TON investors refused to return the invested money before resolving the dispute with the SEC

Investors of the Telegram Open Network (TON) project refused to return their invested money until the situation withaccusations from the SEC, and are ready to wait for the launch of the platform until April 30.

This decision was made by a majority of votes.investors involved in both rounds of project financing. Given that investors are ready to show loyalty and wait for the launch of TON until April 30, Telegram can spend on the development of the platform another $ 80 million from the $ 1.7 billion that were collected for two rounds of ICO.

Telegram sent investors a notice thatif most of them vote for a refund and do not sign an additional agreement, their current arrangements with the company will be canceled and the funds returned.

Telegram offered investors to return only 77%from their investments a week after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) obtained a temporary injunction against the issuance and sale of Gram tokens. As a result, Telegram had to postpone the launch of the platform, which was supposed to take place until the end of October. The Commission considered Gram tokens to be securities not registered in accordance with the Securities Act of 1933. As a result, the Commission accused Telegram of illegally conducting an ICO.

Telegram later appealed to the US District Court of the stateNew York with a request to lift the temporary ban, citing arguments that Gram tokens are not securities. However, the court postponed the hearing of the case to February next year. At the same time, in their address to investors, Telegram representatives indicated that they view this development of events in a positive way, since the company will have more time to prepare to defend its position.

One of the investors who voted to waitlaunch of TON was the founder of QIWI Sergei Solonin, who invested $17 million in the project. Of the 171 investors in Gram, besides him, only the founder of Wimm-Bill-Dann, David Yakobashvili, is known, who declined to comment.

During the first investmentround, Gram tokens cost $0.37, in the second round it was already $1.33. According to the forecast of the project founders, tokens will cost $3.62 in free sale. The stated goal of the Durovs — is to create “a blockchain that will power next-generation virtual currencies and decentralized applications,” the SEC notes.

Lawyers polled by Izvestia believe thatother investors will wait for the dispute to be resolved with the SEC, however, with a high degree of probability it can be assumed that the TON project has certain agreements with brokers, banks and other financial intermediaries, which will be long and expensive to replay. If tokens are not transferred to investors on time, Pavel Durov will have to pay forfeits and bear other expenses.

The court will hold hearings on the Telegram case in February2020, and it is in the interests of the Durov brothers to resolve all issues with the SEC as soon as possible. Otherwise, firstly, there is a risk of losing the US market, and secondly, with a high degree of probability, competing fintech projects, for example, Libra from Facebook, will quickly agree with regulators and begin to implement their payment solutions.

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