Telegram holds second closed presale tokens.

Over the past few months, CEO Telegram Pavel Durov has already convinced 81 accredited investors, including silicon Valley giants such as Sequoia Capital and Benchmark, to invest $ 850 million in his blockchain project tokens. Now he plans to raise even more funds from accredited investors during the second press even before the launch of the public ICO.

This week, investors received an email from Telegram with the announcement of the second round of the closed pre-sale, as reported by four different sources to the edition of the Verge. According to one of the investors, according to the preliminary assessment of Telegram, the second round will gather as much as the first, which will amount to $ 1.6 billion before the opening of sales to the General public. ICO Telegram has already become the largest in the history of primary coin offerings, leaving the previous record of 232 million far behind.

Telegram does not comment on the second round of pre-sales, Sequoia Capital and Benchmark also refuse to comment.

Changes to Telegram's plans come at a time when the product itself, Telegram Open Network (TON), an Ethereum-like ecosystem with applications, services, and a store for digital and real-world goods, is being seriously criticized by the community. Critics point out that the proposal does not reveal technical details, and the campaign's appreciation is due to HYIP and speculation, not the value of technology.

Estimates of the total amount of funds, which is going to attract Telegram, also vary. Many believe that the company has changed its goals in a big way due to the surge of interest. Crypto investor Solidus Capital Carlos Mosquera confirmed that the figures on the offer Telegram is different, and that he had been offered a different version from various Resellers. Discount during the pre-sale range from 30 to 80% of the expected price of public sales, according to investors who received an offer to participate in the first pre-sale. Mosquera says:

"A month and a half ago, we received the first offer from Telegram. We refused because we received 2 or 3 different descriptions of the deal terms for the same ICO. The information was not transparent.»

Mosker's firm has not received an invitation to the second presale, but he is not surprised that Telegram is looking for more investors.

"Now pre-sale hotter krautsalat themselves," says the investor.

Sec financial regulator has increased its supervision over the ongoing ICO campaigns, which means that the ICO Telegram may not enter into a public offer in the United States, according to CNBC. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Telegram holds a second presale with accredited investors, that is, firms and investors with an annual income of more than $ 200,000 or a capital of $ 1 million. To conduct such sales, there are fewer regulatory concerns than proposals for the General public.

The launch of the public ICO Telegram was expected in March. Now it is not clear whether the second pre-sale will affect the time frame of the ICO, and when it will be the launch of the most anticipated token and the first such project, attracting venture companies of the Silicon Valley. Observers nevertheless remained critical of the proposal.

According to 132 pages offered to investors, the funds collected within the framework of the ICO will be used to create a number of blockchain-based products, including file storage, DNS service, advertising exchange, as part of the TON network. Critics point out that the team is very ambitious, stating, for example, that the network will be able to handle millions of transactions per second, but does not explain how.

Christian Catalini, a Professor and founder of Cryptoeconomics by mit's Lab who is working on a study of 1500 ICO with his team, reported the Verge:

"We, in fact, in our scientific article record a significant shift from more technical white paper to advertising brochures for sales. Over time, less attention has been paid to technical details, some of the projects rather sell a vision. In the case of Telegram, much is promised, but there is no clarity about how it is planned to implement."

Matthew green, the developer of cryptosystems and Professor at Johns Hopkins University, expressed a similar opinion:

"To be honest, Telegram showed that it can implement projects and create code. In fact, it changes a lot in the field of blockchain. However, to be honest, white paper looks like someone opened the Internet, put together the most ambitious ideas and said: "let's do it all, only better!". It seems unattainable, at least on the scale that is now stated."

The others expressed the assumption that in reality the actor is raising money not for a new project based on the blockchain, and to keep the Telegram afloat. Earlier it was reported that he invested the earned on sale VK.com money in the development of the company. So, for example, believes Georgy Klimov, CEO of the public blockchain company Statis, believing that Pavel Durov launches ICO to raise funds without selling shares in the Telegram to investors.

Charles Neuss, a cryptocurrency analyst at the venture company Pantera Capital, reports that the team did not participate in the preliminary sale of Telegram ICO in the first round (the Company did not receive an offer to participate in the second presale). For him, Telegram's closed sales don't match the spirit of blockchain:

"For blockchain technology and especially for cryptocurrencies, it is very important that founders are very open about what they are going to do and attract as many people as possible, so that they try to find a mistake in this.»

"When everything goes like this, in private, in secret, without openness to criticism of colleagues, there is an increased risk of leaving a fatal bug in the code that can destroy the entire network."

However, the functioning of the platform may not be so important for early investors. Investors who have bought tokens at a discount can immediately receive a significant profit after the ICO. Also, Telegram can launch advertising of its ICO among its users, the number of which is 170 million people.

If you liked my post please upvote & follow me.