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For the first time since its launch, Telegram is turning a profit. Pavel Durov, the app’s elusive founder and CEO, announced on X that the messaging platform has paid off a “meaningful share” of its massive $2 billion debt.

Telegram, once an industry mystery for its inability to generate income, now boasts over $1 billion in revenue for 2024 and has $500 million in cash reserves, not even counting its crypto holdings. This financial win places Telegram in a new league. The app now has over 900 million active users worldwide.

The financial turnaround and a billionaire under fire

Telegram’s new financial status doesn’t mean the heat is off though. French prosecutors charged Pavel earlier this year, accusing him of enabling crimes on his platform, including the distribution of child sexual abuse material.

The allegations forced Pavel to stay in France during the investigation, a surprising twist for a man who’s made freedom his brand. “We’re making Telegram stronger, financially and technically,” Pavel said in his post, brushing aside his legal troubles.

But his troubles are stacking up fast. Governments worldwide have accused Telegram of being a hotbed for illegal activities and misinformation. In Moldova, authorities say Telegram was the backbone for a Russia-backed plan to destabilize the country.

In Spain, conspiracy theories about deadly floods spread unchecked, falsely claiming the storm was engineered to ruin crops. More than 150 people died, but on Telegram, the real tragedy got buried under fake headlines.

In the U.S., the situation is just as chaotic. White supremacist groups have turned Telegram into their recruitment hub, posing as “men-only fight clubs” while spreading racist conspiracies.

Civil rights groups and researchers say these extremists are thriving because Telegram doesn’t filter or push content like Facebook or TikTok. Instead, users freely cross-post content from one channel to another, creating a domino effect of disinformation.

This isn’t just about content. Encryption—or the lack of it—has become a sticking point. Unlike WhatsApp or Signal, which offer end-to-end encryption by default, Telegram only protects messages in “secret chats.” Regular chats? Not so much.

Telegram’s encryption protocol is also proprietary, which means security experts can’t even verify if it works as advertised.

Extremism, propaganda, and the Telegram machine

Telegram’s flexibility is both its strength and its Achilles’ heel. Unlike platforms that curate content based on user activity, Telegram keeps things wide open. Want to promote your far-right manifesto? No problem. Pro-Russian propaganda? There’s a channel for that too.

Russian intelligence officers have reportedly used the platform to recruit criminals for sabotage missions across Europe. Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and ordinary Ukrainians rely on Telegram to share updates about the war.

The app has also become a go-to for conspiracy theorists. Trump supporters are finding themselves lured into more extreme political spaces through interconnected channels.

Law enforcement agencies aren’t having an easy time dealing with Telegram. Unlike Meta, which owns Facebook and WhatsApp and is bound by U.S. law, Telegram operates from Dubai, far out of reach for most governments.

In 2018, the Kremlin tried to ban the app outright, only to fail spectacularly and lift the ban two years later. Russia claimed Pavel had agreed to fight extremism on the platform, but the reality remains murky.

The French legal case against Pavel has triggered some policy changes. Telegram now complies with legal requests for user IP addresses and phone numbers, a big change from its earlier refusal to cooperate with authorities. The company also uses AI tools and moderators to identify and hide problematic content.

How Telegram makes money

Telegram’s monetization efforts began in 2020, with Pavel announcing plans to end the platform’s zero-revenue streak. Telegram Premium, launched in 2022, charges users for faster downloads, larger file uploads, and other perks.

The platform also introduced an ad-revenue sharing model for content creators, allowing them to keep 50% of the earnings from ads displayed on their channels. Even with these new revenue streams, much of Telegram’s funding has come straight from the founders.

Telegram’s origin story is just as intriguing as its present. Pavel and his brother Nikolai launched the app after leaving Russia in 2014. Their previous project, VKontakte, Russia’s biggest social network, had been targeted by Kremlin-linked billionaires.

Nikolai developed Telegram’s data transfer systems, while Pavel poured his resources into making it an alternative to Silicon Valley’s giants.

A crypto industry jewel

Meanwhile, Telegram has doubled down on crypto, turning it into a core part of its ecosystem. And it’s paying off big time. The app’s crypto story started with a bang — the Telegram Open Network (TON).

Back in 2018, Pavel Durov wanted to create a blockchain that could handle transactions faster than anything else out there. It was ambitious, maybe too ambitious, because the U.S. SEC came down hard, shutting down the project’s $1.7 billion ICO.

Fast forward to 2024, and crypto is a money machine for Telegram. The company made over $353 million from crypto transactions this year alone.

And their crypto holdings have surged to $1.3 billion, up from $400 million just last year. Deals like the one with Toncoin, where Telegram scored $225 million for exclusive ad rights, show just how central crypto is to their strategy.

Telegram’s crypto features are also driving adoption, especially in regions like Africa, where young people are turning to crypto to escape broken financial systems. The app has become the go-to place for buying, selling, and talking crypto.

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