Who Knew? A Perfect Bribery Vehicle, According to Ethereum Creator

January 30, 2025

dino orange_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumb_thumbA blog post from an authentic dinobaby. He’s old; he’s in the sticks; and he is deeply skeptical.

I read “Ethereum Creator Vitalik Buterin: Politician Issued Coins Perfect Bribery Vehicle.” Isn’t Mr. Buterin a Russian Canadian? People with these cultural influences can spot a plastic moose quickly in experience.

The write up reports:

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized cryptocurrencies issued by politicians as “a perfect bribery vehicle.” “If a politician issues a coin, you do not even need to send them any coins to give them money,” Buterin explained in a tweet. “Instead, you just buy and hold the coin, and this increases the value of their holdings passively.” He added that one of the reasons these “politician coins” are potentially excellent tools for bribery is the element of “deniability.”

Mr. Buterin is quoted in the write up as saying:

“I recommend politicians do not go down this path.”

Who knew that a plastic moose would become animated and frighten the insightful Russian Canadian? What sound does a plastic moose make? Hee haw hee haw.

Nope, that’s a jackass.  Easy mistake.

Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2025

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

January 15, 2025

fog from gifer 8AC8 small 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.

image

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

FOGINT: Divergent Trajectories for Facebook and Telegram

January 7, 2025

fog from gifer 8AC8 small_thumb A post from the FOGINT team.

The Techmeme splash page featured several Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.) stories. Here’s a mini-version of the home page with the Zuck-related stories identified:

image

The separate “stories” presented one theme: Free speech. Here’s a representative item from today’s Techmeme page at 9 20 am US Eastern: “Meta Is Ending Its Fact-Checking Program in Favor of a Community Notes System Similar to X.” The news item from NBC reports:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a series of major changes to the company’s moderation policies and practices Tuesday, citing a shifting political and social landscape and a desire to embrace free speech. Zuckerberg said that Meta will end its fact-checking program with trusted partners and replace it with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. The company is also making changes to its content moderation policies around political topics and undoing changes that reduced the amount of political content in user feeds, Zuckerberg said.

For me, this says, “Cut some costs and respond to “a shifting political and social landscape.” The direction in which Meta is moving seems to be “freer speech,” albeit within whatever Silly Putty guardrails Mr. Zuckerberg decrees.

In contrast, Telegram — which has out-innovated Meta for many years — is taking a different path through environmental changes in the datasphere. Since France required that Mr. Durov, founder and “owner” of Telegram remain in France until his company’s behavior has been dissected, Telegram is moving on a different trajectory. A few details of this charge have been reported in “Telegram Hands U.S. Authorities Data on Thousands of Users.” This exposé declares:

Telegram, the popular social network and messaging application which has also become a hotbed for all sorts of serious criminal activity, provided U.S. authorities with data on more than 2,200 users last year, according to newly released data from Telegram. The news shows a massive spike in the number of data requests fulfilled by Telegram after French authorities arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in August, in part because of the company’s unwillingness to provide user data in a child abuse investigation. Between January 1 and September 30, 2024, Telegram fulfilled 14 requests “for IP addresses and/or phone numbers” from the United States, which affected a total of 108 users, according to Telegram’s Transparency Reports bot. But for the entire year of 2024, it fulfilled 900 requests from the U.S. affecting a total of 2,253 users, meaning that the number of fulfilled requests skyrocketed between October and December, according to the newly released data. “Fulfilled requests from the United States of America for IP address and/or phone number: 900,” Telegram’s Transparency Reports bot said when prompted for the latest report by 404 Media. “Affected users: 2253,” it added.

Since France’s direct action, Telegram has apparently become even more cooperative with law enforcement. Plus, Telegram agreed to participate in activities designed to identify human traffickers. On the surface, it appears that Telegram is becoming more agreeable to legitimate requests from law enforcement. Telegram has become associated with a number of interesting and possibly illegal activities in some countries. Examples range from groups (private and public) discussing terrorism and child pornography.

But that “shift” to cooperation distracts from what is a major change at Telegram and its affiliated entities like The Open Network Foundation, Ton.social, and assorted investment vehicles. Specifically, Telegram is doubling down on crypto currency. The Telegram infrastructure is being shaped and in some cases repurposed to host services, features, and distributed applications related to crypto. The idea, as the FOGINT team understands it, is to provide a hub or nexus for traditional financial services built on crypto, not the US dollar, euros, or “traditional” and regulated currencies.

A second effect of this shift at Telegram is its push to provide a home for a wide range of seemingly harmless online games. On the surface, a parent or a person as old as the producer of this blog, would glance at the display and think, “Oh, another child’s game.” Those individuals would be incorrect. Telegram “click to earn” games include addictive hooks and the upside of playing are points which can be converted to crypto currency. Gambling and the downstream financial services required by big winners or “whales” are the customers. The addictive element is just part of Telegram’s marketing activities.

Net net: Meta wants free speech or at least to appear to be lining up with the “shifting political and social landscape.” Telegram is using social as a way to speed use of crypto as an alternative to the US dollar. Social media giants are similar in some ways, but at this point in time, the two companies are on divergent trajectories.

Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2025

Dubai: The 21st Century Crypto “Silicon Valley”

January 7, 2025

fog from gifer 8AC8 small Information from the FOGINT research team.

How prescient was Telegram when it selected Dubai as headquarters of a decentralized, distributed company? After Pavel Durov bounced from Moscow to Berlin, to Singapore to San Francisco, and ended up in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, his judgment seems good. FOGINT’s view is that he listened to UAE government officials and determined that that country wanted to become the financial hub for crypto currency. The goal of both UEA and Telegram aligned: Both wanted to exploit a desire of many countries and financial entrepreneurs from the US-centric financial system to one based on crypto currency, largely unregulated crypto currency cut loose from the shackles of the US financial system. A standard other than and competitive with the US dollar promised a shift of finance from Wall Street to Sheikh Zayed Road.

The plan is not a secret. “UAE to Attract Crypto Ventures Amid EU’s Stringent MiCA Regulation: Experts” reports that regulations in Western Europe are adding a kick in the pants for some crypto-centric innovators. The regulation is Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Its purpose is to establish a legal framework — that is, uniform rules for crypto assets — across the EU. MiCA might be the booster that the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern states want. A more supportive regulatory environment and a thriving crypto community exist in the United Arab Emirates.

According to the Crypto News’ report:

The MiCA regulation introduces a pan-European licensing and supervisory regime for crypto-assets, exchanges, and service providers… Among its stringent requirements, small stablecoin issuers must hold 30% of their reserves in low-risk EU-based commercial banks, while major players like Tether face a mandate to maintain 60% or more in similar institutions. While aimed at ensuring market stability, these rules are seen as increasing operational costs, potentially undermining the financial viability of many firms.

The FOGINT team wants to point out that the UAE provides a “crucible” for crypto innovation; specifically:

  • A regulatory environment different from that in the US and Western Europe; for example, a Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in Dubai oversees the regulation, licensing, and governance of virtual assets
  • Tax benefits because there is currently no direct taxation on cryptocurrencies in the UAE
  • Infrastructure provides a “Silicon Valley”-type of magnetic pull situated almost equidistant from Asian financial hubs and Western European money centers
  • The UAE supports the crypto industry via the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre and the Dubai International Financial Centre

The UAE has cultivated a robust ecosystem for crypto and blockchain innovation with more than 500 crypto startups are now based in Dubai’s free zones. One poster child for Dubai’s flexibility is Telegram’s choice of the city as the location for its “headquarters.” (Keep in mind that Telegram is a distributed and decentralized organization, so the “staff” in Dubai is modest in size for the company’s size.) Plus, the UAE has implemented measures to ensure investor protection and market stability with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. Also, the Central Bank of the UAE approved a custodial insurance product to protect financial institutions and their clients from potential losses due to hacks or internal fraud.

One key question: Are there technical professionals with crypto experience in Dubai? The answer, in part, can be approached via the attendance at the November 2024 TON Foundation Gateway Conference. The conference attracted about 400 people in 2023. In November 2024, more than 2000 crypto savvy professionals participated in two day program held in Dubai. The UAE may be on the path to becoming the hot spot for crypto innovation.

Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2025

FOGINT: What Do the Most Recent Telegram Function Enhancements Portend for 2025?

January 2, 2025

fog from gifer 8AC8 smallThis is a report from the FOGINT research team.

For a company without a permanent office with staff who show up everyday, Telegram has been busy in December 2024. One good example is Telegram’s chopping up the video stream from its Gateway Conference held in early November 2024. The individual talks with their unique Telegram / TON Foundation quirkiness are available on YouTube at this link. One can mostly parse some speakers’ content using the Google caption function.

Also, a “real” news service has collected several other Telegram and its ecosystem announcement in “Telegram Rolls Out Third-Party Account Verification, Filters.” For those unfamiliar with Telegram, the service offered a verification process. That service remains, and “has now launched a new project to let already-verified third-party authorities, such as food quality regulators or educational consortiums, verify an account.” The article also points out that Telegram has added “filters” to the baked in search and retrieval service. FOGINT wants to point out that the search service is not very good. Retrieval remains spotty. The only way to find certain content is to monitor specific public and private groups. The content from these groups can then be downloaded or sucked from the service with a well-crafted script tuned to observe Telegram’s quite specific blocks on bulk downloading. According to the cited article, Telegram has added:

  • Emoji reactions
  • Sending gifts (this is a money generating angle)
  • Search filters for private chats, group chats, and channels.

The write up does not ask the question, “What is the direction these features suggest Telegram and its associated entities are heading in 2025?”

Here’s FOGINT’s take on the path Telegram is likely to follow:

  1. Freeing Pavel will be a top priority
  2. Amping up Telegram and the TON Foundation’s crypto activities. (Telegram is the platform for TON Foundation; the Foundation is the marketing and developer magnet for the TONcoin.)
  3. Provide functions and services like third party verification to show the French judiciary and others that Telegram does have “real” users and can provide investigators with some useful information maybe.

But the big priority after the “Free Pavel” action is crypto; specifically, making the Telegram platform the hub for crypto gaming and possibly some allied services like automating the movement of crypto from one coin and wallet to other wallets and coins. Tie ups with the Ku Group and other organizations providing crypto alternatives to traditional and regulated financial systems are on board and rolling out integrated services at this time.

Stephen E Arnold, January 2, 2025

FOGINT: TOMA Abandoning Telegram in Sharp U Turn

December 24, 2024

fog from gifer 8AC8 small_thumb Observations from the FOGINT research team.

Pressure is building on Telegram’s vision for Messenger to become the hub for game crypto currency. Bitnewsbot published allegedly accurate information in “Popular Telegram Game Tomarket Ditches TON, Picks Aptos for Token Launch.” The article asserts:

Telegram-based gaming platform Tomarket announced it will launch its TOMA token on the Aptos blockchain network, abandoning initial plans to deploy on The Open Network (TON). The decision affects millions of users ahead of the December 20 token launch, marking a significant shift in the Telegram mini-app ecosystem.

One of the reasons given for the switch, according to Bitnewsbot, is the “speed and infrastructure capabilities” of Aptos’s blockchain network. The article continues:

The decision stands out as most Telegram-based cryptocurrency applications, including prominent names like Hamster Kombat and Notcoin, typically deploy on TON. The TON blockchain has seen substantial growth, currently ranking as the 16th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to CoinGecko with, a price increase of approximately 190% over the past year.

The online information service Decrypt.io adds some additional information which suggests that the Telegram infrastructure is not as supple as the Aptos offering; specifically:

Tomarket has handed out allocations of tokens across multiple airdrop waves, but players have been unable to withdraw or trade the token. The app’s developers previously said that the TOMA token was generated, but clarified afterwards that the term was used to describe token allocations within the app. And now, Tomarket won’t ultimately deploy to TON.

Decrypt.io reports:

Tomarket isn’t the first game to choose an alternative path, however: tap-to-earn combat game MemeFi recently launched its token on Sui, after pivoting from its original chain of Ethereum layer-2 network Linea.

The FOGINT team thinks that this Tonmarket abrupt change of direction may increase the pressure on Telegram at a time the organization is trying to wriggle free from the French red tape ensnaring Pavel Durov. Mr. Durov is on a legal tightrope. Defections like Tonmarket may spark some unpredictable actions by the Telegram collections of “organizations.”

Stephen E Arnold, December 24, 2024

FOGINT: Telegram Gets Some Lipstick to Put on a Very Dangerous Pig

December 23, 2024

fog from gifer 8AC8 small Information from the FOGINT research team.

We noted the New York Times article “Under Pressure, Telegram Turns a Profit for the First Time.” The write up reported on December 23, 2024:

Now Telegram is out to show it has found its financial footing so it can move past its legal and regulatory woes, stay independent and eventually hold an initial public offering. It has expanded its content moderation efforts, with more than 750 contractors who police content. It has introduced advertising, subscriptions and video services. And it has used cryptocurrency to pay down its debt and shore up its finances. The result: Telegram is set to be profitable this year for the first time, according to a person with knowledge of the finances who declined to be identified discussing internal figures. Revenue is on track to surpass $1 billion, up from nearly $350 million last year, the person said. Telegram also has about $500 million in cash reserves, not including crypto assets.

The FOGINT’s team viewpoint is different.

  1. Telegram took profit on its crypto holdings and pumped that money into its financials. Like magic, Telegram will be profitable.
  2. The arrest of Mr. Durov has forced the company’s hand, and it is moving forward at warp speed to become the hub for a specific category of crypto transactions.
  3. The French have thrown a monkey wrench into Telegram’s and its associated organizations’ plans for 2025. The manic push to train developers to create click-to-earn games, use the Telegram smart contracts, and ink deals with some very interesting partners illustrates that 2025 may be a turning point in the organizations’ business practices.

The French are moving at the speed of a finely tuned bureaucracy, and it is unlikely that Mr. Durov will shake free of the pressure to deliver names, mobile numbers, and messages of individuals and groups of interest to French authorities.

The New York Times write up references profitability. There are more gears engaging than putting lipstick on a financial report. A cornered Pavel Durov can be a dangerous 40 year old  with money, links to interesting countries, and a desire to create an alternative to the traditional and regulated financial system.

Stephen E Arnold, December 23, 2024

Telegram: Pressure Mounting on the TON Entities

December 23, 2024

fog from gifer 8AC8 small Observations from the Telegram research team.

Two apparently unrelated news items provide tantalizing hints about what Telegram will do in 2025. The phrase “cornered animal” is typically not used to describe a 40 year old person with a lot of money, a large technical company, and allegedly more than 100 children. The FOGINT team thinks that the two word phrase may apply to Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte and Telegram.

Mr. Durov has been under the control of the French judiciary since August 2024. French legal proceeding can be slow and painstaking. Via his attorneys’ interaction with the French authorities and his own one-on-one discussions, Mr. Durov has indicated that he wants to cooperate with investigators in matters deemed to be illegal.

How has Telegram changed in the three months? One excellent run down of Telegram’s behavior appeared in the “report” published by Telegram. “Telegram Moderation Overview” provides some detail about Telegram’s “cooperation” in some law enforcement activities. The cited report covers Telegram’s view of banning CSAM, some terrorist communities (the term is, however, not defined by the Telegram author), and some general information about how many groups and channels have been blocked.

What’s notable is that the graphics in the write up illustrate that Telegram has been a consistent upholder of the “law” for a month:

image

A second item of information illustrates that despite the Telegram crypto push, resistance remains. Navigate to the “2024 Crypto Developer Report.” One interesting observation about Telegram and its “foundation’s” TONcoin is that it is not listed. Solana seems to be perking along. However, the TON developer outreach program lack magnitude to bump the needle in these data published by Electric Capital.

What happens if one views these two loosely related pieces of information together? Here are some ideas generated by the FOGINT team:

  1. Mr. Durov is not a “free” person, and he is making an effort to say, “Hey, we cooperate with law enforcement.”
  2. The November 2024 Telegram Foundation Gateway Conference was like a light show at a French chateau in the summer. There was what looked like big progress in partnerships, developer uptake, and financial performance. However, the Electric Capital report did not pay much attention.
  3. The TONcoin seems to be chugging along without much value movement. Hamsters in “kombat” may be excited. Actual uptake seems flat among developers in the Electric Capital sample.

Net net: Telegram is in a vulnerable position. Will Mr. Durov perceive himself as his next big thing in jeopardy? If so, he may become more problematic in 2025. A cornered ferret can be a quite dangerous beast.

Stephen E Arnold, December 23, 2024

FOGINT: The Telegram – Visa Tie Up

December 18, 2024

fog from gifer 8AC8 smallThis blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. No smart software was used.

This is Stephen E Arnold. Since the detainment of the Pavel Durov by French authorities, Telegram has ramped up its public disclosures about its crypto ambitions. In November 2024, Telegram linked itself publicly with Holders (a crypto services firm) and Visa, Inc. More information is available in a video is available on YouTube. Its title is “Visa: Building a Bridge between TON and Real World Use Cases.” It is at this url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhdXeybiG0I. The presenter is Nikola Plecas, who is identified as the senior director, global head of GTM & Product Commercialization, Visa Crypto. The “GTM” means “go to market.” In our lecture yesterday (December 11, 2024) for the CyberSocial Conference, we mentioned this tie up with crypto. By coincidence, the video was posted. We anticipate that this deal will ripen in 2025. Thank you.

Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2024, 716 am US

Telegram: Edging Forward in Crypto

December 12, 2024

animated-dinosaur-image-0049_thumbThis blog post flowed from the sluggish and infertile mind of a real live dinobaby. If there is art, smart software of some type was probably involved.

Telegram wants to be the one stop app for anonymous crypto tasks. While we applaud those efforts when they related to freedom fighting or undermining bad actors, the latter also uses them and we can’t abide by that. Telegram, however, plans to become the API for crypto communication says Cryptologia in, “DWF Labs’ Listing Bot Goes Live On Telegram.”

DWF Labs is a crypto enterprise capital firm and it is launching an itemizing Bot on Telegram. The Bot turns Telegram into a bitcoin feed, because it notifies users of changes in the ten main crypto exchanges: Binance, HTX, Gate.io, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, MEXC, Coinbase Alternate, UpBit, and Bithumb. Users can also watch foreign money pairs, launchpad bulletins, and spot and/or futures listings.

DWF Labs is on the forefront of alternative currency and financial options. It is a lucrative market:

“In a latest interview, Lingling Jiang, a Associate at DWF Labs, mentioned DWF Labs’ place on the forefront of delivering liquidity providers and forging alliances with conventional finance. By offering market-making assist and funding, Jiang stated, DWF Labs provides tasks the infrastructure needed to grasp of tokenized belongings. With the launch of the brand new Itemizing Bot, DWF Labs brings market information nearer to the retail consumer, particularly these on the Telegram (TON) community. Following the introduction of HOT, a non-custodial pockets on TON powered by Chain Signature, DWF Labs’ Itemizing Bot is one other welcome addition to the ecosystem, particularly within the mild of the latest announcement of HOT Labs, HERE Pockets and HAPI’s new joint crypto platform.”

What’s Telegram’s game for 2025? Spring Durov? Join hands with BRICS? Become the new Morgan Stanley? Father more babies?

Whitney Grace, December 12, 2024

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