FOGINT: Telegram Sends Message: We Are Coming to America!

January 15, 2025

A short blog post from the FOGINT team.

In 1988, Eddie Murphy starred in the film Coming to America. The film features this bit of dialogue:

Lisa McDowell: So why did you come here?
Prince Akeem: To find something special.
Lisa McDowell: It’s a long way to travel.
Prince Akeem: No journey is too great when one finds what he seeks.

What Telegram and its wing man, the Open Network Foundation, seek is a new market. Telegram, since the detainment of Pavel Durov (Telegram’s founder) has been pushing crypto. Pushing hard. Now the organization with more than 900 million users is coming to America. “No journey is too great when one finds what he seeks.” And what Pavel Durov seeks is a market for online gambling linked to crypto currency. Online gambling, link ups with organizations mostly unknown in the US, and a messaging system with a mind-boggling range of features.

Pavel Durov is coming to the New World, a land of opportunity for crypto and certain interests unlikely to be aligned with those of the United States and its allies. Thanks, creative You.com. Good enough.

Bloomberg published “Telegram Linked TON Blockchain to Expand in US As Trump Courts Crypto.” Similar stores have appeared in Cryptobriefing, Cryptotimes, and Cryptonews, among others. For example, “Telegram-Linked TON Eyeing U.S. Expansion” reports:

The TON Foundation, associated with Telegram Messenger, is planning to expand into the U.S. market, anticipating more favorable regulatory conditions under President-elect Donald Trump. As part of its U.S. expansion strategy, the foundation has appointed Manuel Stotz, founder of Kingsway Capital Partners, as its new president.

The film was a comedy. Telegram’s return to the United States is an important step. Telegram is not just a messenger service used by warfighters, purveyors of contraband, and goofy pitches for get rich schemes originating in Myanmar. Telegram is different from Signal, Threema, and WhatsApp. The decentralized organized organization has a social media component, a recruitment program, a venture fund, some smart software, and a conceptual commitment to ideas somewhat different from those in the US and some countries in Western Europe, including France where Pavel Durov is confined to the country as a legal proceeding involving him moves forward through the French judicial system.

As Prince Akeem said, “No journey is too great when one finds what he seeks.” Mr. Durov has found what he seeks. Telegram in America.

Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under cryptocurrency, cybercrime, Fogint, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.