Telegram had to postpone the launch of its Gram token on the TON blockchain until April 2021.
Due to the fact that the launch did not take place by April 30th, 2020, Telegram will be contractually obliged to repay investors 72% of their investment.
However, the company has offered to pay them back as much as 110% of their investment as long as they choose to wait until the actual launch of Gram in a year’s time to request a refund.
Investors who decide to request a refund now will have to accept a loss of 38%, while those who decide to give the company another 12 months could earn 10% in a year.
However, this only applies to non-US investors, as US investors will have no other option than to accept an immediate refund of 72%.
In addition, these refunds will not be paid in Gram tokens, so it is conceivable that the goal is to convince investors not to request a refund, but to wait to receive the tokens.
Telegram spokesman Remi Vaughn said that investors will not receive Telegram shares as redemption, but the company could raise cash through a sale of its shares.
Investors are invited to respond to these proposals by 5:00 PM London time on Tuesday, May 5th, 2020, and the company says it will request signed documents by Monday, May 11th, 2020.
However, it has to be said that, given the ongoing problems with the SEC, even the deadline of April 2021 is by no means certain. In truth, on the technical side, it seems that everything is ready for launch, but the problems concern the way the Telegram company has proposed this investment offer, and its relationship with investors.
TON is now an open-source project, detached from Telegram, but investors have invested a lot of capital to finance the project, in exchange for the future distribution of Gram tokens. If TON is launched without Gram tokens, the investors would certainly not be happy and Telegram could have further problems.
Despite this, some investors have stated that the terms of the new proposal are good, and it is possible that many will choose to keep their investment until April 2021. Even if Telegram will not be authorized to issue Gram tokens, it will still have a year to find the funds to repay 110% of the invested capital.
