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Telegram's Billion-Dollar ICO Has Become a Mess (amazon.com)
Jon Russell and Mike Butcher from TechCrunch report of the mess that is Telegram's billion-dollar initial coin offering (ICO): Telegram's ICO was supposed to be a record-breaker to develop a platform that brings the decentralized internet to life. Instead, it has become a mess with the tightly controlled fundraising process in disarray as early backers sell their tokens for handsome returns. The company recently canceled the public sale piece of its ICO, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, after it raised $1.7 billion from private sale investors, according to SEC filings. But the issues date back further.
Telegram's grand vision is to build the TON (Telegram Open Network), a blockchain-based platform that extends its messaging app, which counts 200 million active users, into a range of services that include payments, file storage, censorship-proof browsing and decentralized apps hosted on the platform. According to the original whitepaper, the plan was to raise $1.2 billion using both invite-only private investors and an open sale to the public. Telegram later extended the raise to $1.7 billion before it canceled the public sale altogether. That's almost certainly because it had already raised enough money to develop TON without the risk of running into the SEC's ongoing ICO probe by soliciting money from the public. The result is that the ordinary people can't buy Telegram's Gram crypto token until it is released on exchanges. There's currently no timeline for that. But, with massive demand for the messaging app and deep discounts for early backers, a secondary market for buying and selling tokens early has emerged -- with huge returns already realized by some.
Telegram's grand vision is to build the TON (Telegram Open Network), a blockchain-based platform that extends its messaging app, which counts 200 million active users, into a range of services that include payments, file storage, censorship-proof browsing and decentralized apps hosted on the platform. According to the original whitepaper, the plan was to raise $1.2 billion using both invite-only private investors and an open sale to the public. Telegram later extended the raise to $1.7 billion before it canceled the public sale altogether. That's almost certainly because it had already raised enough money to develop TON without the risk of running into the SEC's ongoing ICO probe by soliciting money from the public. The result is that the ordinary people can't buy Telegram's Gram crypto token until it is released on exchanges. There's currently no timeline for that. But, with massive demand for the messaging app and deep discounts for early backers, a secondary market for buying and selling tokens early has emerged -- with huge returns already realized by some.
Many tech journalists seem to fancy themselves polymaths and make statements on politics, finance, economics, sociology and other such topics that they think are sage, but which are actually rather doltish. Wired and Ars do this a lot, but so do other outlets.
What the author is describing is not a "mess." Raising money in pre-public private sales, or even never going public with a security at all, or creating a private secondary market due to desires from earlier investors to liquidate, are all pretty normal things in the world of securities.
It's all tulips and chucky cheese tokens. ICO = Inital Cuck Olding.
That guy is a trash. He does nothing but spout nonsense and demand respect in return.
APK is about a dumb as you can get and still operate a keyboard.
ZIP
How about that, the insiders make big big money.
BUT THEN, SOMETHING WENT WRONG...
And the regular public is shut out of the party. For their own safety of course, possibly just before it crashes.
A tidy little business, that.
Never fear! I'm willing to part with 10K of my very own Dogecoins and I'm selling them for only $10 each! Buy now before their value goes above $100*!
* may or may not happen within the next 1000 years.
#DeleteFacebook
These are the guys being blocked in various countries? And the domain frothing doesn't work anymore? Doesn't sound very censor-proof to me. And nothing will ever be censor-proof until we can bypass the ISP. All the protocols in the world won't make a bit of difference until then.
Level 1 was taking more money than you gave work or worth in return. Aka profit. Or stealing for the "more" part, if you prefer. Leeching in any case.
Level 2 was taking interest. Illegal* according to Christianity and its forks (like Islam) for a good reason. The innovation was that it needed only one transaction for money to exponentially and consecutively grow for a long time, while keeping the total cost obfuscated.
Level 3 was completely getting rid of providing anything that took actual work in return, in the first place. By "selling" something of infinite abundance and hence complete worthlessness. This was necessary to finance the cocaine abuse in certain industries that leeched on creatove people and had such people in their ranks, trying to handle business jobs. Also to fulfill the expectations of their cocaine-induced massive egos. /information/ a good. A "property". Copypasta suddenly became "worth" more than actually performing let alone coming up with and creating the actual piece of art.
So what better choice than to ignore the laws of nature, and declare
Level 4 was rhe logical conclusion: Applying such imaginary worths (level 3) TO ever-growing money without work (level 2). Aka most modern stock trading** concepts. Options, futures, ... whatever else.
Level 5 is ... this.
ICOs, Bitcoin trading, etc.
The levels are of course debatable. ;)
But anyone will agree that we are *beyond* FUBAR now.
(Yes, I am aware that that is like saying your PIN number on your ATM machine doesn't work anymore. Which fittingly is what you might expect if this continues.
____
* Hence Jews filling that part of the market, which Christians and Muslims gladly used. And that is where the entire hate against Jews thing originated from. It had nothing to do with Jesus, as that "son of God being killed and coming back alive" fable was known in ancient Egypt and India, 5500 years ago.
** Two guys actually got the Nobel Prize for proving, that such a market *must* crash every ~30 years, when the imaginaly worths have become so inflated that they stop being believable, and are corrected. (The industries and their governments reacted, by putting a cork on the volcano, and calling it solved. Hence when it finally exploded, we got the crash of 2007. Now they brought a /bigger/ cork. ... Prepare of a /bigger/ crash!)
The WhatsApp developers kept going on and on about how they hate datamining, storing user data, selling user data to advertisers and so on. "We'll never be like the services that just track their users for gathering personal data, targeting advertising" bla bla bla bla bla. Lots of people bought into that. Then Facebook offered the devs Billions, and they sold out immediately. WhatsApp is part of Zuckerborg's personal data stealing empire now. Part of 1984-book.This of course sent millions of people over to rival service Telegram. And guess what - Telegram is just as good as WhatsApp for casual communication, without being owned by Facebook. If anybody is in trouble, its WhatsApp, not Telegram. Its WhatsApp that has become completely untrustworthy as a personal communication tool, or even worse, a business communication tool, not Telegram - or at least not yet. Maybe Telegram will get bought out as well. Oh well, how hard is it to code a rival to Telegram - another alternative will just spring up, and people will move again.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Needs more graphene.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Exactly how is raising all the money you need in a safe private sale and then canceling your I[CP]O a mess?
Another comment asks the same question rhetorically... I’m actually asking what the article author thinks is a mess here. Because, you know, this is actually what I would call a ‘best case scenario non dilutive fundraising plan with liquidity’.
To be clear, I think the journalist doesn’t know what he’s talking about (likely was wanting to put his $5000 into the ICO, it’s cancelled, Oh Noes!) but I’d like to understand his perspective.
I doubt you realize what an insanely fucked-up mindset and world that posits.
Nothing in that world is even remotely normal. Nobody there even remotely acts like a healthy actual human being, with "nasty" properties like empathy or social behavior based on seeing people as p
*people*.
You are right that it probably looks like a mess to him because he does not understand it. You are just and blind about your own Dunning-Kruger effect regarding your own box in which you think though.
And he is right about how evil and fucked-up this entire world of such things is though.
Or radio source locating.
Airspace is very much the opposite of anonymous.
It is the concept of putting up a light that can be seen for miles and hoping your enemies are blind at that color.
(I wonder if encrypting it so that it just looks like noise floor would work. I also wonder how to make it come from everywhere...)
Are (any) fiat-currency and (any) cryptocurrency really equivalent, as cryptocurrency fans claim?
For example, US Dollar and Bitcoin are really equals?
Value/validity/authorization of US dollar is provided/guaranteed by US Government (and in-turn whole US Public)!
Also, not to mention, US Dollars in any US Bank is insured by US Government!
What authorization/guarantee/insurance is behind Bitcoin? Nothing!
Sorry but that is the end of discussion then!
Why do you think Satoshi Nakamoto is really hiding his identity, if Bitcoin is really such a great innovation?
He is just someone does not like media/fan attention?
Or, could it be really because Bitcoin (and all cryptocurrencies followed it) are actually Ponzi Schemes?
(So he knew very well that law enforcement would come after him sooner or later?!)
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really good innovation, why they attract so many criminals/criminal activity?
Could it really be because, all cryptocurrencies themselves are scams, and that is why they attract all kinds of criminals/criminal activity?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really currency, why no company/store can use Bitcoin as currency anymore?
Because the price of Bitcoin proved to be extremely unstable to use as a currency?
Would the result be different, if Bitcoin replaced by any other "cryptocurrency"?
Aren't all work the same way?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really money; isn't people issuing their own money, illegal already, in all countries?
If so then, why they are still not banned in all countries?
Or, they are not actually virtual currency but virtual investment?
But, if they are actually investment, why we need/want them?
What would happen to world economy, if people invested in virtual investments, instead of real investments?
Or, all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually just a modified (made decentralized and paying variable interest) Ponzi Schemes?
(Price of cryptocurrencies would keep increasing in the long term (by their design), so it is equivalent of paying variable interest to all long term investors.)
Also, since all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually financial scams (Ponzi Schemes), that means, they cannot be the solution for any of existing financial problems of our world!
As more and more people invest in cryptocurrencies, it will become harder and harder to ban their trading everywhere (because people invested in cryptocurrencies, would try to stop anyone trying to ban cryptocurrencies)!
All cryptocurrencies need to be banned globally before it is too late!
Fools rush-in where angels fear to tread! :-)
(Sorry that the choice for me was, either, do lots of copy-paste, or, just sit and watch total global economic collapse to happen sooner or later! :-)
It's only a mess if you were unaware that it's the good old pump and dump "Now With Crypto!!!"
Why does the link next to the heading go to "developer.amazon.com/alexa/smart-home/compatible"?
Never heard of it and don't know anybody that uses it. Is it another one of those Chinese apps?
It doesn't matter how much money they raise, they have lost the race. Pied Piper's decentralized internet platform is already hosting partner web sites and processing compute tokens.