After raising $1.7 Billion from private investors, Pavel and Nikolai Durov have called off their much anticipated ICO.

Their initial goal was to raise $1.2 Billion, so it seems they now have enough money to develop their Telegram Open Network without the need for regulatory headaches involved in an ICO.

Critics have stated that this project has become a mess but looking at the numbers it seems to me like a smashing success. They've already raised more money than the next 9 most successful ICOs to date.

Telegram has been in hot water lately after refusing to capitulate to government agencies and has been banned in some parts of the globe. With the massive amount of money they've raised, the Durov brothers should now have enough capital to build a decentralized solution.

The initial ~200 investors in the pre-sale however, might be a bit out of luck but in my experiance there's no such thing as luck. No ICO means a poor distribution of tokens, which isn't very good for any economic ecosystem. 

Today's Highlights

Traditional Markets

The US markets managed a miraculous recovery yesterday. After a shaky start, the market quickly reached it's lowest point since early April. Yet by mid-day in New York investors had rushed in to buy the lows and though the Nasdaq and SPX500 registered slight losses the Dow Jones actually closed in green, just by 5 points.

This is an incredible sign of resilience from a market that has recently been plagued by concerns of a trade war, data regulation, tightening monetary policy, abnormally high valuations, and more. An even further very positive sign is the Bullish Hammer candle that was formed on yesterday's daily chart of the Dow Jones.

Volatility has seemingly stabilized over the last two weeks, albeit at slightly elevated levels.