Crypto trading platform Liquid announced they are holding a public sale of Telegram Open Network’s digital token – GRAM. To list the token, the platform partnered with Gram Asia, the largest holder of the native token of TON blockchain in Asia.
Telegram decided to finally make its GRAM tokens available to retail investors through a limited listing that will precede a full sale later this year. The pre-sale will go through Japanese exchange platform Liquid by Quoine on July 10, ahead of a full-scale launch slated for October 31.
All the participants will need to register on Liquid and verify their identity with government-issued ID and selfie. They will also need to ensure enough funds on their account, however, the press release did not specify any amount.
Liquid will have TON-compatible wallets integrated into its platform, where GRAM token sale participants will have their GRAMs delivered upon the launch of the public mainnet launch of the TON Blockchain, which is expected to take place by October 31st, 2019. All proceeds from the GRAM token sale will be kept in custody of Liquid and will be fully refunded in the event the TON mainnet is not launched.
The messaging company raised a record-high $1.7 billion last year through a token sale that was limited only to accredited investors. The listing saw unknown demand despite a project which, some industry critics argued, recycled old ideas and proposed impossible goals.
There are several “catches” in this pre-sale. For example, residents of Japan, the United States and dozens of other countries will not be eligible to buy tokens.
Also, Liquid’s pre-sale does not appear to be a listing, per se. Instead, the exchange says it will be selling an unspecified number of coins currently held by a South Korea-based company named Gram Asia. The latter claims it is Asia’s largest single holder of GRAM tokens.
That is mildly strange – that the press release announcing the deal includes no contribution from Telegram. There is, for example, no quote from its CEO Pavel Durov — and it sources two media reports to claim that Telegram’s beta program on its testnet is apparently working as planned.
The only one who commented was Mike Kayamori, co-founder and CEO of Liquid who said:
“We are excited to be partnering with Gram Asia to launch the Gram token sale, which is wonderful news to our community who are native users of Telegram. We share the vision for a more secure and open value transfer system in order to enable the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.”
He also added that this situation represents nothing new because:
next“Unfortunately, that’s Telegram and how they have operated from the beginning”.