The success of its messaging, Telegram develops its cryptocurrency!

Encrypted email recently raised $ 1.7 billion, recognizing that it was not intended to be profitable.

The confidential messaging application Telegram has been successful. After two fundraisers, the company run by the brothers Durov collected $ 1.7 billion in a few weeks in February and March this year to finance the creation of a cryptocurrency. A record amount despite the fact that the company - put under pressure by several governments - has so far never declared its turnover and even says on its website that it will never have the ultimate goal of to be profitable.

Created in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov - the founders of the Russian "Facebook VKontakte" and opponents declared to Russian President Vladimir Putin - Telegram intends to serve a more noble cause: the secret of online conversations. Internet users around the world, and particularly countries where diets are the most repressive, do it well. The company has registered 200 million monthly active users during its last count at the end of March.

On the smartphone of journalists and politicians

His message encryption technologies initially convinced political opponents in the native lands of the Durov but also in Ukraine, Iran or Indonesia. In 2014, the acquisition by Facebook of its competitor Whatsapp drew to the application many users worried that Mark Zuckerberg's social network could read their private conversations. Criminal networks also made this tool a means of communication of choice to escape police surveillance.

Today, the small blue paper plane that serves as a logo for the application is found on the smartphones of journalists and politicians, including France where the entourage of President Emmanuel Macron is deemed no longer able to do without it. All this small world ignores the criticism made by the American whistleblower Edward Snowden who questions the real independence of Telegram when its leaders agree to block some channels of discussion at the request of the authorities. This was the case in Iran.

Telegram, at the center of a blockchain ecosystem

Although weak compared to Whatsapp's 1.2 billion users, this critical mass of followers would already value the company between $ 3 billion and $ 5 billion, according to Pavel Durov, who says he has rejected bids from investors. big names in Silicon Valley. "Even for $ 20 billion, it's not for sale, it's a lifetime guarantee," he told Bloomberg last December.

Already at the head of a personal fortune estimated by Forbes at $ 1.7 billion, the founder willingly describes Telegram as a charitable foundation. This is how he would like to see the company's latest cryptocurrency transactions. By creating the cryptocurrency "Gram", it actually beats the digital currency intended to multiply exchanges of all kinds via the Telegram application, discussions but also trade. Governed by a decentralized blockchain computing technology, the ecosystem will be called the Telegram Open Network (TON).

The goal for Telegram? Secure transactions on what will become the largest blockchain network in the world where users can create profitable business models ... out of sight.