Telegram's "Matrix"
Editor's Note: This article comes fromStar Media STARMEDIA (ID: Star_Media1)Editor's Note: This article comes from
Star Media STARMEDIA (ID: Star_Media1)
Star Media STARMEDIA (ID: Star_Media1)
In the Internet circle, especially the blockchain circle, everyone is very familiar with Telegram.
Its founder, Pavel Valerevich Durov, is a die-hard fan of The Matrix, and he dresses like Neo, the protagonist of the movie, on any occasion—all in black. His whereabouts are strange, his home is everywhere, he is not close to women, his feelings are a mystery, he has been walking on the edge of data eavesdropping in the United States and Russia, he dares to step on the political red line, trample on authority, he has all the characteristics of a genius, he is paranoid, twisted, Smart, selfish, idealistic, pure.
And it's not just the film industry that's keenly capturing people and things like Durov: From Assange to Snowden to Zuckerberg to Durov, they're capturing film plots with true stories.
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The renegade hacker banned by Putin
Telegram founder Pavel Valerevich Durov is definitely the most legendary "rebel" among geeks today. Known as “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg,” he shares Assange’s sympathy, and he’s now almost an “enemy” of the world government. The 34-year-old Durov is using the "block chain" technology to impact the existing order of the human world.
On October 10, 1984, Durov was born in Leningrad, former Soviet Union (St. Petersburg, Russia).
Durov has a learned family background, his father has a Ph.D. and is a famous Latinographer. As a child, Durov has been traveling with his father in Turin, Italy, and has seen a lot. Influenced by his father's knowledge, he was admitted to St. Petersburg State University majoring in linguistics at the age of 18. It stands to reason that Durov would continue to follow the path of language, but the rebellious genius prefers computer programming. After graduation, he embarked on an unusual path.
At 24, Durov began imitating Zuckerberg.
In 2006, Facebook became popular as a social software on American university campuses. Mirilashvili, a former classmate of Durov in the United States, followed Facebook. In November of the same year, Mirilashvili and Durov founded the Russian social platform VKontakte (VK).
Three months after its launch, the number of VK users exceeded 100,000, and it exceeded 10 million a month later, and finally stabilized at 239 million, making it the most popular social networking site in Russia. Durov also earned the first pot of gold in his life - 260 million US dollars.
Because VK has always imitated Facebook, even the brand colors with blue and white visual colors are very similar. Therefore, in Russia, VK is often compared with Facebook. Durov is also affectionately known as Zuckerberg of Russia.
Four years after its founding, VK was targeted by the government. At that time, the Russian Internet was on the rise, and online piracy was rampant. VK was flooded with a large number of pirated versions. By sharing pirated content, it attracted a large number of early users. In 2010, VK was listed by the Recording Industry Association of America as the second largest illegal music library in the world. In 2011, VK was called "the most important piracy database" by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
In addition, VK was also involved in Putin's general election. In 2012, the Russian State Duma was elected. At this time, many Russian Internet giants avoided overseas, including Pavel Valerevich Durov. As the political situation changed, VK became the "base camp" for anti-government groups to complain and carry out activities. The Russian Federal Security Service has issued a warning to Durov, asking him to prevent and ban the behavior of radical groups on VK.
However, the rebellious Durov responded to the Kremlin by posting a photo of a dog in a hoodie sticking out its tongue on his VK with the text "Don't even think about it!"
This paved the way for Durov to be forced to leave Russia.
Durov claimed that on the night of posting the photo, an armed force in camouflage uniforms visited his home in St. Petersburg. He was then summoned by the Attorney General's Office. In the end, he began to experience a clear squeeze in the company, as investors with ties to the Kremlin gradually diluted Durov's stake in VK.
Durov, who was forced to come here, either obeyed or sold his shares in VK. Stubbornly, he further defied authority, posting a photo on Instagram in which he gave the investors the middle finger.
In 2012, Durov threw planes with folded banknotes at passers-by from the office window of the Singer Building in the most prosperous part of St. Petersburg. Not long after, Durov was accused of running over the foot of a traffic policeman with a white Mercedes.
Finally, one day in 2013, Russian police stormed his office to arrest him. But Durov has "lost contact". During the time he was out of contact, he was completely "excluded" from VK.
In the end, Durov was forced to resign and leave Russia.
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Create encrypted social software Telegram
The "lost contact" Durov came to the United States with a few cronies. After exile in the United States, he sold all fixed assets such as houses, furniture, cars, etc., and in exchange for a large sum of money, he all in the encrypted social software Telegram, also known as Telegram, known as "Russia's WeChat", which is currently the world's largest encrypted chat software.
Telegram looks no different from the popular social software WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat. You can send text, voice, and emoticons to chat. But in fact, it is an encrypted social platform that is not monitored by any third-party organization, including the government, and has the characteristics of decentralization and no third-party supervision.
Most differently, its founder, Durov, has taken a tough stance on the government on privacy protections. Durov has publicly criticized: "WhatsApp and other social software are rubbish, they do not protect user privacy."
The biggest feature of the "encrypted version of WeChat" Telegram is that it can encrypt and transmit conversation content, and supports setting chat records to be destroyed at regular intervals, and one-click deletion of accounts and data. Telegram adopts a new P2P encryption protocol MTProto, which allows users to enable the "private conversation" function when initiating a one-to-one encrypted chat. The key used for the conversation information will be changed every few minutes, and any data will not be stored. The information will be automatically deleted after a short period of time, and the valid time of each message can be set by yourself, and it also sets the unlock password and adds a biometric unlock mode.
Telegram is almost the most confidential chat software in the world.
Durov wrote in his autobiography: "I am not fighting for freedom, but I am using my existence to prove that freedom has not disappeared."
In order to keep Telegram from being controlled by authoritative forces, Durov insisted on not introducing investors, and paid $1 million a month out of his own pocket to maintain only a four-person technical team and server resources.
In less than three years, Telegram has become popular all over the world.
In March 2018, Telegram's monthly active users reached 200 million, and it is still growing by 700,000 new users per day. The download volume reached 365 million, surpassing VK at a lightning speed.
Decentralization, anonymity, and no state are more sensitive to the Russian government. Russia has always maintained a high degree of supervision over digital currencies. In a media interview, Putin directly stated that Russia will not have its own digital currency. He said: "Digital currency is a product that transcends national borders."
Durov, who has been blocked by Putin, once again provoked Russia with the "privacy protection" Telegram.
In 2016, Russia passed an "anti-terrorism law" requiring messaging services to give Putin authorities the ability to decrypt them. And Durov has violated the law since the first day he founded Telegram. Unsurprisingly, on April 14, 2018, the Russian court ruled that Telegram was officially banned by the government due to its refusal to hand over the keys of users’ chat content.
In this regard, Durov published a warning article in his VK, saying that blocking Telegram in Russia will make it easier for the United States to spy on Russian citizens, and they will turn to alternative social software that is easier to eavesdrop, such as Facebook or WhatsApp .
However, just because Telegram's privacy protection is so good, it has attracted a large number of terrorists to gather and become a base for ISIS terrorists to communicate. For this reason, Telegram has been criticized by Snowden, British Prime Minister Theresa May and others. But even so, Durov firmly believes that the invasion of user privacy is more serious than terrorism.
In addition, after the global rise of the blockchain, Telegram has become the preferred communication tool for the blockchain and digital currency community due to its open source, encryption, anonymity, 100,000 online supergroups, and permanent storage of chat records. More than 80% of ICO communities are active on Telegram, and more than 60% of ICOs are conducted through Telegram, which is the driving force behind the almost crazy outbreak of ICO.
The founder, Durov, didn't take the ICO bubble seriously, and started his own ICO.
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Raised $1.7 billion in one month
Durov not only wants to make information transmission out of supervision, but also makes fund transfer out of supervision. On Telegram, not only the content of information is hidden, but also the transfer of funds can be hidden.
In 2017, Durov launched the blockchain project TON after five years of running Telegram at his own expense, and conducted two rounds of ICOs, raising US$1.7 billion in one fell swoop, making it the largest ICO in the world that year.
TON, the full name of Telegram Open Network, token Gram, aims to establish a blockchain operating system that is comparable to Ethereum. The founder Durov also proposed the concept of "fifth-generation blockchain". Durov hopes that through the creation of TON, users can transfer money locally through the social software Telegram, helping their funds escape the supervision of centralized organizations, and thereby disintegrating the existing capital supervision system. Grams will be a new online currency that can move money anywhere in the world, power chat apps and payments, and finally bring cryptocurrencies into people's daily lives, Telegram said.
Once Gram is officially released, it will be managed by a decentralized computer network, and even Telegram itself cannot control the flow of Gram. According to former Telegram employee Anton Rozenberg, TON will help people under government repression to transfer money locally through the messaging app.
TON has more accurate users than any cryptocurrency in the world, and it is backed by more than 200 million global encrypted users, which makes the regulators even more terrified.
To evade regulation, Telegram canceled its public-facing ICO. In early 2018, Telegram raised a total of $1.7 billion in funding from 175 investors in Russia, the U.S. and several other countries in just two months during its token sale, including Silicon Valley’s largest venture Investment firms such as Benchmark and Lightspeed Capital, as well as Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, many Russian investors and 39 US investors.
Most of these tokens are sold through "Simple Agreements for Future Equity" (SAFTs), which is a fundraising method similar to an ICO and can start selling before the tokens are released.
Telegram ICO story
In December 2017, announced the development of the blockchain platform TON and the token Grams circulating in TON.
In February 2018, the first round of ICO fundraising was completed, raising US$850 million.
In March 2018, the second round of ICO fundraising was completed, raising US$850 million.
In February 2019, 90% of the development of TON was completed, and it is planned to officially release the platform token Grams as early as March.
In August 2019, it was officially announced that Grams will be officially launched on October 31, 2019.
On October 16, 2019, Telegram sent a letter to investors hoping to postpone the launch date of TON to April 30, 2020.
On October 23, 2019, investors voted against the return of funds and chose to postpone the token distribution.
At the end of 2018, TON launched a blockchain wallet to encourage users to participate in the Grams-based economic system. Users can use the wallet to complete payment, investment, shopping, and even send red envelopes on Telegram.
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Anger the United States or be blocked again
Although the fundraising went smoothly, the TON project has attracted the ban of the US regulators.
After Telegram received US$1.7 billion in ICO financing, it fell into endless disputes and delayed the issuance of coins twice, and now its future is even more uncertain.
In August 2019, a piece of negative news about Telegram appeared. MEMRI, a non-profit research organization in Washington, D.C., has released a report providing evidence that terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda and Hamas use Telegram for cryptocurrency financing. And pointed out that if Telegram launches the blockchain TON and native token Gram at the end of October, the problem of terrorist financing may be further exacerbated. The Middle East Media Institute also said it had presented its findings to U.S. and other Western government agencies.
The words 39 American investors, terrorist organizations, and terrorist financing are enough to attract the attention of American regulators.
Not long after, the SEC said that Telegram would allow unregistered securities to flow into the U.S. market. The SEC believes that TON is a security that has not been registered through the compliance process, and the company must register and disclose relevant information.
In September, the US SEC filed a lawsuit against Telegram. At the same time, Durov has also received a letter from the US Congress demanding immediate action on these findings.
On October 11, when Telegram was 20 days away from issuing coins, the US SEC obtained an emergency restraining order to suspend TON and issuing coins, and a hearing was scheduled for October 24 in the Southern District Court of New York.
Steven Peikin, co-director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said: "We have repeatedly stated that issuers cannot evade federal securities laws simply by labeling their products as cryptocurrencies or digital tokens. Proceeds of a public offering subject to the duty of disclosure.”
However, Telegram stated that it does not agree with the US SEC's point of view. In court documents and emails to investors, it believes that Gram is not a security, but it will consider postponing the launch of the mainnet. After being suspended, Telegram sent a letter to investors, hoping to postpone the launch date of TON from October 30 to April 30, 2020.
The purchase agreement of Telegram's Gram tokens shows that if TON cannot be launched as scheduled before October 31, investors will be required to return their funds in full. This means that if TON fails to issue the mainnet and Gram tokens as promised, the $1.7 billion ICO may be refunded to investors.
Later, the hearing was postponed to February 18-19, 2020. Judge P. Kevin Castel, who heard the case, ruled that Telegram should not have launched the Gram token before the hearing. This also means that the launch date of TON has been postponed again.
On November 26, the U.S. Court of the Southern District of New York signed a document to arrange for both parties to debate the legal status of Gram tokens in court in the case of "SEC v. Telegram". Ilya Perekopsky, vice president of Telegram, who was in charge of communicating with investors during Telegram's $1.7 billion token pre-sale, was also asked to be questioned in London on December 16. The third person to testify is Shyam Parekh, whose name appeared in Telegram's letter to investors, and Parekh is due to testify in London on December 10.
TON, which was originally planned to be put into use in December 2018, has been seriously delayed due to the suspension of the US regulators. The twists and turns of Telegram's coin issuance have led to false prosperity and sell-offs in the secondary market. Counterfeit Li Gui websites and scams are rampant. The out-of-control and chaotic secondary market has caused this high-profile project to suffer many stains and doubts.
Arthur Hayes, CEO of BitMEX, has publicly stated that a variety of tokens to be launched, including the TON token Gram, are worthless. "These tokens have huge valuations and all take up a lot of money, but it's unclear when they'll be listed on the secondary market. 2019 will be a year of reckoning for these funds, and once these things go public, they'll have to deal with huge loss."
Some investors also believe that Durov just wants to cheat money to continue Telegram's life through the hype-style ICO of Telegram. TON is called a public chain, but it is an emergency blood transfusion for Telegram.
In fact, as early as the TON ICO, someone listed the following risk warnings:
1. The SEC may enforce supervision, because the contract SAFT used by Telegram may conflict with US security laws.
2. It is still not clear how to combine the TON blockchain and Telegram's own business to make TON play a role.
3. Since there are no restrictions on how Telegram can use the funds, if TON development fails, Telegram may have no funds to return to investors.
4. After the development of TON, if Telegram is removed from the Google and Apple app stores, it will have a huge impact on its user numbers.
However, according to TON’s voting results, investors opposed the proposal to return 77% of the funds, and the majority of votes agreed to postpone the TON network until April 30, 2020 and maintain their investment in the project. It can be seen that most investors are still unwilling to cut their meat and leave the market, and choose to continue betting.
In view of the SEC's attitude towards the social giant Facebook and the tough attitude of TON being urgently stopped on the eve of its launch, it is unlikely that Telegram will turn around at the hearing. Treated as a security rather than a cryptocurrency, TON's plan may be officially dead.
So how can Telegram guarantee the smooth issuance of coins before April 30, 2020? Here are a few guesses popular in the market:
The first is that in the past, the SEC considered most ICOs to be securities, and the attitude towards Gram this time is no exception. However, judging from the previous penalties, there are nothing more than two results, one is to be ordered to stop issuing tokens, and the other is to be fined. A typical example of paying a fine is EOS. However, Tomer Ravid, CEO of BloxTax, believes that it is unlikely that TON will be fined, because the nature of TON is much more serious than that of EOS.
