UPDATE: On August 28th, 2024, Pavel Durov was released on a €5 million bail bond and ordered not to leave the country.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France on Aug. 24 in connection to an outstanding warrant. Apparently, Pavel was aware of the warrant, so it’s unclear as to why he returned to the country.
In a very basic summary, the claims of the French government against Pavel Durov are for operating an online platform that facilitated illegal activities, and for not complying with demands from French authorities. There is quite a litany of charges, with a potential sentencing of 20 years in prison!
In addition, reports are now out that India is investigating Pavel Durov as well. Pavel is still in prison as of the time of this article, though supposedly he has been taken to court in France today, so perhaps there will be some breaking news soon.
In the meantime, Telegram, the TON foundation, and plenty of other crypto celebrities and organizations have come out in support of Durov. There is even talk of a fund for helping to support his legal bills, with Justin Sun promising to donate $1 million to the cause!
You can also sign a petition within Telegram to urge France to free Pavel.
And in true crypto degenerate form, there are users making wagers on Polymarket in regards to when Pavel might be released.
Why does France hate Telegram?
This legal battle is another phase of the war between governments and privacy. Telegram takes a strong stance on privacy, which includes refusing all requests to provide backdoors to user data. Governments, on the other hand, want their law enforcement to be able to access user data to find and prosecute criminals.
Now, the bad side of true privacy is that it does open the door to bad actors of all kinds who can conduct their illegal affairs without worrying about getting in trouble for it.
On the other hand, there are plenty of governments around the world that can’t be trusted to only go after criminals, or who have a very loose definition of criminal. And, of course, different countries have different laws.
By far, the vast majority of Telegram users are not engaged in anything malicious or illegal, but a few bad apples can spoil the fun for everyone.
In this particular stage of the privacy wars, France decided to focus on Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram and the results of this case could have long-lasting repercussions throughout the privacy sector.
How does this affect web3 gaming?
This doesn’t directly impact web3 gaming yet, unless you have been trading the TON token, which took a 20% nosedive after the arrest announcement, though it’s value has since recovered a bit.
But, if some sort of penalty is imposed, and/or Telegram starts getting banned in certain countries or regions (such as the European Union), then that could have a huge impact on the entire Telegram ecosystem. And that would likely also result in some games closing and tokens on TON dropping in value.
Telegram could also potentially introduce additional security measures to comply with enforcement demands from local governments, but Telegram has long pushed privacy as one of their main selling points, so it will be interesting to see what comes from all of this drama.
What is Telegram?
Telegram is an extremely popular, cloud-based messaging app. Anyone can join and create their own private, encrypted channels. Telegram supports text and multimedia, even allowing voice and video calls. With other features such as large group chats, and bot automation, Telegram has grown to over 700 million monthly users!
Supposedly, the Russian army is even relying on Telegram to coordinate during their war in Ukraine.
Telegram launched their own blockchain (The Open Network, or TON) and crypto token (TONcoin) in 2024 while also adding features allowing developers to build apps on top of Telegram. Plenty of developers are jumping onto the trend, launching new tap to earn games of their own, with most of them promising token releases in the near future.
Gaming on Telegram
Telegram has seen a rapidly growing gaming scene built on top of their Telegram app. Millions of users have flocked to these games, which began as simple, “tap to earn” style games, though the complexity is growing as more developers board the hype train.
Getting started with Telegram games is absurdly simple. Just open up Telegram on your phone, join the bot channel for the game, and then click the play or get started button. And just like that, you’re ready to start tapping and earning points!
