μ-Note: Max Crown Markets Telegram
The president of the TON Foundation is a fellow named Max Crown. He is enthusiastic, confident, and optimistic about Telegram. You can watch him project confidence about the Telegram ecosystem in a one minute video snip posted to X.com (aka Twitter). You will need to have a Twitter account to view the snippet. Click here for the source document
Image is from the Cryptonews interview in February 2026.
He made an interesting assertion. He said, “Telegram Messenger has about one billion users.” He added, “We will reach 1.3 billion users in about three years.” He stated:
What makes Telegram so unique is that it’s open, permissionless and a launchpad to a lot of digital economies and digital creation. Crypto used to feel complicated. Now it feels natural, part of how we connect and exchange value.”
Cryptonews published extracts from an interview with Mr. Crown. Click here for the source document “TON’s Blueprint for Mass Adoption: Inside Telegram’s Web 3 Play” provides additional information about how Mr. Crown sees the future of the messaging service, the Telegram platform, and the benefits of the “easy to use” and “permissionless” system.
I noted these comments.
First, Telegram’s advantage is, according to Mr. Crown:
Most blockchains were built for crypto-native experimentation first and only later tried to retrofit themselves into consumer platforms,” he said. “TON took the opposite approach. From its inception, TON was engineered for internet-scale usage — prioritizing fast finality, low latency and predictable costs. That technical foundation. The developer culture optimized for usability and speed rather than complexity or financial engineering,” he said. “Applications on TON feel much closer to mainstream mobile apps than traditional Web3 products — intuitive, social and instant.
Mr. Crown did not mention the slowdowns experienced in Russia. That country has been pushing users to MAX, a state-approved service. Telegram does not release the number of current users in Russia or Russia-aligned nations. My understanding, based on our research for my new book “The Telegram Labyrinth,” is that 30 to 40 percent of Telegram’s users are concentrated in these countries. Therefore, the expansion of Telegram’s user base is going to be difficult in Russia and its fellow travelers’ countries. The three years for 500 million new users will take a significant marketing effort. Considering the fact that Telegram is more than a decade old and competition in messaging exists with new players surfacing, Telegram’s marketing agency (the TON Foundation) has its work cut out for itself.
Second, the Cryptonews article offers this snippet from its talk with Max Crown:
The TON wallet lives inside Telegram,” Crown explains. “Payments, assets and interactions feel like features of the app — not separate crypto workflows. In many cases, users don’t even realize they’ve onboarded to crypto at all. They’re just chatting, gifting or paying.
Telegram had a good idea in 2013. However, The company’s approach to providing access to crypto has spawned one important impact. Not surprisingly, Mr. Crown does not highlight the fact that the founder Pavel Durov is under travel restrictions imposed by the French judiciary. Mr. Durov is alleged to have committed more than one dozen serious offenses. The outcome of the criminal trial has created uncertainty about his future status. Furthermore, Mr. Crown does not mention that Telegram reported a net loss in 2025 of more than $200 million. Finally, the new initiatives related to Telegram and the TON Foundation have faced financial headwinds. Two publicly traded companies linked to the TON Foundation’s TONcoin find themselves whipped by management missteps and the persistent value of the TONcoin itself.
Finally, the interview presents this statement:
“TON is a decentralized blockchain — it’s a technology layer, not a regulated financial intermediary,” he said. To support compliant activity, TON works with blockchain intelligence firms such as TRM Labs, Elliptic and Chainalysis, enabling developers to meet sanctions screening and transaction monitoring requirements where necessary. “The goal is to keep the base layer open and neutral,” Crown said, “while enabling compliant products at the application layer.”
Are the French allegations levied against Pavel Durov valid? If Mr. Crown’s statements are accurate, Pavel Durov and by extension its open and neutral stance are not guilty. The answer will depend on the outcome of the trial which may be held in 2026 or 2027.
Net net: The TON Foundation and Mr. Crown are in marketing mode. The task is to replace lost Russian users due to state imposed friction and attract new users in a highly competitive market. Mr. Crown must do this when crypto value remains under pressure. Marketing is now the name of the game.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2025