In December, a former employee of the Telegraph company wrote about Telegram's intentions to hold an ICO. (it is associated with telegram) Anton Rosenberg, who had been fired months earlier.
In January, a 20-page preliminary version of the document on the digital currency inside Telegram appeared on the network.. A little later, TechCrunch carefully told the intentions of Pavel Durov, which referred to the 132-page document and its sources. The content of all documents is almost the same..
From Durov himself or from the official Telergam team, as before, there is no evidence, no refutation.
What Telegram wants to do
The messaging service is supposedly preparing an ICO, sale of their tokens under the Gram title. It's necessary, to finance the development of our own blockchain called TON (Telegram Open Network), build cryptoeconomics inside Telegram and become a decentralized application.
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Georgy Basiladze
How much will one gram cost
1-th sold token — 0,1 dollar, the cost of the next will increase. The messaging service does not intend to sell everything 5 billion tokens: he will put up for sale only forty-four percent (approximately 2,2 billion),4 % will leave to developers, and fifty-two percent will be kept as a reserve, which will maintain the elasticity of the system and protect it from speculation. The system is arranged like this, that the supply of tokens is constantly more expensive than that amount, which is already on sale.. The last issued token will cost about 0,9 dollar.
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Stanislav Shakirov
What digital currency will give Telegram
Grams, which are denoted by either a triangle, or , placed in built-in wallets, linked to user accounts. There are many scenarios in the docs about how, how grams are used inside the messenger.
- Purchases
Grams are used to buy goods in stores and cryptocurrency for real money. This is done through bots..
- Translations
Telegram users send each other grams, but with commission, which is paid to the hosts.
- Subscriptions
Grams buy a paid subscription to the channel, advertising in the channel, access to paid content and make donations to the leading channel.
- Applications
Cryptocurrency pays for VPN to bypass blocking, own domain name in messenger, purchases in third-party applications.
What will be required from Telegram users
Messenger will ask users, who want to use cryptocurrency, verify identity. The docs say, that for this you may need a scan of your passport. Telegram servers won't get access to document scans (unknown, will they keep them), so they remember the information, verified or not. Verified accounts are called External Secure ID, they will supposedly appear in the first quarter of this year.
What will change in Telegram thanks to the blockchain
The messenger plans to build a platform for other applications around the blockchain and its own crypto-economy. Several services will appear on the blockchain, the launch of which is designed for 2019 year:
According to this plan, Telegram services on the blockchain will allegedly be launched.. The first big updates should be expected by the end of the year.
- Third Party Applications
They are decentralized and connected to the TON blockchain. The docs don't say, how exactly they work in the messenger, but it says, that Telegram will become an analogue of the App Store for decentralized applications.
- Dropbox analog
Also distributed, it will save user and application files. The docs say, which will accommodate the information of large services, for example, YouTube.
- Analog VPN
Certainly, distributed. Provides anonymity to users and allows to bypass blocking. The docs say, that the service will be paid.
- Domain names
Like site addresses, only for smart contracts and accounts. The documents say, what are they needed, so that people are guided by the names of contracts. Probably, domain names in Telegram will work like a website address in a browser.
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blockchain
When will Telegram start selling cryptocurrency
Closed token sale will start before March, but it is designed for large investors - the minimum investment amount is 20 millions of dollars. Telegram plans to help out 500 million dollars. This is a huge amount for the ICO market. The largest token placements 2017 they collected half the year: data storage on the Filecoin blockchain received 257 millions of dollars, Tezos blockchain infrastructure has assembled 232 million dollars, and the operating system for applications on the blockchain - 185 million dollars (but by the end of the year the amount increased to 700 million dollars).
Open sale will start in March (another document talks about the first quarter) - everyone will be able to buy a few Grams for dollars. During an open ICO, the messenger intends to raise $3-5 billion. This does not mean, that Telegram will receive such a large amount in a month, probably, we are talking about a long-term sale of tokens. Maybe, after ICO, Gram tokens will be sold on crypto exchanges.
But even an open ICO does not mean, what will appear inside Telegram cryptocurrency and smart contracts. Wallets in the messenger will start only towards the end 2018 of the year, and the crypto-economy will begin to be built at the beginning 2019 of the year.
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Stanislav Shakirov
Why Gram can be successful
Telegram has several important advantages over other ICOs and cryptocurrencies.
- Product
Some startups go to ICO without a working product and raise money for development. Telegram has a messenger, who has been working all over the world for four years.
- Audience
Over these four years, Telegram has attracted 200 millions of people, who use the messenger at least once a month. This is a huge number for the crypto industry.. For example, игра CryptoKitties, which was talked about a lot at the end of last year, attracted about 200 thousands of people.
- Literacy
Telegram users understand modern technologies. They read channels about cryptocurrencies, Technique, science and futurology. Crypto projects start chats in the messenger, to communicate with buyers of tokens (they also start channels in Discord, Steemit and groups on Slack, but less often).
A source: Telegram channel
