Everyone knows him as the CEO of Telegram💎
But few people know why he's called the "Russian Mark Zuckerberg"
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Recently, Pavel Durov has been gaining massive popularity in the crypto spaceThis is thanks to the success of Telegram and the TON blockchainBut why he’s called the "Russian Mark Zuckerbe
Recently, Pavel Durov has been gaining massive popularity in the crypto space
This is thanks to the success of Telegram and the TON blockchain
But why he’s called the "Russian Mark Zuckerberg"?
At the age of 21, Pavel, together with his brother, founded a website that was dubbed the "Russian Facebook"
However, they didn’t like that comparison because their site was much better than Facebook
On October 10, 2006, the most popular social network in Russian-speaking countries, "VKontakte," was born
Within just a year, by 2007, VKontakte had over 3 million users
Due to the platform’s popularity and Pavel’s neutral stance on politics, he began facing problems with the Russian authorities
VKontakte was not only popular among ordinary users but also with various political groups, including opposition parties
During the protests in 2011, Russian authorities approached Pavel.
They requested that his social network combat the opposition by introducing censorship, but Durov refused.
As a result, OMON (special police forces) paid a visit to his apartment.
After repeated requests from the government to provide personal information of users and Durov’s continued refusal, he faced a choice:
Submit to the system or leave the country.
He chose the latter, stepping down as CEO.
Later, VK completely fell into the hands of a company aligned with the government.
This is how Telegram came to be
In August 2013, the first Telegram client was launched, using encryption technology developed by Nikolai Durov
The idea for its creation arose back in 2011 when Pavel realized he didn’t have a secure way to communicate with his loved ones and wrote to his brother Nikolai about it.
Interestingly, $0 was spent on Telegram's advertising.
By 2024, the messenger has nearly a billion users.
However, while promoting the new messenger, Durov often "took shots" at competing products.
He called out WhatsApp for being insecure and outright labeled it as a surveillance tool.
While traveling the world in search of a new headquarters, Durov arrived in America.
But his troubles with the authorities didn’t end there.
They once again demanded user data, specifically the data of Trump’s uprising supporters.
And once again, it didn’t happen because the core idea of Telegram is freedom and security.
This led Durov to Dubai, where he eventually settled.
He believes that the country perfectly aligns with Telegram’s and his ideals.
An interesting fact is that Durov owns no real estate or assets due to his love for freedom.
Telegram Open Network
In 2018, Pavel Durov came up with a solution for monetizing Telegram — TON.
It was supposed to be a payment system with its own blockchain and cryptocurrency called GRAM.
The idea seemed brilliant since Durov already had a strong name and reputation by that time.
But the American regulator, SEC, intervened, determining that the developing token was an illegal security.
In May 2020, Durov announced that the TON project was shutting down, and anyone claiming to be TON developers were frauds.
However, in the summer of 2023, Telegram introduced the ability to accept payments in cryptocurrency, including TONcoin, Bitcoin, and the stablecoin Tether (USDT)
And now, the most important part, 100 children (did you think it was just a hook?)
Recently, in his channel, Pavel revealed that he has become the biological father of over 100 children.
Is Durov creating new Telegram users this way, or did he create Telegram for them so they could find each other more easily?
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