When Wu Tai was contacted, he was preparing the copy for community announcement. This may be the last time this community made an announcement about the TON project.
Everyone already knows. Earlier on May 13, Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram Open Network (TON), sent an announcement letter titled “What is TON and why it failed.” The top-level project of US $ 1.7 billion is still dead.
Wu Tai is the promoter of the TON Chinese community and also participated in TON private placement. In January and March 2018, TON conducted two rounds of private placements and raised US $ 1.7 billion through 175 private equity parties. This level of private placement amount can be used in almost any circle of project private equity financing. At that time, EOS ’s one-year financing was not completed. The second-ranked financing amount was Tezos ’230 million US dollars, and TON ’s financing was second 7 times.
Until Pavel sent an open letter, Wu Tai and the Chinese community had been thinking of ways to start TON, but he did not expect Pavel to suddenly give up TON. “This has a big impact on me.”
Everyone is actually more concerned about the issue of refunds. It is understood that some private equity investors have received refunds, and the refund rate is 72%. We still do n’t know if all private equity investors have received a 72% refund. I cannot comment on the refund. “Sandro, a partner at Hash CIB, said that Hash CIB is one of 175 private equity parties.
Those who have read the open letter of Pavel should all be emotional. The heart-warming and sighing end makes everyone feel sorry for this project. “I wish everyone who strives for decentralization and equality to have good luck. This battle is likely to be us The most important and valuable battle of this generation, we have failed, I hope you will succeed. “When we see this ending, we are all showing the image of tough guys of Pavel Durov. Without saying a word, the Russian government refused to request the crypto chat application Telegram chat content, which was frequently troubled by the Russian government.
So, when the news of the failure of TON, which had high hopes, fermented, everyone was more sorry.
But after we chatted with them, we had another idea besides regret: Now Pavel is no longer the spiritual leader who was not afraid of power.
Actually, TON could be started
Six months ago, the relatively low-key TON was suddenly prosecuted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the grounds that it violated securities laws. Subsequently, the news that the TON team negotiated with the SEC began to be output frequently.
“TON asked the top lawyer in New York.” Wu Tai told Rhythm BlockBeats. In his view, the main reason for TON’s death was Howey’s Test.
The Howe test is used to judge whether a particular agreement constitutes a security, including 4 conditions:
1. It is money investment;
2. The expected benefits of the investment;
3. The investment is for a specific business;
4. The benefits arise from the efforts of the issuer or a third party.
In view of the above four conditions, the SEC determined that TON’s token GRAM is a security. It is not known how the TON and the SEC negotiated. We can only boldly speculate that the SEC’s clenched teeth will not approve TON’s currency issuance to US investors.
But TON has other options.
“He can choose to return only the investment funds from US investors, and even our community has planned a TON startup plan that can help them avoid supervision.” Wu Tai said.
According to Wu Tai’s plan, a chain will be launched spontaneously in the community. After startup, this chain will be given to TON. They hope to use this method to help the official. This matter has always been in progress, but with Pavel’s abandonment, this matter has not ended.
Among all the options, Pavel chose to sign, “There will be no reversal.” Wu Tai said.
And such abandonment, in Sandro’s view, is the team’s lack of attention to TON’s performance, “This is very obvious.”
“The purpose of TON may be to develop Telegram.” In other words, the TON project may be more like a tool for Telegram financing. Sandro ’s logical support is that with the support of TON, the number of Telegram users increased by 60% last year. , Reaching 400 million users worldwide.
However, with the development of the situation, the cost of using the tool TON is increasing, which has far exceeded Pavel’s expectations, so he chose to give up TON. When evaluating the relationship between TON and Telegram, Sandro used the word smart, “They are very smart in financing Telegram like this, there is no loss of equity, and they have so much money.”
Combined with their memories, we guessed that Pavel’s idea might be this: After the SEC sued, Pavel asked the best lawyer to reconcile, but he found that the main cost of this matter was not money, but other things. As a tool for financing and developing Telegram, the overpriced TON was abandoned. This time he did not choose a positive rigid regulatory agency, did not choose other alternatives, perhaps to keep Telegram, or for other reasons, he gave up this time. He used to work hard when Telegram was banned from Russia by IP. He was never given up by the government for trouble, but this time he gave up.
Of course, this is only judged from some information, not necessarily Pavel’s true idea, but from a certain perspective, we can say that TON is dead, and the former Pavel may also be “dead.”
“The reason why TON was created was the reason it was terminated today, ironically.” This is Wu Tai’s final summary of TON who has focused on himself for two years.
Thinking about supervision
The top-level project of 1.7 billion US dollars caused abortion due to supervision, which is actually meaningful for other projects.
I think the biggest concern that TON brings is whether supervision is a necessary option for future blockchain projects.
Compliance projects are not without. Blockstack complies with SEC regulations and is compliant; Algorand, Filecoin and other top-level projects issued on Coinlist are also compliant. But most projects have not been approved by the SEC.
But TON tells us that once denied by the regulator, not only will the project be cold, but even the investment money cannot be fully refunded. Compliance is a trend, but if the project does not comply, it will cause investors to lose. Will compliance be a necessary option for future projects?
According to Mable Jiang, executive director of Multicoin Capital, this is related to the volume of project financing.
She believes that the cost of compliance is actually quite high if it is not a huge amount of money. Correspondingly, SEC also has management costs, and if the volume is too small, it cannot be managed. If the project itself has a good cash flow, there is no need to find a compliant investor for financing. It may not be compliant from the beginning. It may wait until the volume is done, and then consider the demands in this regard.
In any case, the TON incident is a sign of blockchain projects, marking that centralized regulators will formally affect decentralized blockchain projects. This trend is irreversible, and new top-level US projects with huge amounts of financing must Compliance element, otherwise it is the next TON.
Of course, in case there will be the next Pavel?
Wu Tai’s TON Chinese community announcement has been changed several times, and finally condensed into 6 points, stating the facts and expressing attitudes. This announcement is placed at the end. I regret TON, the project that once made us look forward to. I regret that Pavel Durov is no longer who I used to be, and also regrets the efforts of all those who have been able to go online for the TON project.