Good evening, brothers!
Another new week has arrived, and Wanfeng will talk to you about the biggest event in the crypto circle that has sparked heated discussions around the world in recent days!
Early this morning, French TV broke the news: Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested at a French airport and faces multiple charges including fraud, money laundering and terrorism.
Once the news broke, the market was instantly shaken. After SBF was imprisoned for the FTX scandal and CZ reached a settlement with the United States on money laundering charges, Pavel Durov became another well-known figure convicted for his speech.
Ekaterina Mizulina, head of the Russian Secure Internet Alliance, pointed out that Durov’s arrest was a continuation of the U.S. SEC’s previous sanctions on the super coin Toncoin circulating on Telegram, indicating that the United States has escalated its crackdown on it.
Will the TON ecosystem face a second devastating blow amid its booming development? Where will the related popular projects go in the future? Will the subsequent operation of the Telegram platform cause greater turmoil?
Wanfeng will conduct an in-depth analysis of these key issues in this article.
TON Ecosystem: From a decentralized community back to a decentralized community
According to Coingecko data, as of this writing, the TON token has plummeted 13.3% in 24 hours to $5.83, but TON still ranks tenth in market value with a current market value of $14.74 billion.
According to data from DefiLlama, the TVL of the TON network has shrunk significantly from US$770 million on July 21 to approximately US$304 million. The TVL of the ecosystem has dropped by more than 50%. The market is full of risk aversion and investors are withdrawing.
TON Token Performance
In response to Pavel Durov’s arrest, TON officials responded quickly, assuring everyone that the TON community remains strong and fully operational.
"We are a community committed to free speech and decentralization, and we stand firmly with Pavel Durov during this difficult time.
He has always been a strong advocate for these values, and we believe his work to advance an open and decentralized internet will continue to inspire millions of people around the world. We will continue to work hard to defend our principles, and we thank everyone for their continued support.”
The arrest of Pavel Durov marks a new turn of events for the founder of Telegram, which has raised a huge amount of money through its ICO since it was first announced in January 2018.
In October 2019, just one month after Telegram released the TON experimental source code, top investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed raised $1.2 billion.
However, the U.S. SEC quickly moved to block the TON token sale, calling it an unregulated security. Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the enforcement division, said the emergency action was aimed at stopping Telegram from illegally selling digital tokens to the U.S. market in May 2020.
Faced with pressure, Pavel Durov announced that he would abandon the TON project and return 72% of the investment funds (a total of $1.2 billion) to investors. Telegram also paid a fine of $18.5 million to the SEC, but did not admit or deny the allegations.
In the end, Pavel Durov handed over the control of TON to the community. Thanks to the open source code, Toncoin (TON) finally came to light at the end of 2021 and was recognized by Pavel Durov.
TON TVL Performance
Today, the decentralized community that Pavel Durov had high hopes for has failed to live up to his expectations. After he was arrested in France, many members of the TON ecosystem spoke out.
Steve Yoon, chairman of the TON Foundation, quoted Durov’s view in a 2015 interview with CNN: “It’s either safe or it’s not. It’s impossible to make information technology unsafe only for terrorists and safe for everyone else.” He believes that this is the best interpretation of Durov’s experience today.
TON Ventures released a statement: "Today, we are more firmly aware of the need for free speech and decentralization. This is the core concept that @durov has always advocated and the foundation of the TON and TG community. We will become stronger because of #FREEDUROV." TON Ventures partner Inal Kardan also retweeted and supported this statement.
In addition, investors in the TON ecosystem and representatives of the US political and business circles expressed anger over the incident and highly supported Durov himself. Franklin Bi, a partner at Pantera Capital, one of TON's investment institutions, launched the#FreePaveltag and retweeted TON's official statement.
Elon Musk also weighed in on Twitter, saying: "This is a blatant attack on the First Amendment. Imagine being executed in Europe in 2030 for liking a meme."
Prominent American political commentators Tucker Carlson and Pavel Durov fled Russia when the Russian government tried to take control of his social media company Telegram.
Yet, in the end, it was not Putin who arrested him for allowing a mass movement, but the West – the Biden administration and its NATO allies – who put him in jail in France.
The incident serves as a warning to all platform owners fighting censorship, demonstrating how quickly free speech can disappear under the manipulation of governments and intelligence agencies.
Jupiter Lianchuang Miao directly quoted the Chinese "borrowed knife to kill" story, saying that Durov's arrest was a living example, further emphasizing that the world urgently needs a decentralized power base. He posted a call to stop blindly following the centralized financial power.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, noted that French authorities are going to charge Durov with terrorism because he refuses to censor the speech of certain groups. He said Telegram is one of the few platforms that allows voices critical of Western policies to continue to spread, which touches on the root of the problem.
Russian State Duma Deputy Chairman Davankov called on the Russian Foreign Ministry to take action to rescue Durov and said he had sent a request to Foreign Minister Lavrov. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the embassy in France has taken necessary measures to closely monitor Durov's situation.
Although Durov’s arrest in France has attracted global attention, the TON ecosystem, as a “system that supports community autonomy,” has not yet been substantially affected except for price and market value fluctuations.
TON ecological project: Support Pavel Durov, and its own operations will not be affected.
In response to Pavel Durov’s arrest in France, several projects in the TON ecosystem expressed their firm support and emphasized that this incident would not have any impact on their operations.
As a meme currency project in the TON ecosystem, the DOGS community uses Pavel Durov's favorite black and white dog as its image logo. On its official Telegram channel, the DOGS community issued a statement: "We firmly support Pavel Durov and support privacy and truth, which is particularly important at this moment."
Durov holds a black and white photo of a dog
NOTCOIN, the benchmark project of TON ecosystem, was launched and listed on top exchanges such as Binance. It also generously donated more than 1 billion NOT tokens to Telegram founder Pavel Durov and the Telegram platform! Durov emphasized: “Not guilty, #freedurov!”**
The official channel of Telegram Wallet confirmed that it will closely monitor the latest developments regarding Pavel Durov, but this incident will not affect the normal operation of the wallet.
Viktor, head of community development at Ton Society, stressed: “The truth is coming out… Now they attack Telegram and TON because Pavel Durov refused to compromise on privacy. The French people should be ashamed of their actions. Free speech! Please support Pavel in this difficult time. #freedurov”
TON Takeover cited Durov’s previous interview, emphasizing that privacy is not a crime.
The official account of Hamster Network, a star project of TON ecosystem, also issued an urgent appeal, urging Musk to intervene, support #FREEDUROV, and defend freedom of speech!
Pavel Durov and the Telegram platform, which are at the core of the TON ecosystem, have received widespread support and demonstrated resilience in the face of challenges.
Telegram platform: Future uncertain, but still supported by another venture, Nicolia.
Despite the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, the future of the Telegram platform remains promising. Nikolai Durov, who supports Catchain, the consensus mechanism for Telegram’s open network, and another strong co-founder will continue to fuel the platform’s development.
Despite the uncertainties of the future, Telegram has long become a backbone force in the Internet ecosystem with a strong foundation of nearly 1 billion monthly active users since its birth in 2013.
In the short term, while the TON ecosystem and Telegram may face leadership challenges, Nikolai Durov’s presence will undoubtedly provide a solid backbone for the platform, ensuring it continues to shine on the global internet stage.
Summary: The development of TON ecosystem has encountered setbacks, but it has not significantly affected its actual development.
The former TON Foundation has appointed Andrew Rogozov as a founding member, who will oversee the overall product development of the blockchain project. This move indicates the deep integration of the TON ecosystem with Telegram, and the prospect of such integration may bring opportunities for cutting or further integration.
Although the Telegram platform faces the risk of losing users due to the arrest of its founder, the impact of this incident on the TON ecosystem is limited. At a time when freedom of speech is increasingly valued, this move will not only not weaken the TON ecosystem, but is expected to promote the further development of decentralized blockchain networks.
It will attract more people's attention to the importance of encrypted communications, decentralized finance and society, and inject new vitality into the global decentralized cause.
Okay, that’s all the information for this issue for now.
