The Reason Telegram Rolls Its Cryptocurrency Service Mat

JAKARTA - Telegram will stop the crypto currency business developed by the Telegram Open Network (TON). The reason is because the crypto currency dubbed Gram failed to sell on the United States Stock Exchange (US) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently.

Compiled from Tech Crunch, Wednesday March 13, TON is a blockchain platform designed to offer cryptocurrency to anyone with a smartphone, a service similar to Facebook's Libra project.

As with Libra, in October, the SEC ordered Telegram to stop Gram after it failed to register an initial sale of $ 1.7 billion.

"Telegram's active engagement with TON has ended. You may or may have seen sites that use my name or the Telegram brand or the abbreviation 'TON' to promote their project. Don't trust them with your money or data," said the CEO and Founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov.

In fact, Durov strongly opposed the ruling, arguing that US courts shouldn't have the power to stop selling cryptocurrencies outside US borders. He even asked for the support of others to replace Telegram.

Today's announcement took Durov very much by surprise, because last month Telegram had convinced people that they would launch TON in April 2021, knowing this, Telegram immediately returned 1.2 billion US funds belonging to investors, a significant part of their investment, or 110 percent in the year following launch that TON was supposed to do

Seeing TON go out of business means that the drama of cryptocurrency is over, as is Libra, which has similar problems.

As previously known, Telegram first promoted TON to investors in 2017. Those investors included Benchmark and Lightspeed Capital, as well as several Russian investors who put up US $ 1.7 billion as profit for Gram for them.

However, late last March, US District Judge Kevin Castel of Manhattan issued an initial court order supporting the SEC's lawsuit to ban the launch of the blockchain TON platform.

"This battle is perhaps the most important battle for our generation. We wish you success where we failed," added Durov.