The Wait for Grams: Why Telegram Might Just Cancel Its Public ICO

While half of the ambitious $1.2 billion the messaging giant hoped to raise was supposed to come from an ICO open to public investors, recent SEC filings confirm Telegram has already raised $1.7 billion from two private sales.

"The goal of fundraising is to gain access to capital to allow a team to build a product and company. It appears Telegram has already achieved their goal so there would be no reason to conduct a public sale."

Plus, there's already a secondary market for grams whereby small investors are buying the crypto tokens from whales that got into the private sales, according to Alexander Borodich, an alum of the Mail.ru Group, one of Russia's largest tech companies, and an angel investor passed on the opportunity to invest in Telegram's ICO. As such, he said it's unclear whether a legit public sale will happen.

According to Sid Kalla of the Turing Advisory Group, building the product before selling to the public would be that smart thing for Telegram to do.

Which is another reason Telegram may discard it's public sale for some time - so it doesn't have to deal with thousands of people's unsolicited opinions.

When a company decides to do a public sale, it introduces complexity into its public relations.

Kalla agreed, telling CoinDesk, "Since Telegram is trying to solve several hard technological problems there may be inevitable delays and setbacks. The private investors are likely more used to such things than the public at large."

"I see no motivation for Telegram to call off their public sale," Joe DiPasquale, CEO of the crypto fund-of-funds BitBull Capital, wrote CoinDesk via a spokesperson.

Even if Telegram needs more money to build, it doesn't seem like it's having trouble soliciting from experienced investors through private sales.

Borodich for one predicts that Telegram will raise more money - to boost the total to $2.5 billion - through another private sale before the end of the year.