Postponement of the TON Launch: Investors Will Get Their Money Back with Telegram Shares
Durov’s blockchain platform was supposed to be launched on April 30. Otherwise, the founder of Telegram was obliged to return the money to investors. Initially, Pavel Durov promised to return 72% of the investment – he was going to spend the remaining 5% on the further development of the project.
But the plans of the TON launch have changed. Experts saw several options for resolving the issue before April 30, but in fact, none of the assumptions turned out to be true.
Last night, the team of Durov sent a letter to investors saying that Durov could not provide Gram to investors on April 30, but offered to return 110% of the investments.
The letter reminds that, based on the plan, in this case, the TON team is required to return 72% of the initially invested amount. However, Durov proposed an alternative option for obtaining 110% of the investment. It is 53% higher than investors could have got.
If everything settles out in a year, investors will get more benefits. The dialogue with the regulator and the American authorities continues. If Durov’s team receives the relevant permissions before April 30, 2021, investors will get an additional opportunity to receive Gram or potentially different cryptocurrency on the same conditions as indicated in the initial agreements with investors.
If something goes wrong, then Telegram will pay off the debt to investors with its shares.
The founder of Telegram proposed the option of returning money to investors by using the proceeds from the sale of Telegram's equity. But in 2017, Durov announced that the messenger is not for sale for any money, even for $20 billion.
It is unlikely that we are talking about the complete sale of Telegram shares. Most likely, the Telegram team will allow selling only part of the shares. Durov expects that the cost of the messenger is several times higher than the total amount of debt to TON investors.
The messenger has 400 million monthly users with an increase of 1.5 million people per day, and Telegram is the most downloaded app in 27 countries, including India, Russia, Brazil, and others.
In the end, the letter stated that investors should answer whether they agree with the new option, or whether they want to return their money as agreed. If some investors decline a new offer, Telegram will return the money.
Pavel Durov and his team expressed gratitude to investors for their trust and support over the past two years. Telegram is proud of the technologies that were created to implement the blockchain platform, but the team regrets that the project has not yet been allowed to launch.
Let us remind you that it also became known that the TON platform is developing its operating system – TON OS, which will allow you to run blockchain services on any device to work with any cryptocurrency. It will help launch TON bypassing a possible ban on the release of Gram by US authorities.