Welcome to The Blockchain Report, your daily rundown for the latest in crypto. My name is Taylor Nikolai. Today we’re going to talk about the Telegram Open Network.
What is Telegram? Telegram is the brainchild of Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov. Before Telegram, Durov created Russia’s most used social networking website VK before being ousted as CEO of the company in 2014. Durov then went on to create Telegram. Telegram is an incredibly popular encrypted messenger app, which Durov refers to as “hack-proof.”
Latest reports of Telegram estimate the number of users of the app to be around 180 million. According to Bloomberg. 40 million of those users are from Iran alone — which makes sense, given the fact that the entire purpose of Telegram is to allow for secret communication between people. Telegram would probably be especially popular in countries with restrictive governments that punish dissent and dissidents.
For example, Russia has taken significant measures to block access to Telegram according to The Verge. This resulted in blocking 50 internet VPN services and blocking 15.8 million IPs on Amazon and Google cloud platforms.
Telegram is still seeing massive amounts of growth; the app is acquiring approximately half a million users a day. Durov appears to be steadfast in ensuring the privacy of many things surrounding Telegram. The locations of Telegram’s servers are unknown, as well as the names of many of Telegram’s employees. Durov also refuses to let Telegram to be bought out by a larger company.
He told Bloomberg, “Even for $20 billion, [Telegram is] not for sale.”
For more information about Telegram, check out the video above!
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