[super256]

> They could just literally charge the $16 or roughly whatever it is upfront. It means nothing for them to be in a blockchain except waste of resources (ironically increasing their costs...)

I don't think so. When you own a lot of crypto, and have lots of real dollars (Pavel has lots of real dollars!), you can manipulate price a little bit.

In 2019/2020 Telegram had to give investors all their money back, and the new TON project started without venture capital with a value of 0$. It's now 1.84$.

If their market makers are sophisticated enough, they will create enough liquidity grabs to sell telegram's TON bags over time for a nice sum.

I think they are aiming for creating a market + "eco system" similar to ETH.