Are you sure? Usually these ICO numbers are calculated based on the market cap of all the coins, much of which would not be owned by Telegram, and would've been sold off at a lower price than the current price.
Also, this market cap is not based on any kind of value investing principles or anything, just the current spot price of these coins. If too many people tried to cash out at the same time, the spot prices would drop like a rock.
But was this 850 M from crypto people diversifying their portfolio (for example BTC for TON?) The filing says USD but does that mean the transactions were carried out in USD or worth 850 M at the time according to the coin value of the exchanged currencies?
I think that’s what we’re trying to zero in on. One is serious IPO money, the other is a clever financing solution that may be entirely inflated by speculation not to mention subject to extraordinary volatilty.
I'm not sure if you're talking about the market after the presale or not.
All the tokens have so far been created and sold directly by Telegram. They have sold $1.7b worth of tokens to investors. It doesn't matter what those investors now sell the tokens at, and even if price drops to 0 Telegram still got the money from the investors.
Also, this market cap is not based on any kind of value investing principles or anything, just the current spot price of these coins. If too many people tried to cash out at the same time, the spot prices would drop like a rock.