Messaging app Telegram is currently front page news following the arrest in France of its CEO Pavel Durov. Last week the French authorities charged him with allegedly enabling illegal transactions on the platform, including child pornography and money laundering. On Friday the Financial Times (FT) published an article showoing the company’s dependency on cryptocurrency revenues. We also highlight a couple of oddities.
During 2023 Telegram had $342 million in revenues, made an operating loss of $108 million and a bigger loss of $259 million after hefty finance costs – the company has raised more than $2.3 billion in convertible bonds. However, an $86 million profit in revaluing digital assets enabled the reduction of that loss.
Telegram developed the TON blockchain in 2019 and raised $1.7 billion in an ICO. After the SEC sued the company over the ICO, Telegram settled, returning $1.2 billion of the funds and paying a $18.5 million penalty. The network subsequently launched as the open source TON network, run by a foundation independent from Telegram and without an ICO.
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