We previously reported here and here about the case the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought against Telegraph. In March, Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York granted the SEC’s preliminary injunction request preventing the distribution to purchasers of $1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrency called “Grams,” which were going to be allotted upon the launch of Telegram’s TON blockchain. Judge Castel then denied Telegram’s request that the injunction be limited so as not to have extraterritorial effect.
Telegram appealed just Castel’s decision. On May 22, however, Telegram withdrew its appeal, ending the matter.
Last month, Telegram offered the investors an exit option of receiving 72 percent of their initial investment, or loaning the amount to Telegram for a year and receiving 110 percent of the investment in April 2021. For US-based investors, however, only the first option was available. Since TON is an open-source project, its entire code has been published on Github. And, indeed, earlier this month, there was a launch of a forked version of the blockchain, named Free TON. In other words, the TON project may yet live on.
