MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. The team of Pavel Durov’s Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain platform may launch the project by the end of the month with limited functions, the head of Russian crypto investment company HASH CIB, Yakov Barinsky, told TASS on Monday.
"Initially, the TON team planned to launch the platform by the end of October. In this regard, my estimate is that TON will be launched with some kind of limited functions, and, possibly, the Gram [cryptocurrency], will be blocked. In other words, the protocol will not let the holders transfer Gram between their accounts," he said.
"At present, the legal risks - both on the part of SEC and on the part of investors - are the key factor when the decision about the launch is made," Barinsky went on.
He added that all major players in this industry, such as the Ethereum platform, had difficulties with meeting the deadlines, and TON is no exception to that rule.
On October 12, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit to suspend the ICO of the Telegram messenger. After that, the TON team said in a letter to investors that the possibility of suspending the launch of the platform is now being considered. Earlier, The Bell portal said, citing the October 2 letter to investors, that the blockchain platform would be launched by the end of the month.
The SEC's complaint, filed in the federal district court in Manhattan, accuses the Telegram Group Inc and its Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain platform of "conducting an alleged unregistered, ongoing digital token offering in the U.S. and overseas that has raised more than $1.7 billion of investor funds." According to the US regulator, the companies "sold approximately 2.9 billion digital tokens called ‘Grams’ at discounted prices to 171 initial purchasers worldwide, including more than 1 billion Grams to 39 U.S. purchasers."
About the project
At the end of 2018, the founder of Telegram Pavel Durov announced that at the beginning of 2018 the company was going to engage in the monetization of the messenger. In January 2018, Telegram was planning an ICO. According to the results of two closed preliminary rounds of token placement of the new TON blockchain platform - Telegram Open Network - the messenger raised about $1.7 bln.
Telegram Open Network cryptocurrency is called Gram. The platform will be based on an advanced blockchain technology that will speed up all actions performed by the user within the network.