Japan-based Liquid Exchange has canceled the sale of Telegram’s Gram tokens and returned funds to customers as the messaging app company remains embroiled in an SEC lawsuit.

The exchange has said that it is acting in compliance with the investor agreement, which states that Telegram’s Open Network (TON) should have been launched by October 31, 2019; otherwise it must initiate the process of returning funds to investors. As a result of the longstanding lawsuit brought against the messaging app by the SEC, an injunction has been brought out to prevent the launch of TON indefinitely.

In a blog post posted earlier today, Liquid said, “The Gram Token Sale on Liquid has been canceled, and all funds that were held in escrow by Liquid have now been returned to Liquid users who participated in the Gram Token Sale. Every Liquid user that submitted a purchase order for Gram tokens via Liquid will receive an email in the coming days with further details.”

Despite being one of the largest early investors, Liquid’s Gram sale is totally unaffiliated to Telegram due to the terms of sale in the original ICO, which state that the reselling of Gram tokens within the first 18 months from the launch of TON is prohibited and could lead to the cancelation of the tokens. Despite this, a secondary market for Gram tokens quickly sprung up, with some investors seeing gains in excess of 400%.

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Telegram has been fighting a lawsuit with the SEC after the commission alleged that Gram tokens are, in fact, a security, and therefore the US$1.7 billion raised by way of an ICO in early 2018 should have been registered with the commission. Telegram has unequivocally denied all allegations leveled at it; however, it was hit with new evidence this week, which appeared to show that at least two entities invoiced Telegram for a commission from selling Gram tokens in June and July of 2018, several months after its ICO ended.

Telegram is set to return to court with the SEC on February 18 and 19, when more clarity should be provided on the future of TON and Gram tokens.

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The Libra Association, the non-profit organization overseeing Libra, has established a five-member Technical Steering Committee (TSC) to oversee and coordinate the technical design and development of the Libra network.

The responsibilities of the TSC are to direct the technical roadmap of the Libra network, form working groups to fast track research into specific issues, guide codebase development, and build a healthy and engaged community of developers. The association has said that the establishment of the oversight committee is an important step forward in realizing its vision of a self-governing and independent network.

A statement from The Libra Association yesterday said, “As a project rooted in technological innovation, technical stewardship is a significant component of self-governance for the Libra project. In Q1 2020, the TSC will publish its technical governance framework and associated documents. This will include the process by which the open source community can propose technical changes to the network and a transparent process for evaluating those proposals.”

The five members making up the TSC include Joe Lallouz, CEO and founder of industry-leading blockchain infrastructure Bison Trails; Nick Grossman, a partner at venture capital firm Union Square Ventures; and Diogo Monica, co-founder and President of digital asset custodian Anchorage. They will be joined by the Libra core product lead at Calibra, George Cabrera, who oversaw the technical integration of both Instagram and WhatsApp into Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). Ric Shreeves is the final member, who currently serves as Director of Emerging Technology at Mercy Corps.

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Libra was first announced last June as an effort to bank the unbanked and provide low-fee money transfers across the globe. However, the project was met with heavy resistance from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, most of whom opposed Facebook’s leading of the project, given the social media giant’s poor record of data breaches and mishandling of user information. Many also viewed Libra as a potential threat to the economic sovereignty of nations. That resistance has led to Libra’s launch date being delayed indefinitely.

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