Telegram ICO Investigation Part 2 - The Draft Whitepaper
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Today I would like to continue where I left off yesterday by going even deeper into my investigation into the rumoured Telegram ICO and blockchain based apps platform.
I’m glad I did this in 2 parts because I’ve now had 24 hours to reflect on what I talked about yesterday, which has given rise to a few insights.
The first is that I do not think these materials have been leaked by accident. The marketer in me is beginning to think this is actually just part of a very clever product launch strategy.
By seeding the market with small pieces of ‘leaked’ information, people like me jump on it and basically starting promoting their ICO for free.
Other media outlets do the same and the news goes viral without Telegram having to spend a penny on advertising.
This isn’t fact, its just what I have started to think based on what I see and my own experience doing marketing campaigns that have similar characteristics.
Second, I still have heard no official word from Telegram as to whether they confirm or deny any of this. I suspect if they were not doing anything like an ICO, a cryptocurrency or a blockchain they would come out with a strong denial, but they haven’t.
https://twitter.com/telegram
Their last tweet for example was from the 30th of December and was an announcement about a new version of the messenger app.
And there is nothing on their blog:
https://telegram.org/blog
The main promise I made to you yesterday was that I would analyse the draft whitepaper, which is officially called the Primer document.
So here we go.
https://icorating.com/upload/whitepaper/gNQ7e9z3lCGi519Wz8mmC0Kg8aA0goeZKAQ802vo.pdf
You get a pretty good overview of the project just from the table of
contents.
The foundation of the project is the Telegram Open Network and the techniques they plan to use for massive scalability.
That then enables all the features of the TON platform such as:
TON Storage
TON Proxy
TON Services
TON DNS
And of course TON Payments
Then they have a section on integrating the Telegram messenger app as the way to interact with the network.
The paper does specifically say that it will launch in 2018 so that’s something specific. However when you have a look at the roadmap, the full released isn’t dated until the 4th quarter.
And speaking of dates, while TON stands for Telegram Open Network today, it says this will change in 2021 to The Open Network.
This primer also makes references to the technical whitepaper, which I have not yet managed to get a hold of.
The paper sets the scene by using Bitcoin and Ethereum has the best examples of cryptos to date but that they are still falling far short of something the average person can use day to day, which is what their token is going to be.
They highlight the fact that the TON wallet, which will be integrated right into the Telegram messenger app, will quickly become the worlds most adopted cryptocurrency wallet.
One question I have is how they are going to handle people’s private keys. How are they going to keep it super user friendly while also making users back up their wallet? We shall have to see.
They say that 500,000 new people download Telegram each day. That’s quite normal for a messenger app, but half a million downloads per day for a cryptocurrency wallet is huge.
In this section about the TON blockchain, they start to describe what they refer to as their 2 dimensional blockchain architecture.
It says the network will have a master chain and then up to 292 accompanying blockchains in what they term an ‘Infinite Sharing Paradigm’.
Or as they refer to it in the promo video ‘every block can become its own blockchain’.
But again they refer you to the technical whitepaper for more detail on how this works.
Anyway assuming all the fancy infrastructure provides the massive scaling that they claim, then comes the services the network can provide such as…
TON Storage, which is a decentralised file storage system similar to the ones we have seen in the blockchain space so far.
TON Proxy, which would enable privacy services like a VPN or anonymous browsing like TOR.
TON Services, which is where you’d access all the various decentralised apps or even a decentralised world wide web.
And then there is TON DNS, a decentralised naming system so we’d be able to give human readable names to everything rather than cryptographic addresses.
And finally TON Payments, which will enable micropayments and achieve that day to day usage we mentioned earlier.
You know, Telegram may be targeting the mainstream with this, but we all know that Telegram is the chat platform of choice for cryptocurrency projects.
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So not official, just piquing people curiosity with these huge promises, so people shill them for free, then suckers like me go and download the app now, they get "TON"s of new business, then they come out with"official" announcements, end up being a bad project and they have just increased their popularity! Sounds like a great business strategy and that they are using people like you to shill it. Too good to be true is right! It's not true, they've found a way to advertise without paying! Don't be fooled, if something sounds too good to be true.. it probably is. I don't believe anything until it is official announced and neither should you!
Great article. Telegram ICO is one to follow for sure. Do not miss EzToken it ends today, as well http://bit.ly/2DiZlTt this one is great as well.
@marketingmonk ETHLend are doing an airdrop for eidoo wallet holders. Only requirement is you have the Telegram app and provide your username or phone number and you're eligible for the airdrop.
Spot on Analysis. I was thinking the same the more I read more about the Telegram ICO. It's a bit of a pump right now for no reason. The video was great, but doesn't strike the right chord with me for serious investors.
Chris, excellent content as usual. In German we say this project is the "eierlegende Wollmilch-Sau" meaning that the project want to implement everything thinkable in the cryptospace. What really wonders me where they want to get the dozens or even hundreds of developer to implement all that stuff in around a year. They should have already started with the implementation, otherwise they can never realize all that stuff in that short amount of time
So not official, just piquing people curiosity with these huge promises, so people shill them for free, then suckers like me go and download the app now, they get "TON"s of new business, then they come out with"official" announcements, end up being a bad project and they have just increased their popularity! Sounds like a great business strategy and that they are using people like you to shill it. Too good to be true is right! It's not true, they've found a way to advertise without paying! Don't be fooled, if something sounds too good to be true.. it probably is. I don't believe anything until official announced and neither should you!
Wait wait wait, I didn't know much about telegram before, have you seen these things on their FAQ page?
"Q: Who are the people behind Telegram?
Telegram is supported by Pavel and Nikolai Durov. Pavel supports Telegram financially and ideologically while Nikolai's input is technological. To make Telegram possible, Nikolai developed a unique custom data protocol, which is open, secure and optimized for work with multiple data-centers. As a result, Telegram combines security, reliability and speed on any network.
See also: articles about Telegram
Q: Where is Telegram based?
The Telegram development team is based in Dubai.
Most of the developers behind Telegram originally come from St. Petersburg, the city famous for its unprecedented number of highly skilled engineers. The Telegram team had to leave Russia due to local IT regulations and has tried a number of locations as its base, including Berlin, London and Singapore. We’re currently happy with Dubai, although are ready to relocate again if local regulations change.
Q: Will you have ads? Or sell my data? Or steal my beloved and enslave my children?
No.
Q: How are you going to make money out of this?
We believe in fast and secure messaging that is also 100% free.
Pavel Durov, who shares our vision, supplied Telegram with a generous donation, so we have quite enough money for the time being. If Telegram runs out, we will introduce non-essential paid options to support the infrastructure and finance developer salaries. But making profits will never be an end-goal for Telegram."
They are from Russia, are not doing this for any gain, but out of the goodness of their heart, and have been forced to move from city to city because of regulations? And now they are coming out with a coin that seems too good to be true? Does this company seem fishy to anyone else?
Interessanter Bericht von Dir !
Thanks for this video. So... if not true who benefits from it? I cannot stop thinking about it.
Relating to the telegram ICO... I am looking into Zencash, and they are a young project with similar, more simple objectives. I can see that they may be swallowed up by something like this Telagram ICO. I mean to say, Zencash with their focus on anonymous transaction and encrypted messaging system seems archaic compared to the possibility of something as established as Telegram. As telegram is inherently linked to crypto communities, similar to twitter and therefore with an already vested community. They appear to be an embedded self fulfilling prophecy... Curious to see it all pan out.
Congrats on your documentary and the other interview! You totally deserve the exposure.
I am checking to see if you have any material looking into Zencash.
Mahalo.