The editorial staff of PaySpace Magazine made a selection describing the main projects of the businessman
Pavel Durov: the main projects of the young entrepreneur.
Pavel Durov is one of the most famous entrepreneurs of our time, who made a billion dollar fortune by developing his own technology projects. In 2018, the founder of Telegram and VKontakte was ranked 25th in the ranking of the "Most Influential People Under 40" by the American business magazine Fortune. Today, in honor of Durov's birthday, the PaySpace Magazine editors made a selection describing the main projects implemented by the Russian businessman and their payment component.
Durov was the CEO of VKontakte from 2006 to 2014.
First of all, Durov is known as the creator of the social network VKontakte, which was launched in 2006 and a year later overtook another popular Russian social network Odnoklassniki, the Chinese Xiaonei, and caught up with the German platform StudiVZ. In 2008, the network's audience was over 20 million registered users. In the same year, the site was monetized with the addition of advertising banners.
In addition to creating profiles, communities and messaging, the social network also introduced the ability to download audio and video files with free access to them.
In April 2010, VKontakte launched its own payment system. It was assumed that the new product would become a serious competitor for Yandex.Money and Webmoney. Among the advantages of the VKontakte payment system is the absence of a commission for users to pay for purchases in online stores and the availability of discounts from 2% on goods of some retailers. A few months after the launch, VKontakte introduced the Wish Lists service. He made it possible for the user's friends to fully or partially pay for his desires directly on the VKontakte page.
The payment system also made it possible to replenish the ruble account using bank cards (Mastercard and Visa with a commission of up to 1.9%), payment terminals (Unikassa, Telepay, Cashier.Net, Novoplat, Cityinfo, Cashcom, etc.), payment systems ( WebMoney with 3% commission, QIWI. No commission-free wallet, RBK Money, Moneta.ru, etc.) and by SMS. The system also supported cashless payments for legal entities. However, in the end, the project lasted a little over a year - the reason for the closure was changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation. Before the final freeze of the system, it was possible to spend the remaining funds in online stores or transfer them to the advertising budget on VKontakte. At the end of June 2018, after Durov left, the social network relaunched the VK Pay payment system in cooperation with Gazprombank.
In addition to free access to information, Durov also defended the absence of censorship and the protection of personal data of users of his social network. As a result, for the opportunity to listen to and view free music tracks and videos, the entrepreneur more than once had to face claims from content owners for non-compliance with copyright.
In 2011, Durov was invited to the prosecutor's office because of his refusal to block opposition communities and meetings on the resource that appeared after protests against falsification of the election results to the State Duma. Later, special forces came to his apartment. According to the entrepreneur, it was at this moment that he came up with the idea to create Telegram in order to have a secure communication channel.
In 2014, after the sale of his share of shares, Durov signs a letter of resignation from the post of general director of the company. On his personal page on VKontakte, he said that the social network is being taken over by representatives of the pro-government camp - businessmen Igor Sechin (Rosneft) and Alisher Usmanov (Mail.ru Group). After Durov left, the social network changed the principles of its creator, starting to actively cooperate with the Russian authorities.
Probably, in Russian conditions, something like this was inevitable, but I am glad that we held out for seven and a half years.
Pavel Durov
The number of Telegram users reached 200 million by 2018.
In 2013, Durov launched his new project Telegram, a cross-platform messenger that allows you to exchange messages and media files in different formats. The service has a mobile and desktop version and is available for users of iOS (8.0 and higher), Android (4.1 and higher), Windows and Linux. In April 2020, Telegram reached 400 million active users, doubling their number in just two years.
Durov is not only the founder, but also the main sponsor of Telegram, annually making millions of investments in the project. At the same time, the entrepreneur has repeatedly emphasized that the messenger will remain free, but in the event of a lack of funding , some paid functions may appear in it .
Among the benefits of Telegram:
PaySpace Magazine also made a selection of 11 chatbots for solving financial issues, as well as 40 bots related to finance, shopping and leisure, available on Telegram.
Due to Telegram's policy regarding censorship and privacy of user data, the messenger was blocked in China, Iran and Russia (the ban was in effect until 2020). So, in 2017, the FSB of Russia announced that the terrorists used Telegram when preparing a terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro, but the management of the messenger refused to transfer the keys to the special services to decrypt Telegram correspondence.
Privacy is ultimately more important than our fear of bad things like terrorism. ISIS will always find other ways to communicate
Pavel Durov
The company has also repeatedly stressed that it opposes restrictions on freedom of speech.
If criticism of the government is illegal in a country, Telegram will not become part of such politically motivated censorship. This goes against the principles of our founders. While we block terrorist (e.g. ISIS-related) bots and channels, we will not block anyone who peacefully expresses alternative views
Telegram
Nevertheless, at the end of August 2018, the messenger updated its privacy policy page. Now the company can transfer IP addresses and phone numbers of individual users to the Russian special services. However, as noted by the messenger, this is possible only with a court permission, which confirms the involvement of a certain person in terrorism.
A year later, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released data that terrorist organizations are receiving funding through Telegram using cryptocurrencies. It is worth noting that in addition to Telegram, criminal groups also use other communication channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Skype and WhatsApp.
Among the recent scandals is Durov's statement that Apple demanded to block three channels that specialize in de-anonymizing Belarusian law enforcement officers involved in dispersing peaceful protests. Media later reported that the company denied the accusation. Apple confirmed that they did contact the messenger team, but only demanded to delete specific posts that disclose someone's data without the consent of these people, as this violates the AppStore rules.
Pavel Durov at a press conference.
Telegram's huge user base is a great start for launching new projects. One of these is the Telegram Open Network (TON), a now defunct darknet platform with full-featured services from payments to file storage and applications.
As reported by TechCrunch, Durov was planning to launch a completely new blockchain project , using Telegram's multi-million user base to massively introduce cryptocurrency. Thus, the newspaper noted, the company wanted to launch a decentralized Internet and a new Ethereum - its own Gram tokens and the Grams Wallet crypto wallet.
At the beginning of 2018, the blockchain startup Telegram raised $ 1.7 billion during the ICO.The list of investors included such companies as Benchmark, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. However, more than a year later - in October 2019 - the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Telegram of illegally holding an ICO. Due to litigation, the company had to postpone the launch of the blockchain platform twice . As a result, investors and SEC specialists began to question the successful implementation of the project - in May 2020, Durov confirmed their fears, first announcing the closure of TON, and later on returning the money to investors.
Gram is Durov's ambitious project to create an alternative currency.
At the end of August 2019, the media got information about the timing of the launch of the Telegram Open Network cryptocurrency - Gram. As foreign media reported, the company informed investors about plans to send out the first batches of tokens in September and October 2019. Otherwise, Telegram was obliged to return the money to them, which, in fact, happened in the summer of 2020.
The company also planned to make Gram digital wallets available to the messenger's multimillion-dollar audience. Like Facebook, which in the summer of 2019 announced its own cryptocurrency Libra (by the way, the social network also faced pressure from regulators and later reformatted the project from digital money into a payment system), Telegram also wanted to use Gram as an alternative currency that would allow transfers to be made throughout the world. However, the project was canceled even before its release along with the closure of the TON platform.
Pavel Durov: the main projects of the young entrepreneur.
Pavel Durov is one of the most famous entrepreneurs of our time, who made a billion dollar fortune by developing his own technology projects. In 2018, the founder of Telegram and VKontakte was ranked 25th in the ranking of the "Most Influential People Under 40" by the American business magazine Fortune. Today, in honor of Durov's birthday, the PaySpace Magazine editors made a selection describing the main projects implemented by the Russian businessman and their payment component.
VKontakte is a social network created for communication and free exchange of information
Durov was the CEO of VKontakte from 2006 to 2014.
First of all, Durov is known as the creator of the social network VKontakte, which was launched in 2006 and a year later overtook another popular Russian social network Odnoklassniki, the Chinese Xiaonei, and caught up with the German platform StudiVZ. In 2008, the network's audience was over 20 million registered users. In the same year, the site was monetized with the addition of advertising banners.
In addition to creating profiles, communities and messaging, the social network also introduced the ability to download audio and video files with free access to them.
In April 2010, VKontakte launched its own payment system. It was assumed that the new product would become a serious competitor for Yandex.Money and Webmoney. Among the advantages of the VKontakte payment system is the absence of a commission for users to pay for purchases in online stores and the availability of discounts from 2% on goods of some retailers. A few months after the launch, VKontakte introduced the Wish Lists service. He made it possible for the user's friends to fully or partially pay for his desires directly on the VKontakte page.
The payment system also made it possible to replenish the ruble account using bank cards (Mastercard and Visa with a commission of up to 1.9%), payment terminals (Unikassa, Telepay, Cashier.Net, Novoplat, Cityinfo, Cashcom, etc.), payment systems ( WebMoney with 3% commission, QIWI. No commission-free wallet, RBK Money, Moneta.ru, etc.) and by SMS. The system also supported cashless payments for legal entities. However, in the end, the project lasted a little over a year - the reason for the closure was changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation. Before the final freeze of the system, it was possible to spend the remaining funds in online stores or transfer them to the advertising budget on VKontakte. At the end of June 2018, after Durov left, the social network relaunched the VK Pay payment system in cooperation with Gazprombank.
In addition to free access to information, Durov also defended the absence of censorship and the protection of personal data of users of his social network. As a result, for the opportunity to listen to and view free music tracks and videos, the entrepreneur more than once had to face claims from content owners for non-compliance with copyright.
In 2011, Durov was invited to the prosecutor's office because of his refusal to block opposition communities and meetings on the resource that appeared after protests against falsification of the election results to the State Duma. Later, special forces came to his apartment. According to the entrepreneur, it was at this moment that he came up with the idea to create Telegram in order to have a secure communication channel.
In 2014, after the sale of his share of shares, Durov signs a letter of resignation from the post of general director of the company. On his personal page on VKontakte, he said that the social network is being taken over by representatives of the pro-government camp - businessmen Igor Sechin (Rosneft) and Alisher Usmanov (Mail.ru Group). After Durov left, the social network changed the principles of its creator, starting to actively cooperate with the Russian authorities.
Probably, in Russian conditions, something like this was inevitable, but I am glad that we held out for seven and a half years.
Pavel Durov
Telegram is a secure messenger for communication, work and file sharing
The number of Telegram users reached 200 million by 2018.
In 2013, Durov launched his new project Telegram, a cross-platform messenger that allows you to exchange messages and media files in different formats. The service has a mobile and desktop version and is available for users of iOS (8.0 and higher), Android (4.1 and higher), Windows and Linux. In April 2020, Telegram reached 400 million active users, doubling their number in just two years.
Durov is not only the founder, but also the main sponsor of Telegram, annually making millions of investments in the project. At the same time, the entrepreneur has repeatedly emphasized that the messenger will remain free, but in the event of a lack of funding , some paid functions may appear in it .
Among the benefits of Telegram:
- the ability to receive messages, being logged in on several devices at once through the use of cloud technologies and complex synchronization;
- the ability to make audio and video calls;
- the ability to exchange an unlimited number of photos, videos and files (doc, zip, mp3, etc.) with a maximum volume of each up to 1.5 GB - while the messenger allows you to store all this data in the cloud;
- the presence of the "Anonymity" function, thanks to which administrators can publish messages hidden on behalf of the public;
- recording and sending audio and video files, the presence of a full-fledged photo editor and functions for creating GIF files;
- the ability to maintain channels (microblogging);
- speed of work and protection of user data due to the use of several data centers and the encryption technology of MTProto correspondence, developed by Pavel's brother, Nikolai Durov;
- the presence of an open API allows third-party developers to create their own applications for Telegram, and the Bot API - specialized tools for Telegram with the integration of any services and even accepting payments from users around the world.
PaySpace Magazine also made a selection of 11 chatbots for solving financial issues, as well as 40 bots related to finance, shopping and leisure, available on Telegram.
Due to Telegram's policy regarding censorship and privacy of user data, the messenger was blocked in China, Iran and Russia (the ban was in effect until 2020). So, in 2017, the FSB of Russia announced that the terrorists used Telegram when preparing a terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro, but the management of the messenger refused to transfer the keys to the special services to decrypt Telegram correspondence.
Privacy is ultimately more important than our fear of bad things like terrorism. ISIS will always find other ways to communicate
Pavel Durov
The company has also repeatedly stressed that it opposes restrictions on freedom of speech.
If criticism of the government is illegal in a country, Telegram will not become part of such politically motivated censorship. This goes against the principles of our founders. While we block terrorist (e.g. ISIS-related) bots and channels, we will not block anyone who peacefully expresses alternative views
Telegram
Nevertheless, at the end of August 2018, the messenger updated its privacy policy page. Now the company can transfer IP addresses and phone numbers of individual users to the Russian special services. However, as noted by the messenger, this is possible only with a court permission, which confirms the involvement of a certain person in terrorism.
A year later, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released data that terrorist organizations are receiving funding through Telegram using cryptocurrencies. It is worth noting that in addition to Telegram, criminal groups also use other communication channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Skype and WhatsApp.
Among the recent scandals is Durov's statement that Apple demanded to block three channels that specialize in de-anonymizing Belarusian law enforcement officers involved in dispersing peaceful protests. Media later reported that the company denied the accusation. Apple confirmed that they did contact the messenger team, but only demanded to delete specific posts that disclose someone's data without the consent of these people, as this violates the AppStore rules.
TON is a multifunctional darknet platform with its own cryptocurrency
Pavel Durov at a press conference.
Telegram's huge user base is a great start for launching new projects. One of these is the Telegram Open Network (TON), a now defunct darknet platform with full-featured services from payments to file storage and applications.
As reported by TechCrunch, Durov was planning to launch a completely new blockchain project , using Telegram's multi-million user base to massively introduce cryptocurrency. Thus, the newspaper noted, the company wanted to launch a decentralized Internet and a new Ethereum - its own Gram tokens and the Grams Wallet crypto wallet.
At the beginning of 2018, the blockchain startup Telegram raised $ 1.7 billion during the ICO.The list of investors included such companies as Benchmark, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. However, more than a year later - in October 2019 - the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Telegram of illegally holding an ICO. Due to litigation, the company had to postpone the launch of the blockchain platform twice . As a result, investors and SEC specialists began to question the successful implementation of the project - in May 2020, Durov confirmed their fears, first announcing the closure of TON, and later on returning the money to investors.
Gram - Telegram cryptocurrency project
Gram is Durov's ambitious project to create an alternative currency.
At the end of August 2019, the media got information about the timing of the launch of the Telegram Open Network cryptocurrency - Gram. As foreign media reported, the company informed investors about plans to send out the first batches of tokens in September and October 2019. Otherwise, Telegram was obliged to return the money to them, which, in fact, happened in the summer of 2020.
The company also planned to make Gram digital wallets available to the messenger's multimillion-dollar audience. Like Facebook, which in the summer of 2019 announced its own cryptocurrency Libra (by the way, the social network also faced pressure from regulators and later reformatted the project from digital money into a payment system), Telegram also wanted to use Gram as an alternative currency that would allow transfers to be made throughout the world. However, the project was canceled even before its release along with the closure of the TON platform.
