 2020, and now to April 2021.

Read in full https://www.theblockcrypto.com/amp/post/63524/telegram-now-delays-launch-of-its-blockchain-by-one-more-year-ready-to-return-investor-money