MOSCOW, January 7. /TASS/. Telegram and its affiliates are not involved in public sales or pre-sales of Gram digital tokens, the company said in its official statement on Monday.

"It has come to our attention that certain websites appear to be offering Grams to the public. These websites sometimes refer to the offers as "token presales," and some pretend to be affiliated with Telegram. As we've warned you on numerous occasions, these are not official Telegram websites, they have no affiliation with Telegram, and no Grams have been issued yet to anyone," Telegram said. "Neither Telegram nor any of its affiliates are involved in any public sales or presales of Grams," the company reported.

The Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain platform, where Grams will function, is still at the beta-testing stage, Telegram said. "Grams don't exist yet, nobody can buy or sell them before we announce the launch of TON Blockchain. Don't get scammed," the company said.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed an action against Telegram Group Inc. and Ton Issuer Inc. on October 11 of the last year. Claims of the regulator pertain to the offering of Gram tokens by respondents.

Telegram owner Pavel Durov said at the turn of 2017 that the company plans to start monetization of the messenger. It became known in January 2018 that Telegram plans to hold ICO. The messenger raised about $1.7 bln according to results of two private preliminary rounds for offering of TON blockchain platform tokens. The TON crypto currency is known as the Gram.