Did you know how much profit has Pavel Durov made on Bitcoin investments, and what is up with cryptocommunity suddenly moving to Telegram app?
Here’s the most interesting questions: how many Bitcoins are in Pavel Durov’s possession, and did he really become a bitcoin-millionaire? Somewhere between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, Durov bought 2000 Bitcoins at a price of $750. This way, his investments in the first cryptocurrency equal to $1.5 mln.
Nowadays, Pavel Durov’s Bitcoins cost more than $17 mln. Regardless, he refuses to break up with the cryptocurrency and continues to hold the assets. In this regard, Durov is a true follower of the HODL strategy, he even calls Bitcoin a “digital gold”. After all, one can track his periods of Bitcoin purchases: in January of 2015, his coins have fallen in price down to $400 000, basically depreciating more than three times. The fact that Pavel didn’t sell the cryptocurrency at its all-time high in December of 2017 (when two thousand bitcoins cost two million dollars) can be indirectly proven by his offer to pay out Bitcoin grants to administrators of VPN services, the ones that help the citizens of Russia to access the Telegram messenger, despite the futile Roskomnadzor’s attempts to block the application.
Cryptocommunity and Telegram
Let’s talk about why the cryptocommunity has chosen Telegram as their primary messenger. As Pavel puts it, it doesn’t matter how many messengers (apart from Telegram) are out there, if they all suck. Not only the application itself drew the audience, but the personal values of the founder have also played a role - they have very much in common with the spirit of cryptocurrencies.
Here’s what Durov says about Bitcoin:
“For the first time in 70 years, the global financial system has got a chance to leave the hegemony of the United States, which, at a time, imposed the whole world its national currency as a reserve one. Since then, they have been basically collecting the tribute from all the countries, paying off their debts with the unlimitedly manufactured dollars and using them to buy the assets around the whole world.”
And here’s what Pavel thinks about clumsy attempts of Russian authorities to regulate the hell out of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies:
«So instead of getting a hold on the opportunity to make the world more balanced and legitimize the status of the new digital currencies that will overcome the US dollar together with Japan and other Asian countries, we hear the voices of let’s restrict this and regulate that. It seems as if Bitcoin itself puts sanctions on Russia.»
After some years of relocations, he founded the main office in Dubai where, as Pavel claims, is the most loyal tax policy. Here’s what he says about it:
«Many people in the Western world don’t understand how much the taxes limit their opportunities. One can pay almost the half of their profits in taxes, which basically means that the person doing so works 180 days a year for a government. I think I can can find better ways to use my money for the sake of society.»
We know that Pavel Durov has raised $1.7 bln for a TON blockchain platform. Now, he will be able to turn things at full power. After all, the messenger will soon launch its own cryptocurrency called GRAM and get to compete with Bitcoin!
We’ll be watching carefully how the GRAM story develops. If you are interested in the future of Telegram and other Durov’s projects, then join us!