The founder Pavel Durov will look for 500 million with his own crypt, a week after Mr. Facebook says to study the mechanisms 
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It could be the biggest Ico ever. And to launch it would not be a very young startup but a messaging app for 180 million users: Telegram . The project was unveiled by TechCrunch and could be implemented by March: Telegram aims to raise $ 500 million by selling its own cryptocurrency (which will be called Gram) in exchange for euros and dollars.

An ecosystem of blockchain
New resources should be used to create new services, which could radically transform the app. Or, better, they would create an ecosystem on blockchain. The founder, Pavel Durov, not only wants his own currency but also his own decentralized network (called Telegram Open Network, Ton), on which he can travel messages, files but also coins and "smart contracts".

Telegram would thus turn into a multi-service platform , based on the WeChat model , but which uses the blockchain to transfer money (especially in small amounts) instantly and with minimal transaction costs. Ton could also be used by third parties (ie from other sites and platforms). Given the flames of cryptocurrencies , Telegram's team is thinking of a system to limit speculative pressures: Durov and his collaborators should retain ownership of 52% of Grams (cryptocurrencies issued, to be exchanged with other users or used to Telegram services).

The project will proceed step by step, with the blockchain of Telegram operating from the first quarter of 2019. The operation has, from its own, the sympathy of the blockchain community. But the project could be conditioned by regulatory interventions on ICOs. 

How Telegram works and who is its creator
Durov, 33 years of Leningrad, is known by many as the Zuckerberg of Russia. A Facebook is at least inspired by VKontakte, a social network created in 2006 that has earned him many problems at home, but also a lot 'of money for its sale to magnates close to Putini.

After the sale of his company he created Telegram, again inspired by a Zuck product. Messanger, but with a different encryption system and much safer from the point of view of privacy.

Now he does something very similar to what Zuckerberg announced a few days ago in his post of good intentions at the beginning of the year. The Facebook number one has promised to study cryptocurrencies to restore centrality to its community . But also to launch an internal payment system that would allow us to do what we already do in WeChat: a bitcoin-type currency, which only applies to Facebook.

And once again Durov follows him, in a more original way, perhaps, but always on the same line of evolution. Social, messaging, now blockchain. To seek financing from the network. And billing a bit of a product that so far has been just a 'gift' to people's privacy, as he himself said at the 2015 Web Summit.