Coinspeaker
Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Arrested in France, Expected to Face Court on Sunday
Pavel Durov, the person behind the popular messaging application Telegram, was arrested at the Bourget airport outside Paris, as per reports from TF1 TV and BFM TV. Durov, whose net worth is estimated to be more than $15 billion, landed in France from Azerbaijan and was detained at 18:00 GMT on Saturday.
It happened as part of a probe that French authorities have initiated against Telegram due to the lack of censorship and moderation on the messaging application, which is used by people who are focused on privacy. The French agency OFMIN has targeted Durov for not integrating strict measures on his platform to control the illicit usage of Telegram.
OFMIN was founded in 2023 and is tasked with preventing assault against minors, cases of cyberbullying, drug trafficking, and more. Now, it aims to take down Telegram because of its non-compliance with regional laws, which has resulted in the platform being a breeding ground for explicit and sometimes misleading content.
Durov is facing possible indictment on Sunday, while on the other hand, the Russian embassy in France is taking “immediate steps” to work out the situation, a TASS report said. However, Durov’s team has “filed no application”.
Telegram has become a massive success story with over a billion users. The end-to-end encrypted platform allows users to create channels for quick delivery of information and is a popular tool used in the digital asset sector.
Some of the major blockchain projects based on Telegram include Notcoin (NOT) and Hamster Kombat (HMSTR). These viral Telegram games have a huge community with a massive fan base. NOT token rallied massively earlier this year while HMSTR token generation event (TGE) has yet to take place.
Dogecoin (DOGE) fan Elon Musk and Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate who dropped out earlier this week and supported Donald Trump, asked for the release of Durov and advocated for free speech.
The Crash of Toncoin (TON)
Toncoin (TON), the native digital asset of The Open Network, the blockchain associated with the Telegram platform, has crashed a massive 18.5% in the past 24 hours. While the trading volume of the altcoin rose a whopping 732.63% to $2.1 billion, the market cap of the cryptocurrency dropped to $13.8 billion, as TON hangs on in the list of top 10 crypto assets by market cap.
- Source: TradingView
However, since August 2023, TON is up 282.73%, and the blockchain’s integration with Telegram has been quite successful for Toncoin. Further, the TradingView chart provided above shows that the Relative Strength Index of TON reads a value of 35.70, which means that the selling pressure is quite high and the bears are overall in control of the Toncoin price action.
Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Arrested in France, Expected to Face Court on Sunday
