Gram Asia to Sell Telegram Tokens at Three Times ICO Price

South Korea’s Gram Asia is selling rights to its Gram holdings at $4.00 per token starting July 10, according to a report by Bloomberg on July 3.

The proposed sale price is triple the original $1.33 sale price at Gram’s second initial coin offering (ICO) round in March 2018.

The sale on July 10 is apparently happening exclusively through Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid, as per its website. Liquid also hosted the Gram ICO in March, at which time Telegram raised $850 million, bringing its total valuation up to $1.7 billion. 

Citing an email from the exchange, Bloomberg reports that users who buy Gram with the exchange’s native token, QASH, will get a $0.50 discount per token.

Future price estimates for the Gram token vary, but generally fall between $2.10–$8.00, according to research from by Russian research agency Aton.

While Liquid initially announced on June 11 that it would be hosting the sale, a source close to Telegram told Cointelegraph that there is no relationship between the two entities. The source further said that the June 11 press release was the first time they had heard of Gram Asia.

Additionally, a Telegram investor commented that no one has the rights to sell Gram tokens before the official launch. Per a token purchase contract, the buyer agrees to not:

“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.”

Gram is the yet-to-be-released native token for the Telegram Open Network (TON), a decentralized network project by the open source, encrypted messenger app Telegram. The service, used by over 200 million people, is planning to launch its Gram tokens by the end of Q3 2019.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Gram Asia is the largest holder of the Gram token in Asia. Additionally, the exchange Liquid apparently has a deal with Gram Asia, but not Telegram. Liquid has further hinted at being an incubator for TON.