Chat App Giant Telegram Bans Sanctioned Individuals, Territories From ICO – Report

Persons on international sanctions lists, their relatives, and those from sanctioned territories are among those barred from Telegram’s closed token sale rounds, local Russian business journal RBC reports today, March 15.

According to RBC, which claims to have a copy of the contract allegedly issued by Telegram to participants of its private presale, any person listed in the sanction lists of the US, UK, European Union, or the United Nations Security Council are not allowed to participate in any round of the closed ICO. The restriction also includes relatives of sanctioned individuals, as well as residents of territories under sanction, including Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria.

Relatives affected are “children, spouses, parents, brothers and sisters” of sanctioned individuals, the publication adds.

According to RBC, “one of the Russian participants” of the ICO, as well as a “top manager of a venture fund considering the possibility of taking part” in it, “confirmed” the content of the contract.

Encrypted messenger service Telegram is in the midst of conducting what sources consider may become the largest ICO in history.

As Cointelegraph reported, the quiet presale and rumored second presale of its Gram cryptocurrency could raise around $1.6 bln before the public phase of the ICO even launches. For the first presale, Telegram creators Pavel and Nikolai Durov reported that $850 mln had been raised from 81 investors in a “Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities” filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Feb. 13, with US investors participating under SEC exemption Rule 506(c).