Yuri Mitin: A Red Shark in Troubled Waters
Note: This collection of notes from my research for "The Telegram Labyrinth" identifies the defensive financial measures Pavel Durov has taken between May 2025 and December 2025. Most of the information originated in Russian social media; for example, online articles, Telegram messages, items in PCNews.ru, and VKontakte pages. I collected my notes and continue to sort and resort them. Remember, the statements in this essay are from my notes and should be viewed as working hypotheses. Verify before you trust any of my observations. These are speculations I captured as I was writing “The Telegram Labyrinth” and as I draft my 2026 lectures to cyber investigators. Keep the disclaimers in mind as you review this briefing document. This essay is based on public filings, press releases, and open‑source research; where I move beyond those documents, I try to label my opinions.
The Russian "Tony Robbins of Startups" spent years in the background of the Telegram, TONcoin, and TON Foundation story. In late 2025, he surfaced in the center of the froth of a quickly assembled NASDAQ vehicle anchored to Telegram. The success of this financial play depends on a softening crypto token's value, a dicey artificial intelligence strategy, and a watchful US SEC.
Flashback: Winter 2023
Moscow's radio personality and startup superstar stared out the tinted window of his limousine. Traffic crawled from Skolkovo's building at 143025, Moscow region, Odintsovsky district, Skolkovo, Novaya Street, 100.
Yuri Mitin was the Russian Tony Robbins of start ups. He was a media personality, had a speakers' bureau represent him, and a founding partner in Red Shark Ventures now renamed RSV Ventures.
Yuri registered RSV Ventures in Toronto, Ontario as a services firm, not a bank or a regulated investment company. “RSV” was neutral, plain vanilla; “Red Shark” sounded aggressive and a bit too Motherland‑coded for North American regulators and allocators. "Red Shark" suggested aggressiveness and maybe the Motherland. And "shark"? It was okay in Moscow because it shouted financial kills, blood in the water. Not right for the US. But he liked "Red Shark."
The next day in 2023, he said goodbye to his partners, Alexei Malteev, Mikhail Khomich, Michael Averbach, and Sergey Fradkov. He and RSV would operate from the Big Apple. He would find a way to tap into the US capital markets, serve his "international clients," and become rich. He would return to Moscow as the Red Shark, the Red Shark.
He would look for high-payoff opportunities. Yuri had connections. He was certified reliable because he had a Ph.D. and an MBA from Russia's most-prestigious institutions. He had dozens of start up successes under his belt. What he wanted was to be a winner in the US capital markets. He would not fail; he had never failed.
Yuri relocated to Manhattan. My notecards contained little about Yuri Mitin until late 2025. Social media comments and a few Telegram posts suggested that Yuri positioned himself as a TONcoin‑focused venture capital specialist. Was the shark just circling and waiting?
I tended to downplay the financial experimentation swirling within and around the TON Foundation; at that point, it looked more like flashy marketing than systemic risk. That judgment began to look naïve when the French judiciary put Durov in jail in August 2024 and the TON ecosystem’s governance and financing were stress‑tested in public.
When Pavel Durov says, "Telegram doesn't market," he is correct. The TON Foundation runs conferences, provides support to promising developers of Telegram applications, and pitches deals to potential partners.
But that changed when the French judiciary put him in jail in August 2024.
The arrest sparked change at the TON Foundation. In "The Telegram Labyrinth," I described in general the management musical chairs at the Foundation. The president left to found TON Ventures. Manny Stotz assumed the role of Foundation president, then left to set up TON Strategy Company. A fellow named Max Crown assumed the helm of the Foundation. And in September 2025, Yuri Mitin surfaced.
Last week, I sorted my notecards filled with snips, ideas, speculation, and factual items and took a few minutes to do some basic online research about Yuri Mitin in the last couple of months.
There was.
The Present: Winter 2026
Yuri was moving and moving fast. As an entity RSV Capital was responding to the crisis at Telegram and its TON Foundation. Did he see that Pavel Durov's announcement in October 2025 would create a financial opportunity, or was Yuri's furious swimming in financial waters the result of instructions from his partners? Were high-net worth individuals guiding him? Were Kremlin-linked institutions issuing instructions?
Whatever the reason, Yuri was involved in identifying people to help him set up AlphaTON Capital. The play involved buying a NASDAQ-listed company in financial trouble. The maneuver, kicked around in Skolkovo sessions for years, was simple in outline: Buy a distressed NASDAQ shell, rename it, and use its listing as a pre‑built on‑ramp to the U.S. capital markets.
In a span of about 90 days, a shell was purchased. Portage Biotech became AlphaTON Capital. A former NASDAQ manager, Enzo Villani, handled the deal. A president, Brittany Kaiser, was recruited. Andrei Grachev, owner of DWF MaaS in Dubai, UAE, signed a deal to be the market maker for the TONcoin and other financial transactions. Yuri tapped his contacts and began raising money. This was a Swanson microwave dinner company. Pull a package from the freezer, hit the start button, and chow down.
What could go wrong? Yuri had never failed. This play would not fail either. AlphaTON Capital would raise money, buy or rent computing resources for artificial intelligence processes. Then Yuri would make these resources available to Telegram's new Cocoon project. Yuri would earn a profit. Yuri could sell stakes in AlphaTON. Yuri could oversee funds used to purchase shares in AlphaTON Capital. Enzo handled the paperwork. AlphaTON Capital would conform to US SEC regulations. The cross jurisdictional set up of RSV Ventures and RSV Capital would be just another services firm working in the overheated AI market.
The need for speed was explainable. An opportunity arose. Yuri had to move fast. This was the American financial market. Speed matters. Pavel Durov's criminal trial in France was going to take place in 2026. Rumors suggested that Telegram itself faced a cash crunch. Unlike 2024 when Telegram allegedly posted a profit, 2025 was rumored to be losing money. When the financial report for Telegram 2025 came out, Telegram posted a loss of more than $200 million. Pavel Durov had the foresight to raise $500 million from Telegram bond sales. But Russia's "special operation" triggered sanctions. Pavel could not get his hands on his $500 million. The Russian National Settlement Depository could not release the Telegram funds. Liquidity crisis? Possibly.
Early in 2025, I had noted the fast-paced game of musical chairs at the TON Foundation. Now I had an inkling why the management was thrashing. Steve Yun left his role as president of the Foundation and set up a new company called The Open Network Virtual Machine Ventures aka TON Ventures. This outfit would be a VC investing in high-potential Telegram-centric applications. My notes captured the hiring of a German crypto specialist named Manny Stotz to take Steve Yun's place. Then early in 2025, Manny also quit the Foundation, and set up a new, separate company called TON Strategy Company. That firm would be a copy of the Michael Saylor crypto treasury method in his Strategy Company.
Yuri moved quickly. In under ninety days, the microwave meal was ready: a rebranded shell, a ticker, a story, and a channel to public capital.
Yuri's Report Card
How is AlphaTON Capital after several months of operation? I have pulled some interesting items from my notes. Let's look at some milestones. On the plus side of the ledger, AlphaTON Capital came into being, the stock is being traded on NASDAQ, and …and I don't think any of the major financial media have commented on the insider humor of the “ATON” ticker symbol. ATON was the name of a notorious Russian brokerage; using those four letters on NASDAQ is a bit like listing a company in Moscow under the ticker “CIA.”
Now let's look at the speed bumps Yuri must navigate:
First, the value of the TONcoin continued to dropped. The TONcoin, which is the lubrication for the financial machines, continued to drop in value. A TONcoin is valued at about $1.50, more than 60 percent since Pavel Durov, owner of Telegram, was charged with serious crimes. He awaits trial with the fines and prison term hanging like a thundercloud over the GOAT, the Telegram enterprise, and its distribute AI service. The risk to those who pumped money into AlphaTON Capital has spiked upwards. Yuri is a smart operator, value loss can be difficult to remediate.
Second, in early December 2025, The SEC issued a rebuke to AlphaTON Capital because the filing violated "Baby Shelf" rules (Instruction I.B.6 of Form S-3). These rules restrict companies with a public float under $75 million from selling more than one-third of their float in a 12-month period. The public float AlphaTON cited came to $420.69 million, a number that managed to mash together weed culture (“420”) and crypto‑bro meme numerology (“69”) in a single line‑item.
Third, another SEC nastygram arrived. An AlphaTON Capital press release issued on December 16, 2025 said that the company had a "historic" $30 million deal the U.S. defense firm Anduril Industries. The claim was immediately refuted by Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey, who publicly accused AlphaTON of lying and misusing Anduril’s trademarks to defraud investors. … AlphaTON issued a formal retraction on December 17, 2025, admitting that the company did not have a direct deal, but it was attempting to acquire "economic exposure" via a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) without Anduril’s consent. AlphaTON Capital’s credibility was --- how shall I phrase it? --- eroded, undermined, shredded. Pick one.
Fourth, on December 30, 2025, on the last day of the month, AlphaTON filed a Form 6-K disclosing a settlement agreement with DWF MaaS Limited (controlled by Andrei Grachev), paying him $15 million plus cash to terminate their Treasury Management Agreement. The clumsy move appears to have been intended to distance AlphaTON Capital from Andrei Grachev, a crypto market maker with some links to Russian capital sources, his partner Vladimir Demin, the Swiss citizens Marco and Remo Schweizer, and certain Russian entities like the Kremlin-linked RACIB, a crypto and AI “association.” The timing and terms suggest another goal; that is, distancing AlphaTON from a controversial crypto market maker with ties to Russian‑linked capital networks. Was that the motive or were there other reasons for the expensive divorce?
Questions for 2026?
Yuri, the fellow who does not fail, has an opportunity to reverse his winning streak. Among the questions I want to try to answer or at least understand better are:
Who conceived the AlphaTON Capital operation? Was it Yuri, RSV, or an external sponsor?
How will the US SEC respond to the AlphaTON Capital operation? Will it sit back and monitor another small-cap issuer or as a test case for TON-linked, cross-border structures?
Has cutting ties with Andrei Grachev and the market making of DWF MaaS removed doubts about the solidity of AlphaTON Capital's financial approach?
How will AlphaTON Capital regain reputational shine after the problematic Anduril falsehood?
Will PR plays to buttress the privacy and security of the Telegram Cocoon distributed and decentralized approach to AI mining have any impact as Pavel Durov's trial looms and the AI industry's turmoil increases?
And, of course, the big question, "Will Yuri, the Russian Tony Robbins, continue to succeed?" On the other hand, "Will the red shark fail?"
Stephen E Arnold, February 1, 2026