From Financial Times:
Telegram, a messaging app, is to join the blockchain bandwagon by launching its own cryptocurrency later this year following an “initial coin offering” that could raise as much as $500m.
The WhatsApp rival, which says it expects to surpass 200m global users this year, wants to raise money to help create a platform using blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies, that would allow users to make payments through its app, according to plans seen by the Financial Times.
The project, dubbed the Telegram Open Network and first reported by TechCrunch, would be the first western messaging service to follow in the wake of China’s wildly successful WeChat Pay, which integrates payment into the texting app. Unlike WeChat Pay, Telegram’s project will not be hosted on centralised servers, or linked to a government-controlled currency such as the renminbi.
Several well-known companies, including many with no obvious link to the sector, have expressed interest in raising money through an ICO after skyrocketing interest in cryptocurrencies and the huge price jump in bitcoin trading.
