Durov Brothers File Telegram And TON With SEC, Report $850 Million Already Raised

Telegram creators Pavel and Nikolai Durov have filed a “Notice of Exempt providing of Securities” with the U.S.A. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gregorian calendar month. 13, reportage $850 mln raised underneath the SEC exemption Rule 506(c) from eighty one investors for “the development of the TON Blockchain, the event and maintenance of message traveller.”

The type of securities offered within the SEC filing square measure represented as “Purchase Agreements for Cryptocurrency”, associated square measure filed underneath the Rule 506(c) exemption meaning that U.S.A. voters World Health Organization invest should be authorized investors — those value over $1 mln or that have an annual financial gain of $200,000 — so as for the tokens to not ought to be registered with the SEC as securities.

The Eastman Kodak Company, that had proclaimed the launch of their own ICO underneath constant exemption in early Gregorian calendar month, 2018, has delayed their ICO to require longer to verify their investors’ authorized standing.

The date of the primary sale for the Durovs’ ICO is noted as Jan. twenty nine of this year. By filing with the SEC, the Durovs square measure getting ready to permit for U.S.A. voters to wrongfully invest in their project, and implying that U.S.A. voters might in reality be a number of the eighty one investors.

Although the SEC filing failed to contain the names of any investors within the Durov’s securities providing, Russian news outlet Vedomosti unconcealed nowadays the names of a number of the biggest alleged investors, citing within sources.

Russian wealthy person Roman Abramovich, World Health Organization supposedly has already invested with in cryptocurrencies, reportedly was one among the primary Russian voters to be approved to speculate within the project. One supply allegedly near the wealthy person told Vedomosti that Abramovich had invested with the maximum amount as $300 mln, but another supply claimed the total was nearer to $20 mln.

Sergei Solonin, business executive of Russian payment service supplier QIWI, invested with $17 mln, Vedomosti writes. David Yakobashvili, co-founder of Russian-based foodstuff company Wimm-Bill-Dann, told the publication that invested with $10 mln within the project.

A message ICO has been reported to be within the creating since Dec 2017, once a former message worker wrote on-line that message would be launching their own Blockchain platform and cryptocurrency, referred to as either “The Open Network” or “Telegram Open Network” (TON).

A report, alleging to be for TON, was leaked in period, however its genuineness has nevertheless to be confirmed in public by the Durov brothers.

The Durov’s SEC filing notes 2 issuers of securities, TON Issuers INC. and message cluster INC., each settled within the British Virgin Islands. underneath the “Related persons” section of the filing, Pavel Durov is listed as officer and Director, whereas his brother Nikolai is simply listed as officer.

A supply accustomed to the TON funding told Vedomosti that the funding method wasn't conducted as associate ICO within the “usual sense”, within which a project’s tokens square measure purchased for alternative cryptocurrency, sometimes either Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH). Instead, the supply claims, it absolutely was a lot of sort of a “closed allocation of securities in normal [fiat] currency --dollars and euros.”

According to constant supply, and in line with the brothers’ SEC filing, investors bought rights to the inner cryptocurrency of TON, referred to as “Grams”, which can be distributed to them once the platform is launched.