Pavel Durov has made it into highlights because of his application Telegram Launching Crypto Exchange on 30 November. He talked about building a collection of crypto tools which includes a non-custodial wallet as well as a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange through his telegram channel.
“Telegram’s next step is to build a set of decentralized tools, including non-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges for millions of people to securely trade and store cryptocurrencies. This way we can fix the wrongs caused by the current excessive centralization.”
Durov talked about the FTX collapse and how the cryptocurrency was supposed to be decentralized and ended up becoming centralized after all. And the issue with centralization here is that people started misusing their power.
There’s More To Telegram Launching Cryptocurrency Exchange
The telegram owner has made his intention clear about creating a decentralized crypto journey. He mentioned creating a team and invited developers to join him to create such opportunities and spaces. Durov gave an example of creating the “Fragment” which was created in a duration of 5 weeks and only took 5 people to do it. The fragment is a decentralized auction platform that operates on The Open Network (TON)
Durov added that
“Fragment has been an amazing success, with 50 million USD worth of usernames sold there in less than a month. This week, Fragment will expand beyond usernames.”
Telegram is currently working to introduce new tools that can help steer the cryptocurrency ecosystem away from centralization in an effort to capitalize on the momentum. The businessman slammed the Ethereum (ETH) platform in the same sentence, calling it “outdated and pricey” despite recent updates.
The fragment which is a username auction mechanism was just introduced by Telegram a week ago. The Open Network, a layer-1 blockchain, was used to issue the auction (TON). Durov claimed in the Telegram post that Fragment had already sold usernames for almost $50 million.
Telegram’s Interest In Cryptocurrency
This is not Telegram’s first venture into the cryptocurrency space; in May 2020, the platform introduced “The Open Network” & native token (TON). The two brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov founded the TON network in 2018. At the moment TRON is traded at the value of ₹146.26 with a market cap of ₹178,628,388,401 (according to the Coinmarketcap).
Although the telegram community created Newton and Toncoin (TON), only one received formal recognition from the telegram.
A no-no for companies in the exchange business as FTX has been accused of mismanaging customer assets by lending them to Alameda. Other exchanges are currently rushing to put greater checks and balances in place within their companies. This includes the proof of reserves systems to confirm ownership of customer assets on-chain.
Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, repeated Durov’s criticism of FTX on Wednesday at the Financial Times Crypto and Digital Assets Summit.
Hoskinson said
“The failures we’re having aren’t failures of protocols aren’t failures of DeFi. They’re failures of trust, they’re failures of regulation, they’re failures of people.”
Legal Issues With TON Token
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the platform for making an unregistered selling of digital tokens. That’s why Telegram was ordered to repay investors $1.2 billion-plus in addition to paying an $18.5 million civil penalty. This ended up putting on a big pause on the project. Supporters of the TON revealed a $126 million “rescue fund” to aid cryptocurrency ventures affected by the FTX collapse.
Final Thought
There are many centralized and decentralized exchanges with their respective advantages as well as disadvantages. With this announcement of Telegram launching crypto exchange (a decentralized one), the crypto community has been divided into two. The Telegram owner also talked about the FTX collapse and how a decentralized exchange is better than the centralized one.
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