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Telegram to Raise $1.5B Through Bond Sale Backed by BlackRock and Citadel: WSJ
The funds will be used to repurchase debt and are convertible into equity if Telegram goes public.
Updated May 28, 2025, 5:34 p.m. Published May 28, 2025, 12:00 p.m.
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What to know:
- Telegram is raising at least $1.5 billion through a new bond offering, with investors including BlackRock, Mubadala, and Citadel.
- The proceeds will be used to repurchase debt from Telegram’s earlier bond issuance in 2021.
- The firm reported a $540 million profit on $1.4 billion in revenue in 2024.
Messaging platform Telegram is raising at least $1.5 billion through a new bond offering.
The firm is raising the funds through a five-year bond with a 9% yield, which has drawn interest from both returning investors such as the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, as well as new entrants including hedge fund Citadel, the Wall Street Journal reports citing sources with the deal.
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The proceeds will be used to repurchase debt from Telegram’s earlier bond issuance in 2021, due next March. The new bonds are convertible into equity at a discount if Telegram goes public.
Telegram originally developed layer 1 network TON, before making it an independent operation. In April, tokenization firm Libre said it plans to tokenize $500 million worth of Telegram debt on TON as Telegram Bond Fund (TBF).
Read more: Telegram’s TON Takes On Real World Assets With Libre’s $500M Tokenized Bond Fund
Telegram reportedly has over 1 billion monthly active users and 15 million paid subscribers, having doubled the figure in one year according to Durov.
Financially, the firm turned a corner in 2024, reporting a $540 million profit on $1.4 billion in revenue, up from a $173 million loss in 2023, the WSJ wrote. It projects a profit of more than $700 million for 2025.
Telegram has grown its revenue by expanding its ad business and introducing features like in-app digital gifts and a platform for developers to build apps and bots.
Telegram and Citadel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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‘Bitcoin to zero’ searches spike in the U.S., but the bottom signal is mixed
Google Trends data shows the term hit a record high in the U.S. this month, though global interest has fallen since peaking in August.
Ano ang dapat malaman:
- U.S. searches for “bitcoin zero” on Google hit a record high in February as BTC slid toward $60,000 after hitting a peak in October.
- In the rest of the world, searches for the term peaked in August, suggesting fear is concentrated in the U.S. rather than worldwide.
- Similar U.S. search spikes in 2021 and 2022 coincided with local bottoms.
- Because Google Trends measures relative interest on a 0-to-100 scale amid a much larger bitcoin user base today, the latest U.S. spike signals elevated retail anxiety, but does not reliably guarantee a clean contrarian reversal.
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