Telegram has raised an initial $850M for its billion-dollar ICO

It looks like Telegram’s billion-dollar ICO has reached its first milestone after the chat app company raised an initial $850 million, according to a filing.

A document submitted to the SEC earlier this week states that the money was raised “for the development of the TON Blockchain, the development and maintenance of Telegram Messenger and the other purposes.” The security is described as “purchase agreements for cryptocurrency” and the filing is signed by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.

Read our earlier story for full details from Telegram’s TON white paper.

This initial sum is most likely the pre-sale stage of the ICO which, as TechCrunch reported on extensively and in detail last month, was targeted at venture capital firms and top figures in the investment community who were given deep discounts to buy Telegram’s Gram token. The pre-sale was originally targeted at raising $600 million, but demand pushed the figure up to $850 million, according to a Bloomberg report.

Telegram initially planned to raise a further $600 million to develop its TON project via a public sale that starts in March, according to documents seen by TechCrunch, but it remains to be seen whether that figure will be adjusted. Bloomberg previously suggested the public sale component would expand to $1.15 billion, bringing the total raised to nearly $2 billion if successful.

Telegram CEO Durov did not reply to an emailed request for comment at the time of writing.

Either way, the sale promises to be the largest ICO seen to date. The pre-sale figure alone tops all other ICOs held by some margin.

The sale represents the first outside investment in Telegram, which has been self-funded by Durov and his older brother Nikolai, who founded VKontakte, the social networking site often referred to as ‘Russia’s Facebook.’ The duo fled Russia in 2014 after a fall-out with investors, who they claim had links to the government, and they later set up Telegram.

Demand around the token sale has been unprecedented, primarily because of Telegram’s unique position within the crypto community. Its messaging app is used by the majority of ICO projects, with its group feature particularly popular among crypto watchers — that includes more shady elements such as ‘pump and dump’ scammers.

Quartz recently reported that pre-sale investors are selling their allocation for upwards of double the price, while others had stayed away from the sale out of caution. There has certainly been hype, with a bevy scammers setting up fake websites and campaigns to cash in on the interest, as TechCrunch wrote last month.

As for the project itself, Telegram is aiming to develop a series of services alongside its messaging app, including:

Distributed file storage akin to services like Dropcoin and ICO company Filecoin
A proxy service for creating decentralized VPN services and TOR-like secure browsing environments based on the blockchain
Services for decentralized apps, smart contracts and decentralized web browsing experiences
Payments for micropayments and peer-to-peer transactions
An early ‘MVP’ version of TON is scheduled for release in Q2 2018 with the Telegram wallet service penciled for the final quarter of the year. Beyond that, its TON services are planned to launch in 2019 but Telegram is still to develop the underlying technology that it claims will enable them.

Despite that, it has been busy shipping new products this year.

Earlier this month, Telegram introduced new versions of its messaging apps for Android and iOS, although its apps were briefly removed for download by Apple after some users were found to be sharing child pornography on them. The company also released a web plug-in allowing businesses to connect with users via the messaging app.

Comments

Best Web Design Company in Pondicherry

#Technology has two faces. We all feel it, but sometimes can’t find words to describe it. #Ebooks are the best example to show the 0-1 nature of emotions the #technology evokes. #itwhere provide a #Best #solutions to #Growyourbusiness feel free to drop a #Mail info@itwheretech.co.in www.itwheretech.co.in

Google Announces Android Wear Update With WiFi Support, Always-On Apps, And More

It has been a while since Android Wear got any substantial updates, but today Google is announcing a big one. A new version of Wear will be rolling out over the coming weeks that includes a number of previously rumored features (like WiFi support) and some all new stuff (like always-on apps). Most Wear devices use the always-on ambient mode for the watch face by default, the Moto 360 being a notable exception. The new Android Wear version allows apps to operate in ambient mode too, so they remain active when the watch goes to sleep. That makes it easier to take a quick glance at the app instead of waking the device up and opening the app all over again. The watch will still only go into full-color mode when necessary. WiFi support is also coming in the update, which means your watch can be useful even if your phone isn't connected. Watches with WiFi support will be able to connect to WiFi and still get messages and notifications from your phone, provided it has an interne...

Budding #entrepreneur from Chandigarh University!!

Budding #entrepreneur from Chandigarh University!! #CU #students unfolded their creative ideas and presented them with a productive shape! Meet Our #Automobile #Engineering student - Trilok Singh, who has started his own start-up with the name GEARR TECHNOLOGIES under the guidance of CU-TBI. This start up focuses on affordable high end #Bicycles and its high #technology equipment’s. This start- up will bring to the Indian audience the scope of Products, #innovation, creativity and customization available in the market. Watch the video!!

South Korea aims for startup gold

Back in 2011, when South Korea won its longshot bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, the country wasn’t widely recognized as a destination for ski and snow lovers. It wasn’t considered much of a tech startup hub either. Fast forward seven years and a lot has changed. For the next 10 days, the eyes of the world will be on the snowy slopes of PyeongChang. Meanwhile, a couple of hours away in Seoul, a burgeoning startup scene is seeing investments multiply, generating exits and even creating a unicorn or two. While South Korea doesn’t get a perfect score as a startup innovation hub, it has established itself as a serious contender. More than half a billion dollars annually has gone to seed through late-stage funding rounds for the past few years. During that time, at least two companies, e-commerce company Coupang and mobile-focused content and commerce company Yello Mobile, have established multi-billion-dollar valuations. To provide a broader picture of how South Korea stacks ...

The Eight Most Impactful Excel Shortcuts That You Should Master

If you’ve ever gone online to research improving your Excel skills, you’ve undoubtedly come across a post or two listing all of Excel’s keyboard shortcuts. In the latest version of Excel, Microsoft has made it easier than ever to learn shortcuts, by assigning shortcuts to nearly every function and making the discovery of the input sequence very transparent. While memorizing Excel shortcuts will generally improve your productivity, not all shortcuts are created equal. Shortcuts that you never use are not inherently not very useful and not worth memorizing. Your focus should be on the shortcuts that have the most impact – either by the amount of time it saves you, the frequency that you’ll use them, or the behavior it encourages. If you’ve already started using Excel or just haven’t utilized shortcuts heavily before, review the top eight shortcuts below. For any that you don’t know already, I would suggest memorizing them and incorp...

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog