Telegram’s TON Challenges Real-World Assets With $500M Libre Tokenized Bond Fund
Author: Ian Ellison | Edited by Sheldon Reback Updated April 30, 2025, 2:44 PM Published April 30, 2025, 6:00 AM
Libre, a tokenization company that has partnered with the likes of hedge fund Brevan Howard, investment manager Hamilton Lane, and digital asset arm Nomura Laser Digital, is set to tokenize $500 million of Telegram debt through the Telegram Bond Fund (TBF) on the messaging app’s TON platform.
Libre says TBF will provide accredited investors with access to some of Telegram’s approximately $2.35 billion in bonds, offering institutional-grade yield products that can also be used as collateral for lending and TON-based product development.
“What we’ve created is like a fixed-income fund that buys bonds, and then we tokenize the fund,” Libre CEO Avtar Sehra said in an interview. “When you buy shares in the fund, they’re on the TON chain, which gives you access to the yield on the bonds themselves. This opens up opportunities to use the bonds as collateral, facilitate transfers, and so on, to ultimately create utility with these financial instruments.”
Over the last year or two, we have seen significant interest in creating representations of real assets (RWAs) on blockchain, which has quickly moved the traditional financial sector into the world of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Sehra noted that many of his clients are looking for either tokenized money market products for quick access to cash or something that is related to the ecosystem they participate in or operate in.
The TON network was originally developed by Telegram before continuing to operate as an independent project. Over the past year or so, TON has focused on bringing a significant portion of Telegram’s more than 950 million users onto its network.
Libre has tokenized over $200 million in assets across funds from leading institutions including BlackRock, Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane and Laser Digital.
“Our goal is not just tokenize assets for the sake of tokenization,” Sehra emphasized. “I believe the true value of tokenizing traditional financial instruments is unlocking the utility of these assets.”
UPDATE (April 30, 06:32 UTC): Telegram’s outstanding bond amount adjusted to $2.35 billion
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