Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested in France, global uncertainty is spreading about the future of the popular messenger service

The shockwaves are also being felt in the crypto scene. Virtually everyone involved in crypto uses Telegram. Every project, every coin, every medium has a channel

After Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France, there is global uncertainty about the future of the popular messenger service. The shockwaves are also being felt in the crypto scene.

Virtually everyone involved in crypto uses Telegram. Every project, every coin, every medium has a channel or chat group. Including our blog. Consequently, the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, has left hardly anyone unaffected.

Tron founder Justin Sun, a prominent crypto billionaire, is now standing up for Durov. He suggests on Twitter (now X) creating a DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization to help the Telegram founder regain his freedom. With sufficient community support, he will donate one million dollars.

However, exactly how and what remains open. Someone reminds Justin Sun on Twitter (now X) that Pavel Durov himself is wealthy, but this is one of those cases where money doesn’t help. Understanding why the crypto community should collect money for Pavel is indeed hard to grasp.

It’s intriguing, though, that a DAO could establish itself as an instrument for collecting and managing funds for specific purposes without fearing misuse by those in charge. This model has already been tested for SilkRoad administrator Ross Ulbricht and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The community is more directly feeling Durov’s arrest in their wallets. The Toncoin (TON = The Open Network) closely associated with Telegram plunged from about six euros to about five euros, losing roughly 20 percent. However, the coin was still just under two euros at the beginning of the year and remains one of the strongest cryptocurrencies despite the drop, still significantly up against Bitcoin.

Pavel Durov was arrested on Saturday after flying to France on his private jet. France accuses him of not taking decisive action against drug trafficking, fraud, and child abuse on Telegram. He is said to have refused to cooperate with French law enforcement and is complicit in terrorism, drug trafficking, fencing, and money laundering.

Durov, who founded the Russian platform VKontakte in 2006—essentially the Russian Facebook—created Telegram in 2013. He has had multiple unpleasant encounters with the Russian government, such as when he refused to block the VKontakte page of opposition figure Alexey Navalny. Currently, he resides in Dubai and manages Telegram from there. His current relationship with the Russian government remains unclear.

The messenger has around one billion users worldwide and is an excellent tool for chat groups and channels. It has firmly established itself in the crypto scene, with virtually every company and project having its own group—for better or worse. Fraud and market manipulation are also often arranged through Telegram groups.

In recent years, Telegram has also become an epicenter of disinformation. There’s a flood of Telegram groups engaging in the perpetrator-victim reversal in the Ukraine war or obsessively focusing on the COVID-19 topic. Amidst Russia’s mass murder in Ukraine, the platform also serves military coordination, while the Russian state maintains channels up to the Central Bank and former President Dmitry Medvedev without hesitation. This suggests that the government has made its peace with Telegram.

The crackdown on Pavel Durov is being heavily criticized worldwide. Indeed, a shutdown of Telegram could have adverse effects on freedom of expression and massively disrupt the communication of many innocent groups. At the same time, France might acquire a powerful lever to combat disinformation and significantly impair Russia’s military and political communication. How this year’s most spectacular arrest will play out remains to be seen.