Long-time Bitcoin proponent and CEO at BullBitcoin.com Francis Pouliot is concerned about the lack of progress made by the company behind the instant messaging application Telegram towards its crypto ambitions. The company sold tokens to investors last year, raising $1.7 billion in the process.Telegram had promoted the project, called the Telegram Open Network (TON) as an extension of its messaging application. It would supposedly incorporate blockchain-based file storage, web browsing, a decentralised application store, and payments between users.Where Has Telegram’s $1.7 Billion Gone?The private initial coin offering (ICO) hosted by Telegram was the largest ever to date. The company raised more than $1.7 billion from private investors alone.There were plans to sell the not-yet-created GRAM tokens to the public following the round of private sales to high net worth investors. However, the firm cancelled these after the initial sales were so successful.Since then, there has been little from the Telegram camp about its crypto ambitions. In lieu of any development update, long-time Bitcoin proponent Francis Pouliot did a little digging. He posted his musings on the subject to Twitter earlier today:Where are the 1.7 billion dollars of the Telegram ICO?Afaik all they have to show for their 1,700,000,000$ of financing is this and as far as I can tell nobody seems to give a shit?Greedy anti-Bitcoin Maximalist “blockchain/token/altcoins” professionals are the root problem pic.twitter.com/SQIZYVCDob— Francis Pouliot ☣️ (@francispouliot_) August 19, 2019Pouliet could only find a short list of files related to Telegram’s shift towards crypto. These include a lite client for the TON Test Network and a related configuration file, a “read me” of “general information, compilation and installation instructions, a “how to” featuring instructions on creating smart contracts, and four .pdf files.Pouliet argues that the evidence suggests a lack of progress on the TON project, something he finds unacceptable given the vast resources available to the company.He goes as far as to state:“Is the real use-case of blockchain technology the elaboration of mechanisms to launder money via shady public financing schemes?”The post appeared first on NewsBTC
