Party Time for Telegram?
August 14, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby and a steam-powered computer in rural Kentucky.
Let’s assume that the information is “The SEC Quietly Surrendered in Its Biggest Crypto Battle.” Now look at this decision from the point of view of Pavel Durov. The Messenger service has about 1.35 billion users. Allegedly there are 50 million or so in the US. Mr. Durov was one of the early losers in the crypto wars in the United States. He has hired a couple of people to assist him in his effort to do the crypto version of “Coming to America.” Will Manny Stoltz and Max Crown are probably going to make their presence felt.
The cited article states:
This is a huge deal. It creates a crucial distinction that other crypto projects can now use in their own legal battles, potentially shielding them from the SEC’s claim of blanket authority over the market. By choosing to settle rather than risk having this ruling upheld by a higher court, the SEC has shown the limits of its “regulation by enforcement” playbook: its strategy of creating rules through individual lawsuits instead of issuing clear guidelines for the industry.
What will Telegram’s clever Mr. Durov do with its 13 year old platform, hundreds of features, crypto plumbing, and hundreds of developers eager to generate “money”? It is possible it won’t be Pavel making trips to America. He may be under the watchful eye of the French judiciary.
But Manny, Max, and the developers?
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2025
Telegram: Is Now in the USA and Armed with Crypto Services
July 28, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
Telegram in the US is so yesterday. The company is 13 years old. The founder is awaiting trial in France for some charges related to a dozen or more French laws and regulations. The TONcoin has been in the lower tier of the crypto currencies for more than a year. The firm released yet another programming language in the hopes of luring more developers to its platform.
But two allegedly accurate facts about this firm founded by Pavel Durov, the fellow who created the “Russian version of Facebook.” I spotted these in an online publication called TechCrunch. “Telegram’s Crypto Wallet Launches in the US” reports:
Telegram is expanding access to its crypto wallet for its 87 million users in the U.S.
The article includes an assertion that 100 million Telegram Messenger users have activated their crypto wallets. Furthermore, these 100 million people execute 334,000 transactions on the Nikolai Durov-Level1 blockchain every 24 hours. That works out to about 13,900 per hour or 231 per second. No benchmark data from other blockchain services are included in the write up.
My team and I estimated that the Telegram Messenger eGame “Hamster Kombat” attracted about 300 million Telegram users. The “points” in that game were HAMSTR crypto tokens. STAR tokens, a Telegram invented device, were also involved. In order to “cash in” these points for other crypto, the Messenger wallets may have been required for some of these “moves.”
The numbers, like most Telegram user data, are soft and difficult to verify.
Several observations:
- The TON Foundation indicated at the Gateway Conference in 2024 that there were about five million users of Telegram in the US in 2023. The jump to 87 million users is notable and either [a] an indication that Telegram Messenger is a bigger player in the US than believed or [b] Telegram and the TON Foundation are exaggerating their data
- If Telegram does have more than one billion users, the active use of the Telegram crypto wallet is a rather dismal 10 percent of the user base. With Telegram working to build out its crypto services, the “success” of the firm is either [a] disappointing or [b] another bogus number.
- The eGame Hamster Kombat drew three times the number of Telegram users than the Messenger crypto wallet. This means that either [a] the crypto “play” mounted by Telegram after the US SEC investigation in 2020 and 2021 is moving at a snail’s pace or [b] the reported figures are incorrect.
Net net: Verifiable data about Telegram, its proxies, and its business activities are fuzzy. One fact is verifiable: Pavel Durov, the “owner” of Telegram Company, is awaiting trial in France for a number of serious charges.
Stephen E Arnold, July 29, 2025
xAI and Telegram: What Will the Durovs Do? The Clock Is Ticking
May 28, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
One of my colleagues called my attention to the Coindesk online service’s article “Telegram Signs $300M Deal with Elon Musk’s xAI to Integrate Grok into Its Messaging App, TON up 16%.” The subtitle is interesting:
Telegram Will Also Received 50% of Revenue from xAI Subscriptions Sold via the App
If one views Telegram as a simple messaging app, Telegram itself has not done much to infuse its “mini app” with AI functions. However, Telegram bot developers have. Dozens of bots include AI features. The most popular smart software among bot developers is, based on my team’s research, a toss up between open source AI and ChatGPT. If our information are correct, Elon Musk now has a conduit to the Telegram user base. Depending on what source you select, Telegram has 900 to one billion users. How many are humans with an actual mobile phone number? We don’t know, and I am not sure law enforcement knows until the investigators try to match a mobile number with a person, a company, or some mysterious off shore entity with offices in the Seychelles or a similarly flexible nation.
The write up says:
Telegram founder Pavel Durov, revealed on X, that the two companies agreed to a 1-year partnership that would see Telegram receive $300 million in cash and equity from xAI, in addition to 50% of revenues from xAI subscriptions sold via Telegram.
Let’s pull out the allegedly true factoids:
- The deal is a one-year partnership. In the world of the French judiciary, one-year can be a generous amount of time to de-rail the Telegram operation. Mr. Durov’s criticism of France with regards to the Romanian elections and increasing criticism of the French government may add risk to the xAI deal. With Pavel Durov in France between August 2024 and March 2025, Telegram’s pace of innovation stalled on STARs token fiddling, not AI.
- Mr. Musk’s willingness to sign up a sales channel for Grok may be related to the prevalence of Sam Altman’s AI system in third-party bots for customer support and performing a steadily increasing range of Telegram-centric functions. Because Telegram’s approach to messaging allows bots to move across boundaries between blockchains as well as traditional Web services, Telegram’s bot ecosystem should deliver, Mr. Musk hopes, an alternative AI to bot developers and provide a new source of users to the Grok smart software.
- The “equity” angle is interesting. Equity in what? xAI or some other property. Perhaps — just perhaps — Mr. Musk becomes a stakeholder in Telegram. Mr. Musk wants to convert X.com into an “everything” service, a dream shared with Sam Altman. Mr. Altman is not a particularly enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Musk. Mr. Musk is equally disenchanted with Mr. Altman. The love triangle will be interesting to observe as the days click toward the end of the one year tie up between Telegram and xAI.
Another angle on the deal was offered by the online information service Watcher.Guru. “Elon Musk’s xAI Joins Telegram in $300M Grok Partnership”, speculates":
This integration has addressed several critical pain points that crypto users face across multiple essential areas daily. Many people find blockchain technology overwhelming, and the complexity often prevents them from fully engaging with digital assets right now. By leveraging AI assistance directly within Telegram, users can get help with crypto-related questions, market analysis, and blockchain education without leaving their messaging app. The AI integration revolutionizes security by providing tools that identify crypto scams. This becomes valuable given how scams prevail on messaging platforms.
The cited paragraph makes clear that convergence is coming among smart software, social media services with hefty user counts, and crypto currency. However, the idea that smart software will prevent fraud causes me to chortle. Crypto is, in my opinion, a fraudulent enterprise. Mashing up the Telegram system with X.com binds a range of alleged criminal activities to a communications system that can be shaped to promote quite specific propaganda. Toss in crypto, and what do you get? Answer: More cyber crime.
Will this union create a happy, sunny user experience free from human trafficking, online gambling, and the sale of contraband? One can only hope, but this tie up has to prove that it delivers a positive, constructive user experience. When Sam Altman releases his everything app, will X.com be positioned to be a worthy competitor? Will Elon Musk purchase Telegram and compete with proven technology, a large user base, and a team of core engineers able to create a slam dunk product and service?
Good questions. Unlike Watcher.Guru’s observation that “AI integration revolutionizes security”, the disposition of the deal between Messers. Durov and Musk is unknown. (Oh, how can AI integration revolutionize security when the services are not yet integrated.) Oh, well, close enough for horse shoes.
Stephen E Arnold, May 28, 2025
Telegram Lecture at TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics on June 4, 2025
April 3, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby sharing an observation about younger managers and their innocence.
The organizers of the June 2025 TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference posted a 60 second overview of our Telegram Overview lecture on LinkedIn. You can view the conference’s 60 second video at https://lnkd.in/eTSvpYFb. Erik and I have been doing presentations on specific Telegram subjects for law enforcement groups. Two weeks ago, we provided to the Massachusetts Association of Crime Analysts a 60-minute run down about the technical architecture of Telegram and identified three US companies providing services to Telegram. To discuss a presentation for your unit, please, message me via LinkedIn. (Plus, my son and I are working to complete our 100 page PDF notes of our examination of Telegram’s more interesting features. These range from bots which automate cross blockchain crypto movement to the automatic throttling function in the Telegram TON Virtual Machine to prevent transaction bottlenecks in complex crypto wallet obfuscations.) See you there. — Thank you, Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2025, 223 pm U S Eastern
FOGINT: Dubai Makes a Crypto Move
March 26, 2025
Cryptocurrencies are on deck to replace fiat currencies. The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) recently recognized a cryptocurrencies says Gadgets 360: “USDC, EURC Stablecoins Secure ‘Token Recognition’ In Dubai.” The two new tokens recognized in Dubai are the stablecoins USDC and EURC from Circle.
The DFSA approved the use of these stablecoins within the Dubai International Financial Centre’s (DIFC) economic activities. EURC and USDC are the first crypto stablecoins to receive official recognition from the DFSA. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies backed by traditional assets such as gold and regular hard currencies.
The DFSA issued a crypto token framework in 2022 so businesses working with cryptocurrencies would have safe guidelines. Only DFSA-recognized cryptocurrencies are allowed to be used within the DIFC. This is to ensure companies are protected from scams.
This is an important move for stablecoins:
Dante Disparte, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy and Operations at Circle called the development a ‘milestone’ moment for the stablecoin sector. ‘This milestone aligns with our mission to make digital dollars and euros more accessible, interoperable, and useful for businesses, developers, and financial institutions worldwide,’ Dante said. ‘As the first stablecoins to receive this designation, USDC and EURC continue to set the global standard for transparency, compliance, and utility.’”
Circle is the second largest provider of stablecoins in the world after Tether. The company reported the USDC profit reached $18 trillion since launching in 2018. Dubai, Telegram, and crypto: Interesting ingredients.
Whitney Grace, March 18, 2025
FOGINT: Pavel Durov Offers a Fix for Lagging US Innovation
February 10, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby emission. No smart software required.
Pavel Durov, familiar to the US Securities & Exchange Commission and the French judiciary, has offered some advice to Americans. Mr. Durov founded Telegram, and he shared some ideas via is Du Rove Channel on Telegram. You can find the message at https://t.me/durov/394. (You do not need to have the Telegram mini app installed to read his post.) Mr. Durov’s message addresses the success of DeepSeek, and the lack of innovation in the United States. He believes that China will dominate the West without positioning his home country as a winner or a loser in AI innovation.
He points out:
Following the success of the Chinese startup Deepseek, many are surprised at how quickly China has caught up with the US in AI. However, China’s progress in algorithmic efficiency hasn’t come out of nothing. Chinese students have long outperformed others in math and programming at international Olympiads.
He then draws a parallel to inform Americans about the reason for the Chinese Deepseek achievement:
When it comes to producing outstanding performers in math and science, China’s secondary education system is superior to that of the West. It fosters fierce competition among students, a principle borrowed from the highly efficient Soviet model.
As you may know, Mr. Durov encountered some friction with Russian authorities when he operated VKontakte, the so-called Russian Facebook. Mr. Durov exited that company, bounced around looking for a suitable location for Telegram. He settled on Dubai and operated a service in order to make free speech a possibility for many people in the world.
Mr. Durov explains the difference between the outstanding Chinese and Russian educational systems and the American approach:
… most Western schools discourage competition, prohibiting public announcements of students’ grades and rankings. The rationale is understandable — to protect students from pressure or ridicule. However, such measures also predictably demotivate the best students. Victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin. Eliminate the losers — and you eliminate the winners.
Mr. Durov’s logic is that educational systems must allow the super achievers to fulfill their destiny. I want to point out that Mr. Durov is rumored to have fathered more than 100 children. Allegedly he will pay a suitable female breeder for the costs of artificial insemination. The idea is that supermen need to produce super children in order for the superior people to improve society.
He then makes clear why China will dominate the West:
Reality, unlike well-meaning school policies, does have public grades and rankings — whether in sports, business, science, or technology. AI benchmarks that demonstrate Deepseek’s superiority are one of such public rankings. And more are coming. Unless the US secondary education system undergoes radical reform, China’s growing dominance in technology seems inevitable.
Several observations are warranted:
-
- The clever recasting of his name from Durov to Paul Du Rove is a brilliant play on words. Wordsmiths require time to find the precise way of delivering a bon mot. Mr. Durov has had some time to contemplate his means of expression. He has been confined to France since August 2024.
- His principles of freedom have been modified since his lengthy interview with the American (presumably one who has not fulfilled his intellectual capabilities due to a lack of competition) Tucker Carlson. In that interview, Mr. Durov expressed his commitment to freedom and resisting governmental pressure to compromise the security of Telegram users. However, shortly after the interview, Mr. Durov blocked Ukrainian government messages to Russian users of Telegram.
- Mr. Durov is now responsible for steering Telegram through a number of business challenges while incrementally increasing his cooperation with legal authorities interested in money laundering, human trafficking, and CSAM activities on Telegram.
To sum up, the message from Mr. Durov illustrates his staunch belief in the Chinese and Russian systems. He makes a case that better education generates more innovation. Words from a person under the control of the French judicial system speak volumes.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
Telegram Speed Dates a Bad Actor: Pavel Durov and Judgment or Lack Thereof
February 5, 2025
Another non smart software write up from a real, authentic dinobaby.
Pavel Durov has had a rocky start to 2025. He may have about 100 loving children. He has his brother Nikolai’s support. He has pals from his days at VKontakte. And he has new friends from the French judiciary urging him to embrace some opportunities for freedom. That private jet is waiting. The sunny skies of Dubai beckon.
But another decision may come to haunt him. Telegram and the TON Foundation’s BFF has been busted. According to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the outfits shepherding the Ku Group and its KuCoin operations said, “Yep, we are guilty of unlicensed money transmitting business.”
As a dinobaby, I think the statement in “KuCoin Pleads Guilty to Unlicensed Money Transmission Charge and Agres to Pay Penalties Totaling Nearly $300 Million” means in rural Kentucky speak something like “money laundering.” The official news release explains:
U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said: “For years, KuCoin avoided implementing required anti-money laundering policies designed to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions. As a result, KuCoin was used to facilitate billions of dollars’ worth of suspicious transactions and to transmit potentially criminal proceeds, including proceeds from darknet markets and malware, ransomware, and fraud schemes. Today’s guilty plea and penalties show the cost of refusing to follow these laws and allowing unlawful activity to continue.”
Pavel Durov’s proxy outfit the Open Network Foundation showcased Ku Group at the November 2024 Gateway Conference in Dubai. Ku Group’s then-CEO (apparently not called out in the official statement issued on January 27, 2025, by the southern district) sparkled with optimism about the tie up between the owner of the Messenger mini app and the Peken Global Limited / Ku Group operation.
The news release points out:
KuCoin was founded in or about September 2017. Since its founding in 2017, KuCoin has become one of the largest global cryptocurrency exchange platforms, with more than 30 million customers and billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency in daily trading volume. Between in or about September 2017 and in or about March 2024, the date of the Indictment, KuCoin served approximately 1.5 million registered users who were located in the U.S., and earned at least approximately $184.5 million in fees from those U.S. registered users.
Some of Ku Group’s services included, according to the official AG statement placing:
orders for spot trades in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others, and orders for derivative products, including futures contracts, tied to the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As a result of its operation of this business, KuCoin has, at all relevant times, been a money transmitting business required to register with FinCEN and reported suspicious transactions.
The November BFF moments between Ku Group and Telegram’s proxy organization make clear that the Messenger app is a clever and versatile technology system. It is also now clear that the intent of some of Telegram’s announcements is possibly going against the established financial systems methods of serving their customers.
For now, Chun (Michael) Gan and Ke (Eric) Tang have suffered a set back. Will the Peken Global and Ku Group disappear? Possibly. However, the Ku Group’s and Telegram’s vision of a Web3 financial services entity is likely to thrive. Will the French judiciary amp up their discussions with Pavel Durov? Will the United Arab Emirates take a closer look at the Telegram operation which has a nominal headquarters in Dubai? Will the Swiss authorities pay a visit to the TON Foundation’s office in Zug, Switzerland? Will bad actors change their ways of hiding money in digital form?
Good questions. I think the French are on the job. The other entities may be reluctant to rock the good ship Telegram too much more. Could those folks have a vision for a financial system cut loose from traditional ways to do money business?
My thought is that BRICS, Russia, China, and some influential people have a goal. Telegram and the Ku Group were players, not leaders.
Stephen E Arnold, January 5, 2025
Who Knew? A Perfect Bribery Vehicle, According to Ethereum Creator
January 30, 2025
A blog post from an authentic dinobaby. He’s old; he’s in the sticks; and he is deeply skeptical.
I read “Ethereum Creator Vitalik Buterin: Politician Issued Coins Perfect Bribery Vehicle.” Isn’t Mr. Buterin a Russian Canadian? People with these cultural influences can spot a plastic moose quickly in experience.
The write up reports:
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized cryptocurrencies issued by politicians as “a perfect bribery vehicle.” “If a politician issues a coin, you do not even need to send them any coins to give them money,” Buterin explained in a tweet. “Instead, you just buy and hold the coin, and this increases the value of their holdings passively.” He added that one of the reasons these “politician coins” are potentially excellent tools for bribery is the element of “deniability.”
Mr. Buterin is quoted in the write up as saying:
“I recommend politicians do not go down this path.”
Who knew that a plastic moose would become animated and frighten the insightful Russian Canadian? What sound does a plastic moose make? Hee haw hee haw.
Nope, that’s a jackass. Easy mistake.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2025
FOGINT: Telegram Sends Message: We Are Coming to America!
January 15, 2025
A short blog post from the FOGINT team.
In 1988, Eddie Murphy starred in the film Coming to America. The film features this bit of dialogue:
- Lisa McDowell: So why did you come here?
- Prince Akeem: To find something special.
- Lisa McDowell: It’s a long way to travel.
- Prince Akeem: No journey is too great when one finds what he seeks.
What Telegram and its wing man, the Open Network Foundation, seek is a new market. Telegram, since the detainment of Pavel Durov (Telegram’s founder) has been pushing crypto. Pushing hard. Now the organization with more than 900 million users is coming to America. “No journey is too great when one finds what he seeks.” And what Pavel Durov seeks is a market for online gambling linked to crypto currency. Online gambling, link ups with organizations mostly unknown in the US, and a messaging system with a mind-boggling range of features.
Pavel Durov is coming to the New World, a land of opportunity for crypto and certain interests unlikely to be aligned with those of the United States and its allies. Thanks, creative You.com. Good enough.
Bloomberg published “Telegram Linked TON Blockchain to Expand in US As Trump Courts Crypto.” Similar stores have appeared in Cryptobriefing, Cryptotimes, and Cryptonews, among others. For example, “Telegram-Linked TON Eyeing U.S. Expansion” reports:
The TON Foundation, associated with Telegram Messenger, is planning to expand into the U.S. market, anticipating more favorable regulatory conditions under President-elect Donald Trump. As part of its U.S. expansion strategy, the foundation has appointed Manuel Stotz, founder of Kingsway Capital Partners, as its new president.
The film was a comedy. Telegram’s return to the United States is an important step. Telegram is not just a messenger service used by warfighters, purveyors of contraband, and goofy pitches for get rich schemes originating in Myanmar. Telegram is different from Signal, Threema, and WhatsApp. The decentralized organized organization has a social media component, a recruitment program, a venture fund, some smart software, and a conceptual commitment to ideas somewhat different from those in the US and some countries in Western Europe, including France where Pavel Durov is confined to the country as a legal proceeding involving him moves forward through the French judicial system.
As Prince Akeem said, “No journey is too great when one finds what he seeks.” Mr. Durov has found what he seeks. Telegram in America.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2025
FOGINT: Divergent Trajectories for Facebook and Telegram
January 7, 2025
A post from the FOGINT team.
The Techmeme splash page featured several Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.) stories. Here’s a mini-version of the home page with the Zuck-related stories identified:
The separate “stories” presented one theme: Free speech. Here’s a representative item from today’s Techmeme page at 9 20 am US Eastern: “Meta Is Ending Its Fact-Checking Program in Favor of a Community Notes System Similar to X.” The news item from NBC reports:
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a series of major changes to the company’s moderation policies and practices Tuesday, citing a shifting political and social landscape and a desire to embrace free speech. Zuckerberg said that Meta will end its fact-checking program with trusted partners and replace it with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. The company is also making changes to its content moderation policies around political topics and undoing changes that reduced the amount of political content in user feeds, Zuckerberg said.
For me, this says, “Cut some costs and respond to “a shifting political and social landscape.” The direction in which Meta is moving seems to be “freer speech,” albeit within whatever Silly Putty guardrails Mr. Zuckerberg decrees.
In contrast, Telegram — which has out-innovated Meta for many years — is taking a different path through environmental changes in the datasphere. Since France required that Mr. Durov, founder and “owner” of Telegram remain in France until his company’s behavior has been dissected, Telegram is moving on a different trajectory. A few details of this charge have been reported in “Telegram Hands U.S. Authorities Data on Thousands of Users.” This exposé declares:
Telegram, the popular social network and messaging application which has also become a hotbed for all sorts of serious criminal activity, provided U.S. authorities with data on more than 2,200 users last year, according to newly released data from Telegram. The news shows a massive spike in the number of data requests fulfilled by Telegram after French authorities arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in August, in part because of the company’s unwillingness to provide user data in a child abuse investigation. Between January 1 and September 30, 2024, Telegram fulfilled 14 requests “for IP addresses and/or phone numbers” from the United States, which affected a total of 108 users, according to Telegram’s Transparency Reports bot. But for the entire year of 2024, it fulfilled 900 requests from the U.S. affecting a total of 2,253 users, meaning that the number of fulfilled requests skyrocketed between October and December, according to the newly released data. “Fulfilled requests from the United States of America for IP address and/or phone number: 900,” Telegram’s Transparency Reports bot said when prompted for the latest report by 404 Media. “Affected users: 2253,” it added.
Since France’s direct action, Telegram has apparently become even more cooperative with law enforcement. Plus, Telegram agreed to participate in activities designed to identify human traffickers. On the surface, it appears that Telegram is becoming more agreeable to legitimate requests from law enforcement. Telegram has become associated with a number of interesting and possibly illegal activities in some countries. Examples range from groups (private and public) discussing terrorism and child pornography.
But that “shift” to cooperation distracts from what is a major change at Telegram and its affiliated entities like The Open Network Foundation, Ton.social, and assorted investment vehicles. Specifically, Telegram is doubling down on crypto currency. The Telegram infrastructure is being shaped and in some cases repurposed to host services, features, and distributed applications related to crypto. The idea, as the FOGINT team understands it, is to provide a hub or nexus for traditional financial services built on crypto, not the US dollar, euros, or “traditional” and regulated currencies.
A second effect of this shift at Telegram is its push to provide a home for a wide range of seemingly harmless online games. On the surface, a parent or a person as old as the producer of this blog, would glance at the display and think, “Oh, another child’s game.” Those individuals would be incorrect. Telegram “click to earn” games include addictive hooks and the upside of playing are points which can be converted to crypto currency. Gambling and the downstream financial services required by big winners or “whales” are the customers. The addictive element is just part of Telegram’s marketing activities.
Net net: Meta wants free speech or at least to appear to be lining up with the “shifting political and social landscape.” Telegram is using social as a way to speed use of crypto as an alternative to the US dollar. Social media giants are similar in some ways, but at this point in time, the two companies are on divergent trajectories.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2025
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