16.01.201808:39:00UTC+00Telegram To Establish Its Own Cryptocurrency Through $1.2 Bln ICO

Private messaging app Telegram is planning a $1.2-billion Initial Coin Offering or ICO. The messaging app, with more than one hundred and seventy million monthly users, aims to find a prime place in the thriving cyrptocurrency arena.

The company is reportedly planning to develop a blockchain to combat bitcoin and ethereum.

Telegram mulls a private token sale in February and a public sale in March. The token sale is expected to raise around $600 million, which could beat the largest ever token sale of $257 million by Filecoin in September. Reports said, those qualified investors, who participate in pre-sale might get a discount of 68 percent in the public sale.

According to a businessinsider report, Telegram's ICO will be to support Telegram Open Network or TON blockchain platform which will host a new generation cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications. The investors participating in the ICO will receive TON tokens, known as Grams. The tokens might not be listed till 2019.

Telegram is said to be planning to invest 80 percent of the funds to develop the TON ecosystem, bandwidth, co-location and user verification system, businessinsider said quoting a white paper.

TON is projected to become an alternative for Visa or Mastercard and "can be regarded as a decentralised supercomputer and value transfer system."