<story><title>Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/telegram-open-network/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Maro</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s the value of the in-app currency being a cryptocurrency (putting aside hype&amp;#x2F;pr), vs calling it a virtual currency, a Mysql database with a API on top?&lt;p&gt;Dropping to a technical level, if the miners are all run by Telegram, then I think it&amp;#x27;s just a pointless overhead over Mysql. On the other hand, if anybody can run miners, I don&amp;#x27;t comprehend what value that adds, what it means.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>goodside</author><text>It makes it possible for the asset to be traded on third-party markets without the knowledge, consent, or control of the organization that issued the tokens.&lt;p&gt;It also helps you trust that movement of the asset will not be hindered by the issuer&amp;#x27;s inability to keep servers running in the face of potential DDoS attacks.</text></comment>
<story><title>Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/telegram-open-network/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Maro</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s the value of the in-app currency being a cryptocurrency (putting aside hype&amp;#x2F;pr), vs calling it a virtual currency, a Mysql database with a API on top?&lt;p&gt;Dropping to a technical level, if the miners are all run by Telegram, then I think it&amp;#x27;s just a pointless overhead over Mysql. On the other hand, if anybody can run miners, I don&amp;#x27;t comprehend what value that adds, what it means.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>s_dev</author><text>&amp;gt;What&amp;#x27;s the value of the in-app currency being a cryptocurrency&lt;p&gt;In a word  -- decentralization -- is the key difference between a virtual currency described by some SQL tables and an API and one described by a blockchain.&lt;p&gt;A gov if it wants can take down a server if it is physically hosted in that country. A blockchain unless you&amp;#x27;ve gargantuan CPU power is nigh on impossible to take down.</text></comment>