FSB has decided to ban Telegram because of Durov's plans to create his own cryptocurrenc
Real reason of blocking
Unsuccessful blocking of the Telegram messenger in Russia that is followed last few days by blocking of IP addresses of iclouds services of Amazon, Google and other providers, was actively discussed between staff members of the 12th center FSB and representatives of competent authorities. In particular, on April 18 the employee of the 12th FSB center Roman Antipkin has sent to colleagues the letter in which he has explained that the true reason of Telegram blocking in Russia lay in Pavel Durov’s desire to start "unregulated financial system" on the basis of the messenger.
"Colleagues and the history is not about it at all, you don’t understand! The history is not about keys and terrorism <...>. Pasha Durov has decided to become new Mavrodi and we’ll get completely uncontrollable financial system. And it’s not Bitcoin for marginals, it’ll be simply, reliably and uncontrolledly. It’s the real threat to the security of this country<…>. All drugs, traffic in organs will go through Durov’s a cryptocurrency, and he will say: " I had nothing to do with that,just ban the use of the word , they are used by terrorists" —as stated in the letter signed by Roman Antipkin.
RBC has a text of the letter,the federal official and the top manager of one of telecom operators have confirmed that the letter is genuine. The interlocutor of RBC in one of the governmental organizations is also familiar with contents of this letter. The letter was sent from 12center.ru mail domain. Roman Antipkin the participant of the market and official, which spoken to RBC, told that he had represented 12th FSB center at various meetings. In particular, in implementing of "Yarovaya’s law".
Dangerous cryptoplan
About Pavel Durov’s desire to start his own blockchain platform Telegram Open Network (TON) with the Gram cryptocurrency became known in the late 2017. A detailed project description was provided in the 132-page document signed by Nikolay Durov — the technical director of Telegram and Pavel Durov’s brother. Creators intend to incorporate payment service based on own Blockchain of TON the Telegram messenger, and eventually to incorporate it into other services and social networks. The Blockchain being developed by Durov as discussed earlier in this document, will be capable to process millions of transactions per second while the most popular payment service provider using cryptocurrency — Bitcoin — is capable to process only 9-12 transactions per second, and Visa and MasterCard — several thousands of transactions per second.
Among investors of the first round have been a founder of Qiwi Sergey Solonin and the founder of Wimm-Bill-Dann David Yakobashvili. In the standard contract between Telegram Group Inc. and the investor it was noted that the buyer of Tokens shall not have the right to use them for a violation of the sanctions regime or money-laundering and the financing of terrorism. It’s mentioned also in an annex to the treaty describing risks of investments,sale and use of Gram Tokens. "Any illegal or unauthorized use of the Gram cryptocurrency by unfair participants may violate the regulations adopted in Great Britain, the USA and legislation by other countries to combat the financing of terrorism and money-laundering. it can have a significant impact on reputation of TON Blockchain" — it was said in the document.
The threat of blocking Telegram in Russia hung over more then a year ago, however it was implemented after information on plans to establish the Gram cryptocurrency and collecting investments for it development.In early April Regulatory Authority filed a lawsuit in the Tagansky District Court requesting to block Telegram in Russia, because the owner of service doesn’t carry out the duty imposed upon him by law he must refer keys for decoding of users correspondence. On April 13 a court upheld the claim.
Financial leverage
"Fears of FSB are well founded. The Bitcoin, and other financial activities became the instrument of speculation in sort of "today we will buy for 100 rub, and tomorrow we will sell for 200 rub". In practice as unit of account they have been little used. And TON first of all was designed as means of payment.It’s supposed that transaction processing will be fast, and use of cryptocurrency will not require special knowledge. Therefore, such system can have much more users" — the executive director of Society of protecting network and user security Mikhail Klimarev says. He notes that all of them will pass by any public and fiscal authorities. "It is likely that this kind of payment also can be used by "villains". In the same way as the majority of murders in Russia is committed by a standard kitchen carving knife—the analogy, I believe, is clear" — Klimarev says.
"There are quite hard recommendations of the international authorities by restriction on the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in connection in relation to combating money-laundering and the financing of terrorism. — Oleg Demidov notes. — At the same time Durov clearly tries to create the Legal projects:he comes to ICO, reports on the activities investment rounds with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It seems to me one of the main concerns of the regulator — that will be create not only technically more perfect, decentralized, global Blockchain but also by it’s own mechanisms are aimed at legalizing the financial markets
At the same time Demidov believes that even successful blocking of Telegram "won’t kill" to a technological way the possibility of using the TON. "They create a separate Blockchain, a messenger now without any Blockchain at all. It was supposed that primary base of participants of TON will arise from users of Telegram so effective blocking cut it down a little bit " — Demidov predicts.
In his opinion, with their actions Roskomnadzor can only little bit to reduce Durov’s budget and slow down start of TON for the financial reasons. "Now Telegram jumps from one cloud provider to another as a matter of urgency, trying to avoid blocking. It all costs money, a lot of money. Durov has enough money for short-term defense, but if the history drags on for months or for a year, then start of TON can slow down".Earlier experts differently estimated the value of permanent changes of IP addresses for Durov: from $0,5-1 thousand a month to $1 million a day