Messaging app Telegram has been ordered to pay $620,000 in legal fees to Lantah LLC after a failed attempt to sue the company over copyright claims.
The claims revolved around the use of the "GRAM" ticker, Telegram's would-be cryptocurrency. The token was originally intended to be used within the Telegram Open Network (TON), a blockchain iteration of Telegram's messaging service.
At the same time, however, Lantah, which positions itself as a global marketplace for cryptocurrency payments, leveraged the GRAM ticker for its own token.
Things came to a head in 2020, after Telegram's long and messy battle with regulators over its supposedly unregistered token offering. In the end, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) submitted that the GRAM offering, which raised in excess of $1.7 billion, violated federal securities laws.
SEC was wrong to go after Telegram’s $1.7B ICO, says Hester Peirce
Hester Peirce, the crypto lovin’ commissioner of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, said that the SEC made an error in taking legal action that led to the shutdown of the Telegram Open Network, the $1.7 billion crypto project from Telegram, a popular chat app. Since October 2019, the SEC had waged war against Telegram, securing injunction after injunction against the launch of the network, TON. It took Telegram to court, alleging that its ICO, which ran in 2018 and raised $1.7 billion, c...
As a result, Telegram was made to pay back more than $1.2 billion to investors and was slapped with an $18.5 million civil penalty. Shortly after the TON project was abandoned.
Telegram Forced to Close Channels Run by Belarus Protestors
Apple is requesting that Telegram shut down three channels used in Belarus to expose the identities of individuals belonging to the Belarusian authoritarian regime that may be oppressing civilians. Apple's concern is that revealing the identities of law enforcement individuals may give rise to further violence. Telegram on the other hand, would prefer to keep these channels open but the company said that it feels it has no choice in the matter. These channels are a tool for Belarus' citizens...
Now, with TON and GRAM dead in the water, Telegram has been forced to cut its losses, dropping the Lantah lawsuit and paying for legal fees.
All in all, this hasn't been Telegram's year.
