As it appears, Telegram GRAM token sale, which was announced yesterday by Liquid, a Japanese exchange, won’t happen after all. At least not on Liquid and not by Gram Asia. This was a big bluff, and many journalists took the bite.
As we reported earlier, news of Telegram‘s digital token GRAM being listed on Liquid Exchange shook the crypto-internet. Liquid announced that they had partnered with Gram Asia, which reportedly was introduced as the largest holder of the native TON token in Asia.
The exchange explained that they will have TON-compatible wallets integrated where GRAM token sale participants will receive their tokens. Additionally, a rather odd thing was the fact that Liquid stated that all proceeds from the GRAM token sale will be kept in its custody and will be fully refunded if the TON mainnet is not launched.
However, this all turned out to be a big bluff, and we believe that many felt that this could not have been true.
No Relationship Between Telegram and Liquid
Today, however, came with a comment from people close with Telegram. Apparently, they have no business relations with Liquid exchange, nor they have heard of Gram Asia, which was presented as the largest GRAM token holder in Asia. Our reporter yesterday also noticed that something rather fishy was going on with the press release:
“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.”
As it turns out, she was right!
Telegram’s Purchase Agreement
According to the agreement, it turns out, no one has the rights to sell Telegram GRAM tokens before their official launch, said one of the Telegram investors.
The anonymous investor explained that all Telegram token sale investors signed a purchase agreement, which anticipates that “the purchasers of GRAM tokens are not allowed to sell the tokens during a restricted period from the date of the purchase agreement to 18 months after the TON launch date.”
Additionally, the purchaser also is restricted from entering a swap or an agreement which transfers the ownership of the token to someone else. The purchase agreement states that the GRAM token buyers agree not to:
“ENTER INTO ANY swap or other AGREEMENT THAT TRANSFERS, in whole or in part, ANY OF THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF OWNERSHIP OF THE INVESTMENT CONTRACT represented by this Purchase Agreement or any Tokens.”
Who benefits from this situation? Possibly Liquid? Could it be that they wanted to lure in more people into their exchange by using Telegram’s name? So many questions, so little answers. Also, there hasn’t been an official statement by Telegram to this hour.
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