The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has opposed Telegram’s request for clarity regarding the geographic scope of a court injunction barring the company from distributing its Gram (GRAM) tokens. In a letter to Judge Castel dated March 30, the SEC asserts that the injunction “unambiguously, and properly, applies to Telegram’s delivery of Grams to ‘any person or entity’ [...] and requires no clarification.” The Gram tokens correspond to the firm’s $1.7 billion initial coin offering that raised money to launch the Telegram Open Network — or TON — in 2018. SEC claims injunction unambiguously applies to “any person or …

Former NASDAQ vice president and assistant general counsel warned the TON Community against launching Telegram’s blockchain network until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has its say. Safe Harbor is not on SEC’s agenda Manny Alicandro, a New York City lawyer with vast experience in traditional finance as well as in cases involving crypto assets, shared his concerns about the drastic plan put forward by the TON Community with Cointelegraph. He noted that in the foreseeable future, all issuers have to respect the Howey test. This may only change: “... if the Three-year Safe Harbor proposal by Commissioner Peirce …

How far can a preliminary injunction from an American court reach? The answer to that question is everything for Telegram’s embattled TON blockchain project. TON has been under legal fire since shortly after the SEC became aware of its token sale. The drama is ongoing as recently as this week, when a federal district court judge issued a preliminary injunction against Telegram for its ten-figure initial coin offering. The allegation is that Telegram’s GRAM token, operating on the TON blockchain, was illegally being sold as a security, and the judge effectively took the SEC’s side on the case. Filing an …

As Telegram’s legal battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission continues to unfold, the U.S. authorities have convinced the judge to bar the company from issuing Gram tokens — at least in the near future. On March 24, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York judge said that the SEC “has shown a substantial likelihood of success” in proving that Telegram, the firm behind the eponymous open-source encrypted messenger, distributed unregistered securities.” As a result, the federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the company, preventing it from delivering Gram tokens to investors. Telegram …

Developers of the TON blockchain are still considering deployment, despite injunctive ruling by the U.S. court. Fedor Skuratov, a spokesperson for TON Community Foundation, a community of TON developers, told Cointelegraph that the recent unfavorable decisions by the U.S. court did not catch them by surprise: “The community was ready for this (or another) scenario. We have several options, including the launch of TON by TCF [TON Community Foundation]. I will say more, no one (no one) can prevent the launch of TON by any other entity, person or community, cause TON is a decentralized open-source solution. Already, there are …

The alleged ringleader of a notorious Telegram sex crime chat group has been paraded in public after millions signed a petition demanding the Korean Government publicly name him. Cho Ju-bin, 24 — who went by the username ‘Banksa’ or ‘doctor’ — was arrested and charged last week along with 17 others for distributing and selling photos and videos of the sexural exploitation of women and minors. They are accused of blackmailing women and minors into starring in the videos, which were then sold to other users. Cho made hundreds of millions of won in cryptocurrency from the Nth Room Telegram …

Telegram is seeking to appeal a United States federal court’s recent ruling in favor of the Securities and Exchange Commission to halt distribution of GRAM tokens. Rejection of the injunction and the status of the investment contracts In response to the court’s preliminary injunction earlier the same day freezing GRAM issuance until at least the trial, Telegram filed a brief notice of appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The injunction itself tentatively agrees with the SEC’s argument that the contracts governing GRAM issuance — though critically, not necessarily GRAM tokens themselves — seem to qualify as …

A United States District Court has granted an injunction against Telegram, preventing the company from issuing its GRAM tokens at the present time. Court says that GRAMS are securities under Howey test Per a March 24 filing granting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s request for a preliminary injunction, the Court wrote that: “The Court finds that the SEC has shown a substantial likelihood of success in proving that the contracts and understandings at issue, including the sale of 2.9 billion Grams to 175 purchasers in exchange for $1.7 billion, are part of a larger scheme to distribute those Grams into …

The Russian communications watchdog has launched an offensive on censorship resistant platforms, including the Telegram Open Network (TON) and privacy browser Tor. Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media — better known as Roskomnadzor — published a notice on March 3 seeking to engage contractors to research and block “anonymous darknet networks” hosting content deemed “extremist” or “restricted”. The Russian-language crypto news outlet Forklog first reported the call for contractors, after it was published by Russia’s General Radio Frequency Center. Roskomnadzor cracks down on anonymous networks Official documents list anonymous protocols, mesh networks, and Internet-of-Things …

Telegram has pointed to a fresh precedent that could bolster its argument against allegations it violated United States federal securities laws. In a March 6 letter to Judge P. Kevin Castel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Telegram brought attention to a recent case ruling it claims undermines the Security and Exchange Commission’s injunction against the firm. Telegram vs. the SEC: case recap To recall, Telegram has been embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC since the latter launched an investigation last October into Telegram’s wildly successful 2018 $1.7 billion initial coin offering …

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has voted to propose a set of rule changes to simply and improve the "patchwork" rules for exempt securities offerings. The proposed rule changes aim to improve the existing ‘complex and confusing’ framework to make it easier for companies to conduct offerings that still protect investors. In the US offerings of securities, including Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), must either be registered with the SEC or qualify for an exemption. The majority of entrepreneurs and emerging businesses — such as Telegram — raise capital via the exempt offering framework. Unaccredited investor limit raised Many …

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission has recently weighed in on the Security and Exchange Commission’s ongoing legal battle with Telegram by filing a letter that contained its views on the case. According to the submitted document, the CFTC’s Office of General Counsel believes that all digital currencies are commodities, thus implying that Telegram’s Gram token is not a security and therefore not subject to registration under the Securities Act of 1933. With that being said, the CFTC did concede that the Commodity Exchange Act does afford certain securities with the status of being commodities — to which security …