Encrypted messaging app Telegram will launch its Gram digital currency in October, investors have told mainstream media. Telegram tokens due in two months As The New York Times reported on Aug. 27, three anonymous investors in Telegram’s $1.7 billion private initial coin offering (ICO) said the company had confirmed it would issue the first tokens in two months’ time. Additionally, one Telegram Open Network (TON) investor in contact with Telegram’s team revealed that the company plans to begin publicly testing the platform starting Sept. 1. The long-term goal for executives is to make Gram available to all of Telegram’s roughly …

Non-custodial and multi-cryptocurrency wallet provider Button Wallet is launching a free testing service on the Telegram Open Network (TON) in a bid to drive crypto adoption among Telegram’s 300 million users. The client application is offering a giveaway 6.6 testnet GRAM tokens — the native currency of Telegram’s TON blockchain platform — for users that activate its wallet, Forbes reported on Aug. 26. Onboarding a TON of people Alex Safonov — Button Wallet’s co-founder and CEO — has said the GRAM token giveaway aims to encourage adoption by giving users the practical experience of transacting digital assets without risk. He …

Dutch crypto derivatives exchange Deribit launched a block trading solution in partnership with American trading communication platform Paradigm. World’s first block trading tool for crypto derivatives The institutional block trading solution is reportedly the first one of its kind offered by a crypto-derivatives exchange, the firms said in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Aug. 22. The new block trading solution intends to enable institutions to directly negotiate crypto-derivative trades via chat on Paradigm, while agreed information is automatically directed to Deribit for execution and clearing. What are block trades? Block trades are privately negotiated transactions in futures or …

Last month, Facebook rocked the world with its blockbuster Libra announcement. Even a year ago, the idea that an iconic United States company would launch a digital currency or that a sitting president would tweet about it seemed insane. Welcome to the new normal. The Libra announcement sent politicians scrambling, hit the mainstream media like a hurricane, and left many crypto influencers wondering if the social network giant just turned 90% of altcoins worthless. What tiny crypto project with a few dozen programmers can stand against the combined might of not just Facebook but also the titans of the tech …

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz argued that institutional interest would push Bitcoin (BTC) price back to its all-time highs of $20,000 before the end of 2019. Novogratz delivered his comments in an interview with Bloomberg on July 25. Speaking about where Bitcoin price will be going by the end of the year, Novogratz recalled the coin’s significant move from $4,000 to almost $13,500, further projecting that the price will likely consolidate in the range between $10,000 and $14,000. Novogratz thus reiterated the prediction he made in late June. He said that once institutions show increased interest in the cryptocurrency again, …

According to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the Chinese company The9 Ltd bought 5,297,257 tokens during a Telegram initial token offering in January 2018 for $2 million dollars. The filing also states that The9 has invested in multiple blockchain-based companies as of 2018. According to a report by Russian business news agency RBC on July 24, this document is evidence of The9 as the first publicly-known foreign investor. Per RBC, Telegram’s initial coin offering (ICO) investors are largely unknown. Few details about ICO participants forthcoming During the first ICO, 81 investors contributed to raise a …

Since the beginning of 2018, rumors and then news about some large players entering the blockchain industry mesmerized the crypto community. Presently, the projects promoted by JPMorgan Chase, Facebook and Telegram are at the testnet level, but the companies have disclosed more accurate information about them. The differences among the three projects are enormous — their aims, business models, technology, etc. Some similarities exist, nevertheless. However, with diversified feelings toward these projects, the community pointed out the challenges that they have introduced to the industry. This time, the proposal for a new cryptocurrency is not coming from an adventurous startup …

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 …

Recently, new materials surfaced about the lite client for the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain, powered by encrypted instant messaging service Telegram. Based on the content of these documents, it is possible to make a lot of assumptions about its future, especially in regard to comparing TON with competitors — such as the Cosmos network, Polkadot and Ethereum 2.0 — as well as the overall impact of the blockchain ecosystem. Polkadot, Cosmos and TON will definitely compete for users and developers. Moreover, in 2019, every blockchain really needs to have a lot of use cases built on it in order …

Top Stories This Week CCN casts doubt on shutdown plans as Google appears to correct visibility Cryptocurrency news outlet CCN (formerly CryptoCoinsNews) is apparently not going through with its total shutdown, as reported earlier this week. The outlet had previously posted a note that a recent Google Core Update had led to a more than 70% visibility drop on mobile overnight, leading the organization to decide to shut down rather than downsize. However, an update this week from CCN Markets Director Jonas Borchgrevink notes that, for an unexplained reason, the crypto outlet’s old domain name, CryptoCoinNews, has been showing up …

A new report on the Telegram Open Network (TON) by Russian research agency Aton — published today, June 14, on Cointelegraph — reveals new details about one of the most anticipated projects in the crypto space. TON is a blockchain platform developed by encrypted instant messaging service Telegram, which is widely regarded as one of the primary means of communication within the blockchain and crypto community. The blockchain network reportedly aims to gain wide usage due to the active, crypto-friendly Telegram community. According to the report, TON will facilitate internal payments, host decentralized applications (DApps) and provide wallet services, among …

It was a “natural” development. That is how Mike Kayamori, the CEO of Liquid described an exclusive deal with Gram Asia on public sales of Telegram Open Network (TON), a decentralized network being developed by privacy-focused messaging platform Telegram. Kayamori told Cointelegraph how Liquid came to agree with Gram Asia. He also claimed that Liquid was the pioneer of initial exchange offering (IEO) and explained which advantages Liquid has in the IEO market. “Everything is between Gram Asia and Liquid” The upcoming IEO at Liquid is a public sale of gram, which is the native token of TON. The Liquid …