The non-profit powering Telegram’s blockchain technology, the TON Foundation, will name Maximilian Crown as its new CEO Thursday, NYNext has learned.
The move is a sign of TON’s intent to expand its relationship with Telegram, sources told NYNext.
Crown’s hiring, sources explain, is a sign that TON’s blockchain technology is full-speed ahead.
Telegram has become a so-called “Super App” similar to a product like China’s WeChat, because it has grown to include an ecosystem allowing users access to additional features like games, shopping, and payments.
Crown will head the non-profit The Open Network (TON) foundation, also known as the Open Network, which has an exclusive deal to power the technology behind the app.
The exec — who was the longtime CFO and COO at crypto trading platform MoonPay, valued at $3.4 billion — will help expand TON’s presence in payments.
Crown has, through his work with MoonPay, proven his skills at navigating complicated legal landscapes by receiving approval to operate in multiple European countries as well as the US, sources add.
Telegram Open Network has a rocky history. After Telegram launched in 2013, Pavel and Nikolai Durovcreated theblockchain technology that eventually became theTelegram Open Network, independent from Telegram —and planned to launch a cryptocurrency called Gram (later Toncoin).
They raised $1.7 billion in 2018 to fund the launch of the coin to support Telegram, but fell afoul of the SEC in the US. The government sued TON saying it had not properly registered its Gram currency for sale, and made them give back $1.2 billion in funding and pay a $18.5 million civil penalty in 2020.
Undeterred, Telegram let the open-source community take over development of TON and eventually they were able to integrate its tech into the Telegram app again and it now runs the apps shopping, payments, and games.
TON itself has 41 million active accounts and 121 million Toncoin holders, including major institutions like Sequoia Capital and Benchmark.
Toncoin tracks the value of Telegram to an extent — when Durov was arrested it dropped more than 15% (though it has surged nearly 25% more recently). French authorities’ actions sparked worries Telegram might reduce its blockchain initiatives to satisfy regulators.
European authorities, particularly in France, have cracked down hard on apps like Telegram, which they allege enable highly illegal activities such a human trafficking and drug dealing due to lax moderation.
A spokesperson for Telegram stated that, “Since its inception, the company has consistently removed content that violates its terms of service. Each day, Telegram takes down millions of harmful posts and channels. Moderation is handled by a team of over a thousand professionals, supported by the company’s proprietary AI and machine learning tools.”
Alongside Signal, Telegram has become a leading messaging app for billions of users looking for a secure and encrypted text service where messages disappear after a certain time. Its encryption ensures privacy so almost no details about who a user is messaging and what they’re talking about can be accessed by snooping authorities.
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Those features have won the support of free speech activists, but were also enough for the French government to arrest Russian-born Telegram founder Durov. He was jailed for 96 hours last August for allegedly allowing Telegram to be used for criminal activities, the first app founder to be charged because of content on their platform.
They claimed Telegram had inadequate content moderation and did not cooperate fully enough with law enforcement. While Durov was eventually freed and allowed to leave France, where he is a citizen, he still faces charges in the country for alleged involvement in supporting alleged criminal activity. The case is ongoing.
Durovandfreespeechadvocates,includingElonMusk,have strongly condemned thearrest,warninggovernmentaccess toapps — evenfornationalsecurity — is an infringement on individual rights and opens the gates to further surveillance of private individuals.
In a post on X earlier this week Durov warned that lawmakers in France keep pushing to let a government backdoor access Telegram messages.
“No country is immune to the slow erosion of freedoms. Every day, those freedoms come under attack — and every day we must defend them,” Durov wrote.
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