The court extended the ban on the sale of Telegram tokens

In mid-December, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) managed to get the court to suspend the sale of Gram tokens from the Telegram messenger until the circumstances of “transparency of their sale” were clarified. A new court ruling in New York extends this “freeze” indefinitely, although the ban is still called temporary.

The decision was made by the Federal Court of Southern District of New York. The judge noted that specific dates would be announced later. At the same time, Telegram’s lawyer noted that until April 30, the company must fulfill its obligations to persons who previously purchased tokens, but be that as it may, with a temporary ban, she agrees.

SEC spokesman Jorge Tereiro stressed that Gram should be equated with securities, which means that the company must adhere to the laws that apply to this type of asset. In turn, in the Telegram Group Inc. They say that they are distributing cryptocurrency, since the blockchain platform was not provided for management, which means that milder legislation applies to it.

In 2018, Telegram sold 2.9 billion digital tokens, distributed among 171 customers around the world in the amount of $ 1.7 billion. $ 425.5 million of this amount goes to the US market, and therefore the SEC doubted that Telegram had the necessary permission to conduct these operations. It is expected that both sides will agree on a simplified procedure, which will significantly reduce the time for the proceedings.