Telegram’s $500M Debt Goes Crypto: Bankers in Blockchain Brollies!

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  • Libre to tokenize $500M Telegram debt on TON blockchain (and not a monocle out of place).
  • TON and Libre conspire to unite posh finance with blockchain wizardry. Pass the butler!

Libre, the sort of firm that likes to turn hefty assets into pixels and snazzy tokens, has lock-stepped with the ever-enthusiastic TON Foundation—keepers of The Open Network blockchain and, one suspects, the world’s largest collection of pocket squares. The dynamic duo has cooked up a plot to bundle up $500 million of Telegram’s IOUs and launch the Telegram Bond Fund ($TBF) on the TON blockchain. Picture it: Wall Street titans in top hats and DeFi nerds in hoodies, all dipping their biscuits into the same digital teacup. 🍵

Tokens, Bonds, and Yields—It’s Nearly a Musical

The scheme is frightfully clever (and far too modern for one’s liking): professional investors can buy tasty slices of Telegram’s $2.4 billion bonding bash. Libre serves up these digital bond tokens, dishing out bond yields and lending capabilities—because nothing says fun like juggling collateral on a blockchain. Expect to see tokens moonlighting as security for other financial shenanigans, all on TON. Rather like pawning your umbrella for a round at the Drones Club, only flashier.

Avtar Sehra of Libre (a chap of serious brow and even more serious PowerPoints) explained that the fund operates like your great-uncle’s fixed-income fund—if your great-uncle was a blockchain zeppelin enthusiast. The fund isn’t just buying bonds; it’s elegantly wrapping them as tokens. Investors in the Reggae Fund (presumably with suitably wild hairstyles) get TON tokens reflecting their share, making these previously stuffy bonds as nimble as a cat in a patch of catnip.

Libre plans to toss future Telegram bonds into this digital punchbowl, with a $500 million ladle serving up the first round. The initiative promises enough institutional drama to impress even the most jaded City bidder and stands as one of the grandest escapades in transferring stodgy money into the blockchain’s balmy embrace.

And for those fond of technological trimmings, Libre is rolling out Libre Gateway—TON’s own portal for the wallet-clutching, investment-mad gentry. Investors can subscribe using staid old fiat or those jazzier stablecoins, and TON wallet solutions make managing this lot as painless as inheriting a fortune from a distant aunt (without the troublesome dogs).

More Partners Than Bertie Wooster Has Aunts

Max Crown, TON Foundation’s head honcho, gushed over the launch with all the restrained enthusiasm of a butler discovering a hidden gin cupboard. Libre’s system (plus the illustrious Telegram Bond Fund) marks a grand step for regulated assets in the blockchain’s madcap universe. Real-world assets (RWAs, for those allergic to syllables) will finally have a swanky digital home—and a handshake that won’t stain the upholstery.

Libre has already hobnobbed with the likes of BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Nomura’s Laser Digital—clearly a social climber in the financial soirée. Currently, they lord over more than $200 million in tokenized assets and are now tossing a juicy $TBF into the TON user’s picnic basket. 🧺

Dr. Jez Mohideen, Libre chairman and Laser Digital’s CEO (surely in line for a knighthood for multitasking), points out that the mighty TON blockchain can lure old-school finance into DeFi territory, blending institutional poise with blockchain derring-do. A kind of cocktail party where bankers and crypto-enthusiasts exchange canapés and cryptographic keys in equal measure.

In a nutshell, Libre and TON have rigged up a contraption for managing regulated financial assets on the blockchain. Telegram’s mighty bonds meet their crypto match, offering investors a snazzy route to digital returns—and giving stuffy old financial institutions the first taste of the wild, wild chain.

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2025-05-02 01:03