Can Telegram Debt Become a Blockchain Asset with Libre’s New Fund?

Libre, a regulated infrastructure provider known for its institutional-grade tokenization solutions, has announced plans to tokenize $500 million worth of Telegram debt, per CoinDesk. This will be done through the Telegram Bond Fund (TBF), a blockchain-based investment vehicle hosted on the TON network—a project initially developed by Telegram itself.

The offering is aimed squarely at accredited investors, who will gain access to roughly $2.35 billion in outstanding Telegram bonds. The fund will provide a yield-generating product that can also serve as on-chain collateral.

Turning Telegram Bonds into Blockchain Tokens

At its core, the Telegram Bond Fund is structured like a fixed income fund. Libre, which has worked with institutional giants such as Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane, and Laser Digital (Nomura’s digital asset division), will acquire Telegram’s bonds and tokenize the fund’s units on the TON blockchain.

“When you purchase units in the fund these are on the TON chain, giving you access to the returns of the underlying bonds themselves,” Libre CEO Avtar Sehra, told CoinDesk. “This opens up opportunities to use the bonds for collateral, ease of transfers, etc, to ultimately create utility with these financial instruments.”

In financial markets, traditional assets such as bonds and US Treasury bonds are increasingly being converted into digital tokens. The result is more liquid, accessible, and programmable financial products—opening the door for integration with DeFi protocols, on-chain lending, and yield generation mechanisms.

Why TON and Why Now?

The TON blockchain (The Open Network) has seen growing traction, especially after being refocused as a standalone blockchain separate from Telegram’s internal development. Over the past year, TON has prioritized bridging Telegram’s 950 million users with decentralized applications, offering both scale and familiarity.

With Libre choosing TON as the backbone for this fund, the network is expected to offer institutional-grade products to a massive global user base. It's a rare combination of regulated finance and mass-market access.

Libre has already tokenized over $200 million in assets, working with some of the most well-known names in finance—BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane, to name a few.

Unlike many speculative crypto projects, Libre focuses on regulated institutional finance. Its latest initiative with TBF is a continuation of Libre’s broader strategy—bringing traditional financial instruments like corporate debt into blockchain-native environments without sacrificing regulatory compliance or investor protection.

A Hot Year for Real World Asset Tokenization

Libre’s move arrives in the middle of a red-hot year for RWAs. According to DeFiLlama, the total value locked in RWA protocols has doubled in the past year, now exceeding $11.13 billion. This includes everything from tokenized government bonds to real estate and data centers.

Recent milestones include:

• BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund: Now the largest tokenized U.S. Treasury product with over $2.5 billion in market cap, spread across Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and other chains.
• Circle’s acquisition of Hashnote: Circle bought the manager of the $1.25 billion USYC fund, signaling a growing interest in merging stablecoins with traditional finance.
• Dubai-based DAMAC: Signed a $1 billion deal with Mantra, a Layer-1 blockchain focused on RWAs, to tokenize real estate and infrastructure in the Middle East.

The tokenized U.S. Treasury market alone is now worth around $6.16 billion, based on data from RWA.xyz. Libre’s Telegram Bond Fund adds another critical layer—demonstrating that corporate debt, not just government bonds, can find a home on-chain.