TELEGRAM

DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS

"Founded by Russian entrepreneurs Pavel and Nikolai Durov who cashed out of their social media company VKontakte to the tune of $300 million, Telegram is a secure messaging app that competes with the like of WhatsApp." "Chat app Telegram’s upcoming ICO promises to break records with a target raise of $1.2 billion, which may be extended to $2 billion according to new reports."

"Telegram has no viable business model, as it makes no money – on purpose." In fact, Pavel Durov covers all its expenses out of his own pocket. “Pavel Durov, who shares our vision, supplied Telegram with a generous donation, so we have quite enough money for the time being,” claims the FAQ on the Telegram web site. “If Telegram runs out, we will introduce non-essential paid options to support the infrastructure and finance developer salaries. But making profits will never be an end-goal for Telegram.”

“Secure messaging should be free for everyone. Displaying ads alongside your private communication seems out of place, even immoral,” according to Pavel Durov. “We’re aiming to set a higher standard for messaging technologies, to raise the bar of communication in terms of speed, security and versatility.”

"According to multiple sources which have spoken to TechCrunch, the “Telegram Open Network” (TON) will be a new, ‘third generation’ blockchain with superior capabilities, after Bitcoin and, later, Ethereum paved the way."

"News of Telegram Open Network (TON), the Telegram ICO project, first broke in the final weeks of December before TechCrunch reported exclusively on the full details." “Telegram is already the de facto communication channel for the global cryptocurrency community, making a natural home to its own coin and Blockchain,” TechCrunch’s Josh Constine and Mike Butcher wrote.

"The more popular the project, the greater the number and the higher the quality of the fakes." "At the center of this frenzy is one upcoming ICO, whose purported $2 billion valuation dwarfs all others – Telegram." "Telegram’s ICO currently holds the record for investments raised."

"The company plans to raise a staggering $1.2 billion in total, starting with a $600 million pre-sale that’s strictly for traditional venture capital backers and those inside its executive’s close circles. That first stage is running from January to February by invite-only, according to the letters sent to selected participants that were viewed by TechCrunch."

"Following the pre-sale, the firm plans to hold a public sale in March which will allow retail investors to enter. The public sale is pegged at $600 million, which would make the overall ICO worth $1.2 billion. That blows any other token sale out of the water, and it would easily surpass the current record of $257 million raised by Filecoin in September."

"We found dozens of phishing resources exploiting this event, some of which looked very professional indeed." "[N]umerous web sites, including gramtoken.io, tgram.cc, ton-ico.com, ton-gram.io, grampreico.com, tgram.cc, gramtoken.tech and others have arisen."

"[O]ne – gramtoken.io – purportedly collected more than $5 million before going dark, according to TechCrunch." "Gramtoken.io was the most prominent fake. The website, which is now offline, used details extracted from the whitepapers including project roadmap, team members and more. It even posted a copy of the whitepaper — which, again, had been leaked already — to give a sense of authenticity. The site’s tracker purported to have ‘raised’ more than $5 million before it went dark last Wednesday."

"Another fake #facebook SCAM Ad for Telegram ICO $TON. There is NO ICO yet! You will lose your money! GRAMTOKEN.IO is fake!"

"In the case of one website, Ton-gram.io, more than 70 people have invested over $30,000 in Ethereum, according to a wallet address connected to the website."

"Of the rest of the fakes, ton-gram.io, grampreico.com and tgram.cc remain online, Gramtoken.tech is offline, while a number of Facebook Pages, including one for Gramtoken.io, were taken private or removed after being called out as scams."

"What’s more, the wallet addresses for victims to transfer money were created individually for each “investor,” making it harder to track the funds."

"Attention: Telegram publishes its official announcements only at https://telegram.org. Everything else is most likely scam." "If you see or receive offers to "buy Grams", let us know."

Telegram had announced plans to launch a large ICO in early 2018. A number of prominent fraudulent websites cropped up allowing users to purchase the upcoming GRAM tokens. All of these sites were fake and took user's money. One of the sites was clever enough to generate a unique address for each user, making it much easier to get away with their funds. There is no report of any funds having been recovered that were taken.

In cryptoland, trust can be costly | Securelist (Jan 16)
Два миллиона за GRAM | Securelist (May 31)
@durov Twitter (Jun 1)
Telegram ICO: Scam Among Cryptocurrency Scams (Jun 1)
Scammers are cashing in on Telegram’s upcoming ICO – TechCrunch (Jun 1)
@TheBoyCrypto Twitter (Jun 1)
@durov Twitter (Jun 1)
Inside Telegram’s ambitious $1.2B ICO to create the next Ethereum – TechCrunch (Jun 1)
Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency – TechCrunch (Jun 1)
Scam Alert? There’s Something Funny About the Telegram ICO | Finance Magnates (Jun 1)
@baccaloreal Twitter (Jun 1)

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