- In May, the longtime crypto VC said it had invested in TON in its largest investment ever.
- Pantera has bet on TON again, according to filings with the US Securities Exchange Commission.
- Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov is still detained in France.
Crypto investors just can’t get enough of TON, the blockchain closely associated with the messaging app Telegram.
Pantera Capital, one of the largest hedge funds and venture capital firms in crypto, has raised $20 million to invest in TON’s cryptocurrency Toncoin, according to documents filed Monday with the US Securities Exchange Commission.
The VC outfit solicited cash from at least 29 investors across two separate funds, according to the filings. Both funds’ first official sales were in July. Both had been signed on November 27.
Pantera Capital was reportedly reaching out to investors in June, according to The Block. The minimum to participate was $250,000.
The VC’s two new funds for Toncoin piggyback off of a prior bet on the Telegram-linked cryptocurrency announced in May. The firm described its investment as the “largest” in its 21-year history but did not disclose its size.
Pantera Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DL News.
Durov’s detention
The VC’s bullishness for TON echoes other crypto investors’ excitement — even after French authorities arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in August.
Durov is currently out on bail in France.
He faces six preliminary charges for allegedly refusing to cooperate with law enforcement authorities on the distribution of child sexual abuse material, the sale of narcotics, and other criminal activities on Telegram.
After Durov’s detention, Toncoin dipped in price.
TON rebounds
Still, TON backers didn’t lose faith. “The fundamental case for TON remains compelling,” Alex Felix, managing partner at CoinFund, told DL News in August.
And, at a November conference for the blockchain in Dubai, attendees said that the TON ecosystem had moved on from the Durov drama.
“It certainly was a bit bad for a couple of weeks,” Jack Booth, co-founder of TON Society, the entity that organised the conference, told DL News. “But the news cycle moves on.”
Now, on the back of the broader surge in the crypto market after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, Toncoin has regained almost all of its losses since Durov’s arrest.
It briefly rose to $6.84 on Monday, a 2% gain over the token’s price the day before Durov was arrested, according to CoinGecko. It is now trading around $6.60.
The almost $17 billion cryptocurrency is still trading almost 20% below its July peak.
Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com.