Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid has revealed that proceeds from its resale of GRAM tokens are being held in escrow in a digital wallet.
GRAM tokens, the eagerly awaited cryptocurrency by Telegram, were initially available through two highly secretive and selective ICOs carried out in February and March of 2018. A secondary market for these tokens sprung up and saw resale markups of up to 400%. Telegram is yet to officially confirm any details of the Telegram Open Network (TON), its proposed blockchain, but one of the clauses in the ICO was that GRAM tokens may not be resold to a third party.
However, Liquid revealed in an announcement on August 30 that it was holding $4,123,116.76 worth of USDC stablecoin in escrow in a blockchain wallet that it had raised through a secondary sale of GRAM tokens in July. Grams initially sold for $0.37 USD and $1.33 USD in the two original ICOs by Telegram; however, Liquid’s price in July was $4.00 per token.
“Following completion of the Gram Token Sale, we are pleased to announce that all participating customer funds from the sale on Liquid are stored in a publicly verifiable, segregated blockchain wallet, where funds will remain in cold storage until Gram tokens are released and delivered by the seller, Gram Asia,” an excerpt from Liquid’s statement read.
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Gram Asia was reportedly a major investor in Telegram’s ICOs, which saw the messaging app company raise $1.7 billion USD to fund its blockchain project. While the resale of GRAM tokens was prohibited, Seth Melamed, global head of business development and sales at Liquid’s parent company Quoine, told CoinDesk that Liquid had an agreement in place with Gram Asia and an anonymous third party to guarantee the funds.
Meanwhile, it was reported last week that Telegram would release the code on which its TON blockchain will operate on September 1; however, this failed to materialize. It adds further pressure on Telegram, which must release the blockchain by October 31 or else refund all sales from last year’s ICOs.
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