AlphaTON Capital: From Cocoon to Consumer Gaming
March 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Talk a flip. I read a surprising story titled “AlphaTON Capital Acquires Controlling Interest in GAMEE, Adding 119 Million Users to its Ecosystem.” The article appeared in the online publication Hackernoon. AlphaTON is what I call a Swanson TV Dinner company. The firm was pharmaceutical outfit called Portage, and it was listed on NASDAQ. A firm named RSV swam up and bought the firm in the fall of 2025. The company was renamed, paperwork filed, and the AlphaTON Capital entity was in business and listed on the US NASDAQ. After some organizational shifting, the company has modified its original business plan; that was, acquire AI compute, let Telegram sell it, and get paid some money by Telegram.
Surprise, mom. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Now the company is in the “ecosystem” business with a focus on consumer online games. The Hackernoon article reports:
AlphaTON Capital Corp. (Nasdaq: ATON), a public technology company dedicated to scaling the Telegram super-app ecosystem, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a 60% controlling interest in GAMEE, a leading mobile gaming platform and wholly owned subsidiary of Animoca Brands. Concurrently, AlphaTON and Animoca Brands have formalized a Strategic Alliance to pursue broader commercial opportunities across blockchain and social gaming.
If you are “into” the Telegram, TON Foundation, AlphaTON Capital ecosystem, you understand the references. For some people, a bit of deconstruction might be helpful; to wit:
- Telegram super-app ecosystem. This means creating software applications that run on the Telegram platform. The platform includes smart contracts, bots or software robots, advertising, and blockchain (the TONcoin crypto, bridging technology to move crypto across different blockchains, unique programming languages, hundreds of partners and thousands of developers)
- Animoca Brands. The company is well-known to the TON Foundation. The company is a partner and a developer and investor in crypto projects for the Telegram ecosystem. This is important because the AlphaTON Capital outfit is part of the Telegram ecosystem and as a new start up, AlphaTON Capital has no “ecosystem.”
- Social gaming. This is a term used to describe a wide range of online games running in the Messenger environment. Many games are gambling platforms. The goal is to attract people to a “harmless” game like Hamstr Kombat and then get the player comfortable with winning tokens and then converting them into TONcoin. For a 13 year old interested in getting something for nothing and beating other players to the top of the leader board, social gaming is the ideal gateway to gambling. (In my monograph, “The Telegram Labyrinth” I explain how the social games morphs into casino gambling run by international operators from locations with flexible regulations. To request a copy, write kentmaxwell at proton dot me.)
Armed with these contextual items, the AlphaTON Capital acquisition is either a diversification of the AI compute business model or it is a attempt to generate revenue from online games.
The Hackernoon story explains that Animoca can’t buy AlphaTON Capital for several years.
Several observations are warranted:
- The value of the TONcoin has dropped since AlphaTON Capital was conceived and rolled out in late 2025
- The ticker symbol for AlphaTON Capital is ATON. That is the name of a large Russian bank.
- The company has severed ties with an individual and a firm with expertise in generating a market for TONcoin and other crypto
- No references to Yuri Mitin, the principal figure at Red Shark Ventures aka RSV appear in the story. Red Shark was founded in Moscow and moved to Toronto, Ontario prior to the AlphaTON Capital shell flip. This linkage could be interesting to some investors.
- The shift from AI compute signals that AlphaTON Capital had to find another way to generate excitement, value, and revenue. Perhaps online gaming will succeed.
Net net: AlphaTON Capital is evolving. Another Telegram shell flip which took place a few months before the AlphaTON Capital play. TON Strategy Company faces similar headwinds. With Pavel Durov’s trial in France approach and the Kremlin’s steadily increased pressure on Telegram users in Russia to abandon the platform, the Telegram ecosystem may be facing significant financial challenges.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2026
Telegram Notes Content Now on Xenky
March 20, 2026
Telegram Notes is a collection of information not in my new monograph The Telegram Labyrinth.
In January 2026, my team and I reviewed the notes gathered during our research for The Telegram Labyrinth. The amount of data gathered was a bit surprising. The topics covered Telegram, its mini app Messenger, the dApp platform TON, the TON Foundation, and two wild shell flips designed to surface on the success or hoped-for success of the TONcoin and Cocoon.
In January 2026, we converted the notes into informal blog posts. The new online publication is called “Telegram Notes.” Since January 2026, the content has been available at this location.
Today we created a page on our Xenky Web site. This site is a way to make certain content available to those in my lectures. If you want to access the Telegram content, navigate to www.xenky.com and click on the goat illustration in the image carousel. If looking for goats is not your thing, here is the list of stories.
We have new lectures for 2026 on topics like AlphaTON Capital’s business strategy, the Telegram Cocoon AI service, and Pavel Durov’s upcoming trial in France. If you are interested in a presentation via Zoom of one of our Telegram lectures, just write kentmaxwell at proton dot me. We check the email every week. If your group is a unit of law enforcement in the United States, there is no charge for the lectures, a copy of The Telegram Labyrinth, or the supplementary material we post via Xenky.
Telegram Updates Available for March 17, 2026
March 17, 2026
Informal write ups about Telegram and its associated entities.
We have posted some new stories about Telegram. These are part of our Telegram Notes’ series.
The new additions are:
Skolkovo’s Microwaved Shells Recipe. The focus is on Moty Cristil and the AlphaTON Capital firm
?-Note: Telegram Ads Now Illegal… in Russia. A person or company buying advertising on Telegram can be in trouble in Russia.
?-Note: Kremlin Steps Up Telegram Pressure. The Kremlin has fined Telegram for being Telegram.
We will be lecturing about Telegram at the 2026 National Cyber Crime Conference. Attendees receive a copy of my new book “The Telegram Labyrinth.”
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2026
Telegram: Updates and One Oddity
March 11, 2026
The Telegram write ups contain information gathered by my team about one of the most interesting companies currently operating online.
The most recent information we posted on Telegram Notes includes:
- The most segment in our summary of Andrei Grachev’s business adventures. “Part III: Grachev’s Flight to Falcon” picks up his story after he disengaged from AlphaTON Capital. The “falcon” is Grachev, and he did not travel without purpose. He had set up a new company called Falcon Finance and appears to be pursuing a different path to fame and further increasing his wealth. My team and I will continue to follow the story, but the flow of information has been disrupted due to the disturbance in the Middle East.
- We published a short item called “Note: AlphaTON Capital: Bringing in Legends.” AlphaTON Capital, ostensibly building an AI compute infrastructure, hired two people with technical skills. From my point of view, the NASDAQ wizard, the CEO, the law firm, and the financial person who replaced the estimable Mr. Grachev lack the background and technical expertise to make the idea of AI compute “rentals” a reality.
- Another short item is available. It is another short item titled “Note: March 2026 Telegram Messenger Features.” This is a rundown of some of the new features added to Telegram. What’s interesting is that none of these appear to implement any AI functionality from the announced Cocoon AI compute initiation.
This is an Uzbek falcon. It eats mice among other things.
If you want to read the first two parts of the Andrei Grachev story, these are at these locations:
Part I. Andrei Grachev: A Hungry Uzbek Falcon at https://shorturl.at/TbMCo
Part II. Grachev Aloft: Watching for HFT Prey at https://shorturl.at/wnaS8
Please, note the disclaimers for each of these segments. The information comes from our notes, and it is presented in a far more casual manner than the information in my formal books and monographs. One example is the use of the much-loved Uzbek falcon as a metaphor for some of the actions of Mr. Grachev. Colorful? Yes. Does Mr. Grachev have feathers? No.
The oddity is that references to these essays have been scrubbed or removed from certain social media services. I find it interesting that an 82 year old writing about a 13 year old online system attracts attention. One one had, I am flattered that LinkedIn-type outfits have the time and interest to prevent my essays from being available to their users. On the other hand, I am surprised that our compilation of publicly available information disrupts the otherwise serene world of digital information.
Do I care? Well, sort of. When we discover these scrubbings, we will try to document the instances and speculate about the reasons. Mr. Grachev is a luminary in the crypto-verse with particular expertise in high frequency trading. He does try to maintain a low profile compared to the outsized reputational visibility of Pavel Durov (the founder of VKontakte) and Yuri Mitin (Red Shark Ventures and other names such as RSV).
That profile is what caught my attention along with his role at RACIB and his dealings with a couple of interesting fellows in Switzerland. The next major Telegram Notes’ article is about everyone’s favorite business school and innovation center in Moscow. Watch for it in the next few days. Will it be blocked by certain social media outlets? Absolutely.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2026
A Dethroned Prince among Money Launderers
March 11, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
In a couple of my lectures in 2025, I mentioned how services offering end-to-end encrypted messaging and automated crypto currency transactions were accelerating certain illegal activities. My reference to “automation” was in relation to the Telegram platform, its smart contracts, and its multi-year effort to become the plumbing for crypto financial services. I displayed a diagram of the set up of the Kugroup (now operating as Kucoin), and how its system “touched” the Telegram platform. I said that other groups were using similar services.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
When I read “Taipei Prosecutors Charge 62 in Massive Prince Group Laundering Case,” I learned that another money-centric criminal group found itself in the hot seat. The article stated:
Prosecutors in Taipei have filed charges against dozens of people in a sprawling money laundering case tied to the Cambodia-based Prince Group, wrapping up a months-long investigation into a network authorities say moved billions of New Taiwan dollars through the island’s financial system. The Taipei District Prosecutors Office announced Wednesday (March 4) that 62 defendants and 13 companies have been indicted. The charges include alleged organized crime activity, money laundering, illegal gambling operations, accounting violations and document forgery.
The most interesting item in the article for me was:
Luxury goods, cars, mansions, and financial accounts with a total value exceeding HK$5.5 billion were seized. The investigation concluded today (4th).
My back-of-the-notecard calculation puts the amount seized in the $700 million range. In Taiwan, authorities said that more than US$300 million moved through the island’s banking system. The article suggests that additional funds were involved.
Where did the money come from? The answer is illegal activities. These typically include financial scams (e.g., pig butchering), gambling (online and casino-based), money laundering, and individuals coerced into special work (e.g., setting up bank accounts for moving fiat currency, night work, and talking grandmothers out of money for friendship).
Now here’s the surprise. The write up states:
Initial international enforcement efforts found that billions of dollars had been stolen from victims around the world. American authorities seized around 127,271 Bitcoin, worth approximately $15 billion, believed to be connected to the scam and gambling enterprises.
The take down is commendable. The investigations take months and require careful navigation due to the cross jurisdictional tactics the bad actors use. We have identified one business school that teaches would be crypto entrepreneurs the tactics needed to work around anti money laundering regulations and know your customer requirements. Our hypothesis is that if one major business school teaches the method, other institutions do too.
The Prince matter is significant, but Prince is not the king of money laundering operations in the Golden Triangle.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2026
Part II of Our Andrei Grachev Essay Now Available
March 4, 2026
![green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/green-dino_thumb_thumb3.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
This is Stephen E Arnold. Part II of my Andrei Grachev essay is live. You can find "Part II. Grachev Aloft: Watching for HFT Prey" on the Bear Blog service. Like the other posts in my "Telegram Notes," I have adopted a very different style from that in my new book "The Telegram Labyrinth." No paywall, no ads, no registration.
Stephen E Arnold, March 4, 2026
Telegram Notes: A Look at Grachev
February 24, 2026
The Telegram Notes collections of my informal comments based on notes I gathered for my book “The Telegram Labyrinth” can viewed at this online location.
Andrei Grachev operates quickly and is less well known that some other professionals supporting the Telegram – linked TON Foundation. He had a brush with the law in Moscow, served as president of the China-linked Huobi Moscow, and secured a board level appointment to RACIB. The first part of a three – part informal essay is “Part I. Andrei Grachev: A Hungry Uzbek Falcon.” Part II will appear in five or six days.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2026
Brittany Kaiser Is a TON: A Pointer to Telegram Notes
February 17, 2026
An item from Telegram News. A dinobaby is filling his time. The Telegram items are at this location. I post information that did not fit into my new book “The Telegram Labyrinth.” I use a “note” format because I don’t want to lose track of certain items of information.
I posted a bit more information about the president of AlphaTON Capital. For those are not clued into the names of Russian financial entities ATON refers to a well-known bank. This could be a coincidence, of course. The ticker symbol for AlphaTON Capital is NASDAQ:ATON. Yep, another coincidence or maybe it might possibly be an inside joke or a signal for certain people. I don’t know. “Brittany Kaiser Is a TON” presents some basic information about her background before she became the CEO of this AlphaTON Capital entity.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2026
μ-Note: Max Crown Pitches the Upside of the Telegram Constellation
February 17, 2026
Another Telegram item. To view our coverage of the Telegram constellation, navigate to Telegram Notes.
The president of the TON Foundation is a fellow named Max Crown. He is enthusiastic, confident, and optimistic about Telegram. You can watch him project confidence about the Telegram ecosystem in a one minute video snip posted to X.com (aka Twitter). You will need to have a Twitter account to view the snippet.
Image is from the Cryptonews interview in February 2026.
He made an interesting assertion. He said, “Telegram Messenger has about one billion users.” He added, “We will reach 1.3 billion users in about three years.” He stated:
What makes Telegram so unique is that it’s open, permissionless and a launchpad to a lot of digital economies and digital creation. Crypto used to feel complicated. Now it feels natural, part of how we connect and exchange value.”
Cryptonews published extracts from an interview with Mr. Crown. “TON’s Blueprint for Mass Adoption: Inside Telegram’s Web 3 Play” provides additional information about how Mr. Crown sees the future of the messaging service, the Telegram platform, and the benefits of the “easy to use” and “permissionless” system.
I noted these comments.
First, Telegram’s advantage is, according to Mr. Crown:
Most blockchains were built for crypto-native experimentation first and only later tried to retrofit themselves into consumer platforms,” he said. “TON took the opposite approach. From its inception, TON was engineered for internet-scale usage — prioritizing fast finality, low latency and predictable costs. That technical foundation. The developer culture optimized for usability and speed rather than complexity or financial engineering,” he said. “Applications on TON feel much closer to mainstream mobile apps than traditional Web3 products — intuitive, social and instant.
Mr. Crown did not mention the slowdowns experienced in Russia. That country has been pushing users to MAX, a state-approved service. Telegram does not release the number of current users in Russia or Russia-aligned nations. My understanding, based on our research for my new book “The Telegram Labyrinth,” is that 30 to 40 percent of Telegram’s users are concentrated in these countries. Therefore, the expansion of Telegram’s user base is going to be difficult in Russia and its fellow travelers’ countries. The three years for 500 million new users will take a significant marketing effort. Considering the fact that Telegram is more than a decade old and competition in messaging exists with new players surfacing, Telegram’s marketing agency (the TON Foundation) has its work cut out for itself.
Second, the Cryptonews article offers this snippet from its talk with Max Crown:
The TON wallet lives inside Telegram,” Crown explains. “Payments, assets and interactions feel like features of the app — not separate crypto workflows. In many cases, users don’t even realize they’ve onboarded to crypto at all. They’re just chatting, gifting or paying.
Telegram had a good idea in 2013. However, The company’s approach to providing access to crypto has spawned one important impact. Not surprisingly, Mr. Crown does not highlight the fact that the founder Pavel Durov is under travel restrictions imposed by the French judiciary. Mr. Durov is alleged to have committed more than one dozen serious offenses. The outcome of the criminal trial has created uncertainty about his future status. Furthermore, Mr. Crown does not mention that Telegram reported a net loss in 2025 of more than $200 million. Finally, the new initiatives related to Telegram and the TON Foundation have faced financial headwinds. Two publicly traded companies linked to the TON Foundation’s TONcoin find themselves whipped by management missteps and the persistent value of the TONcoin itself.
Finally, the interview presents this statement:
“TON is a decentralized blockchain — it’s a technology layer, not a regulated financial intermediary,” he said. To support compliant activity, TON works with blockchain intelligence firms such as TRM Labs, Elliptic and Chainalysis, enabling developers to meet sanctions screening and transaction monitoring requirements where necessary. “The goal is to keep the base layer open and neutral,” Crown said, “while enabling compliant products at the application layer.”
Are the French allegations levied against Pavel Durov valid? If Mr. Crown’s statements are accurate, Pavel Durov and by extension its open and neutral stance are not guilty. The answer will depend on the outcome of the trial which may be held in 2026 or 2027.
Net net: The TON Foundation and Mr. Crown are in marketing mode. The task is to replace lost Russian users due to state imposed friction and attract new users in a highly competitive market. Mr. Crown must do this when crypto value remains under pressure. Marketing is now the name of the game.
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2025
Telegram and AI: Can Claude Help?
February 13, 2026
Another item about Telegram and its management methods.
Telegram’s developers watching Claude pumping out smart contracts and other code. Claude is Anthropic’s AI generative chatbot released a new CoWork tool that allows them to vibe audit smart contracts. Smart contacts are blockchain-based programs that carry out agreement terms when the conditions are met. The messaging platform been around for over a decade and are used everyday to everything from messages to crypto. One can follow developments in Iran and Ukraine with a click or two.
Protos has more of the details in the story, “Claude AI Plugins Can Now Vibe Code Smart Contracts.” Vibe auditing is similar to vibe coding and relies on AI to code the bulk of the labor. Developers can “outsource” work to Claude by activating its “skills” and asking it to complete code. It works like this:
“In today’s new age of crypto security, developers can simply activate so-called “skills” in Claude to outsource auditing work to an assortment of cybersecurity tools. For example, one Claude skill will ostensibly check specification-to-code compliance with blockchain audits. ‘Use this skill when you need to audit smart contracts against whitepapers or design documents,’ says a Trail of Bits whitehat hacker about their spec-to-code compliance skill.”
Developers can also use Claude skills to check variants of smart contract bugs using pattern based analysis. If a variant doesn’t exist that doesn’t mean there isn’t a bug. The developer might not have shared that code. A lot of Claude code is available via the Claude code marketplace.
One question: Has Telegram provided AI-centric tools to help its developers with the proprietary Telegram programming languages? I wonder if Telegram has been distracted from AI because of the impending trial of its founder Pavel Durov. He is the self-proclaimed GOAT or greatest of all time Russian technologists.
AI can be a useful tool for creating smart contracts. Will Telegram respond, or is it, like Apple, now in a defensive posture?
Whitney Grace, February 13, 2026
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