In early September, investors of Telegram’s ICO received an update on the development of the Telegram Open Network (TON), a platform that seeks to offer a wide range of decentralized services, including micropayments and internet storage. According to a leaked document on LinkedIn, which its authenticity was confirmed by two investors, after roughly six months of its token sale, the project is 70 percent complete.
The update shows that TON development status is divided into different parts. Some components, such as TON Virtual Machine (TVM), are near completion or more than 90 percent ready and fully tested. In addition, only a few changes are still required to complete the process of combining the “virtual machine” with the system of creating new blocks on the blockchain.
On the flip side, other aspects of the TON Network such as validator software, block manipulation library and smart contract tests were lagging with low readiness scores. Specifically, mechanisms for creating new blocks and their confirmation is only 10 percent ready, and the development of smart contracts tools is completed by only 50 percent.
The popular messaging app raised earlier this year a record-setting $1.7 billion from a group of less than 200 private investors.
Telegram sold its Gram virtual coins in two private funding rounds with proceeds going to create a decentralized network for the app. The second round of fundraising has collected $850 million from 94 accredited investors, who were required to pump a minimum of $1 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
That has doubled the investment funds raised by the first presale offering, which has closed a similar $850 million financing round from 81 investors, the BVI-based firm disclosed in February.
The fundraising was not planned to stop there as the five-year-old company, which claims over 170 million users, was reportedly pursuing one or more subsequent rounds beyond these first two sales. According to previous estimates, the encrypted messaging service anticipates receiving $2.55 billion in three rounds of funding.
