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CollectionsTelegram's crypto play

Telegram's crypto play

Telegram, one of the largest messaging platforms in the world—and used by many in the crypto industry—is launching its own blockchain platform. But it's up against a deadline: October 31. Will it deliver the GRAM cryptocurrency on time or will it be forced to backtrack on its ambitious plans?

CollectionLast updated Aug 25, 2020
Aug 25
Legal trouble can brew for some DeFi applications. Image: Unsplash

Telegram Halts Trademark Battle After Ending Crypto Project

Telegram, the company behind the 400-million strong messenger app, has voluntarily dismissed its case against another cryptocurrency company over the trademark for a GRAM cryptocurrency and must pay its legal fees.  In 2019, the privacy-first messenger app company secured a preliminary injunction that barred Lantah, a small technology firm interested in issuing a GRAM cryptocurrency for “the world’s first Borderless Marketplace,” from using the term.  Telegram claimed that it had the right to us...

NewsBusiness
2 min read
Robert Stevens
Jul 21
SEC commissioner Hester Peirce. Image: SEC

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...

NewsBusiness
3 min read
Robert Stevens
Jun 25
Telegram proposes settlement with SEC. Image: Shuttertstock.

Telegram to return $1.2 billion under proposed settlement with SEC

Telegram and the SEC, at odds since October over the $1.7 billion ICO for the messenger app’s blockchain project, have finally agreed on how to settle the eight-month-long court case. Having since abandoned the Telegram Open Network, Telegram, which also operates a messenger app with 400 million users, has reached an agreement with the SEC over what to do next. Under the proposed settlement, filed today by the SEC, Telegram would return $1.224 billion of its $1.7 billion raise (70%) to investors...

NewsBusiness
4 min read
Robert Stevens
May 29
A Chinese TON community group is launching its own version of the abandoned blockchain project. Image: Shutterstock

Chinese TON community to launch Telegram’s abandoned crypto project

The Chinese community group for the Telegram Open Network today announced that it is launching its own version of the blockchain, just two and a half weeks after Telegram abandoned its ambitious project. “For the first stage, we plan to start the TON blockchain testnet, recruit more nodes and developers to join the network and test it,” wrote TON Chinese Community in a blog post today. Telegram had been developing the Telegram Open Network since 2018. Pavel Durov, co-founder of Telegram envision...

NewsBusiness
3 min read
Robert Stevens
May 13
Image: Shutterstock

The SEC killed Telegram's $1.7B crypto project. Who's next?

"Today is a sad day for us here at Telegram,” wrote Pavel Durov, co-founder of Telegram, yesterday in a blog post. Durov had just announced that Telegram, the encrypted messaging app with 400 million users, had abandoned its massive blockchain project after two and a half years of work. Telegram Open Network, better known as TON, was an ambitious project that raised $1.7 billion in a private ICO, which the SEC subsequently labelled illegal, locking the project down in a protracted legal battle....

NewsBusiness
8 min read
Robert Stevens
May 7
Independent developers launch Free TON blockchain network. Image: Shutterstock

As SEC blocks Telegram's TON, indie devs launch their own

Tired of waiting for the resolution of Telegram’s court case with the SEC, independent developers building on the popular messenger app’s upcoming blockchain network today launched their own, forked version of the blockchain.  Called Free TON, the fork launched with its own tokens, called TON “crystals.” (The native currency of the official Telegram blockchain is the “Gram”).  Ron Millow, who heads sales at TON Labs, one the third-party TON developers responsible for launching the forked blockch...

NewsBusiness
4 min read
Robert Stevens
Feb 19
Image: Unsplash

Court extends delays to Telegram's blockchain network pending ruling

Following a two-hour hearing, a New York federal judge today extended an emergency restraining order that prevents Telegram from distributing Grams, the native currency for its upcoming blockchain network.  Telegram agreed to hold off pending the court’s ruling on the SEC’s request for a preliminary injunction. Telegram’s attorney, however, maintained that it is the firm’s intention to promote the development of the TON blockchain and see Gram tokens become a “new mass-market cryptocurrency” on...

NewsBusiness
3 min read
Matthew Lee, Robert Stevens
Nov 27

Why Telegram's Europol endorsement matters for TON

Popular messaging app Telegram has successfully purged a swathe of IS-related content, seriously disrupting the propaganda issued by the militant group, European Union crime agency Europol announced on Friday.  Telegram is the main platform used by IS, also known as Islamic State or ISIS, partly due to its ‘Secret Chat’ function, allowing messages to be encrypted, deleted at any time, and set to “self-destruct” after a set period. But it’s also a tool favored by dissidents and protest groups wor...

NewsCoins
4 min read
Adriana Hamacher
Oct 2
photo credit: unsplash

Crypterium gambles on Telegram’s crypto, selling Gram tokens ahead of launch

Blockchain startup Crypterium is offering its 500,000 users the chance to buy Gram tokens for messaging app Telegram’s upcoming blockchain platform, the Telegram Open Network (TON).  But the startup doesn’t have a deal with Telegram to buy the Gram tokens at a set price; instead it will be selling the tokens at a set price and hoping that the price doesn’t jump too much on launch. Crypterium will sell the Gram tokens for 3.5 euros ($3.82), undercutting the offerings of other companies, like Gram...

NewsBusiness
3 min read
Robert Stevens
Sep 16
photo credit: unsplash

Inside Telegram's secretive TON blockchain network

The Telegram Open Network, or TON, is Telegram’s upcoming Proof-of-Stake network that promises to integrate blockchain payments into its messaging app that serves some 300 million users. If it delivers on promises of high speeds and decentralization, it will be the largest blockchain launch in history. TON’s slated to launch by October 31, having raised $1.7 billion in a private ICO for its native token, GRAM. But the project has been shrouded in mystery from its conception; with little informat...

NewsBusiness
6 min read
Robert Stevens
Sep 8
photo credit: unsplash

Telegram releases code for upcoming TON blockchain platform

Telegram, the team behind the 365 million-strong encrypted messaging app, is getting ready to release its upcoming blockchain, called TON, which is scheduled for next month. It released code and documentation for a testnet version of the blockchain on Friday. Developers can now download a version of the TON Blockchain Software, which includes support for nodes and validators—computers that help to run the network—in order to check for bugs and other problems. The package also includes a block ex...

NewsCoins
2 min read
Robert Stevens
Aug 30
Telegram Open Network

Telegram starts public testing of TON this weekend

Sources close to the project have told Russian business paper Vedomosti that Telegram messenger plans to begin public testing of its hotly-anticipated blockchain, TON (the Telegram Open Network) on September 1.  Vedomosti said, on Wednesday, that its sources were a TON investor privy to information from the Telegram messenger team and the head of a company that had participated in the recent, closed TON testing phase. According to the latter, instructions for installing a node and the necessary...

NewsTechnology
2 min read
Adriana Hamacher
Aug 25

Telegram’s upcoming blockchain network: a safe haven for terrorists?

A 253-page report detailing how terrorists use cryptocurrencies concludes that the imminent release of Telegram's TON (Telegram Open Network) blockchain network and associated Gram cryptocurrency is a major security threat to the U.S. government.  The report, released this week by the Washington, DC-based Middle Eastern Media Research Institute (MEMRI), produces new evidence that shows how terrorist groups including ISIS, Al-Qaida, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood rely on Telegram to raise cryptocu...

NewsCoins
5 min read
Robert Stevens
Jun 13

The upcoming Telegram token sale might be jumping the gun

Telegram’s $1.7 billion ICO in 2018 set tails wagging for Telegram’s next move, a public sale of its Gram token to regular schlubs like you and me. In 2018’s eye-watering raise, access was limited to accredited investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. Now, it would seem that all things are in order for the company’s rumored Gram token to be sold to the public on July 10. Kind of. Telegram isn’t planning on a sale of its tokens until October this year, so a third-party has ju...

NewsBusiness
3 min read
Jimmy Aki