Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says he's held a few hundred million dollars in his 'bank account or in bitcoin' for 10 years

During an interview with Tucker Carlson aired late Tuesday, Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov said he has held a few hundred million dollars in fiat or bitcoin for the last 10 years.

Responding to a question about the encrypted messaging platform not accepting venture capital money, Durov said the firm wanted to remain independent, and it was never about the money. “I have had a few hundred million dollars in my bank account or in bitcoin since 10 years ago, and I don't do anything with it. I don't own any real estate, jets or yachts. I don't think this lifestyle is for me. I like to focus on what we are doing with Telegram.”

Durov did not specify how much of that figure he held in bitcoin compared to his bank account balance. As of July 2023, the Telegram CEO was reported to be holding  $17.5 billion  in cryptocurrency.

“For me, I would rather make decisions that would influence how a billion people communicate rather than choosing the color of seats in the house that only I and my relatives from probably a bunch of my friends will see,” he added.

However, Durov clarified that Telegram did take some outside money following a bond issuance three years ago, and before that, it had a cryptocurrency project that also raised funds. But when it came to the company’s equity, Durov and his fellow co-founder and brother Nikolai didn’t give up ownership, arguing it allowed them to move faster and be more efficient.

Telegram initially developed the Telegram Open Network, as it was then known, in 2017, subsequently raising $1.7 billion in a private sale before abandoning the project following SEC investigations. In 2022, open-source developers saved and rebranded the blockchain as The Open Network with a functional mainnet.

Durov explained that the idea for Telegram came when the pair were still based in Russia, working on their social networking platform VK. “We had this very stressful situation where armed police would come to my house and try to break in because I refused to take down opposition groups [using VK]. I wanted to tell my brother what's going on to coordinate whatever we want to do [but] I realized there is no secure means of communication. Every tool to communicate I could use was not really secure, not encrypted — it was not safe to use them,” Durov said.

“I thought it could be a good idea to actually come up with a decently encrypted messaging app. My brother, being the genius that he is, was able to create this encryption standard that we're using up until this day with minor changes.”

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An expert in cryptography with two PhDs in mathematics, Nikolai designed the messaging app’s encryption, while Pavel focused on the user interface. Telegram has since attracted nearly 900 million users without having to spend anything on advertisements, Durov said.

Crypto hardware wallet-like communication devices to protect privacy

Carlson suggested that the private exchange of information was becoming more difficult amid increased government surveillance of technology, asking if there was a way to protect privacy in the future.

Providing an example from his own experience, Durov claimed the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation previously attempted to persuade a Telegram engineer to install backdoors for surveillance purposes.

However, Durov said he was an optimist, predicting that new secure hardware communication devices will be created, similar to the hardware wallets to store cryptocurrency now. “Maybe we'll have secure communication devices to send messages or do voice calls, it's possible.”

In February, Telegram introduced an ad revenue-sharing program with channel owners using Toncoin in nearly 100 countries. Earlier this month, Telegram then enabled Toncoin payments for in-platform ad purchases.