On July 18, 2023, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov posted on his official Telegram channel highlighted that the instant messaging app recorded over 800 million monthly active users this year, with over 2.5 million new accounts per day.
He confirmed that he owns Toncoin, the cryptocurrency acquired by the messaging app. The price of Toncoin has grown from $1.34 to $1.38, up to almost 3% since he talked about it today.
Telegram issues $270 million worth of bonds this week, with the CEO purchasing a quarter of the bonds as a way of investing into the platform’s growth.
Durov did not mention the investors in the bond, saying instead that they are “well-known funds with stellar reputations.”
Toncoin is a rebrand of the TON (Telegram Open Network) blockchain project that was developed by the Durov brothers Pavel and Nikolai.
“Although Telegram isn’t profitable yet, in absolute terms, it’s closer to profitability than its competitors like Twitter and Snap,” said Durov pointing to competitors.
Durov expressed gratitude for this massive growth that the technology is “alive and evolving”. Toncoin is independent of Telegram, unlike the original TON said Durov.
“Some people suggested I should have instead bought a house or a jet. But I prefer to stay focused on my work, without ‘owning’ anything (well, apart from Telegram, some Bitcoin, and some Toncoin),” he added.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Telegram, which caused a halt to the TON project.
Talking about the setback, Pavel Durov said, “When Telegram said goodbye to TON last year, I expressed the hope that future generations of developers would one day carry on with our vision of a mass-market blockchain platform.”
He continued, “So I was inspired to see the champions of Telegram’s coding contests continue developing the open TON project, which they rebranded to Toncoin.”
Durov previously said he owns Bitcoin and spent around $1.5 million on 2000 Bitcoin a decade ago, which is worth $60 million at current prices.
Telegram recently added a new feature that could allow users to buy, swap and carry out peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions USDT on the Tron network. Telegram is to build non-custodial wallets and a decentralized exchange to prevent another “FTX collapse”.
Also Read: Telegram Merchants to Accept Crypto via Wallet Pay
