Andrei Svintsov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, has advised Russians to stop purchasing the Gram cryptocurrency. Svintsov suggested waiting for official comments from Roskomnadzor and the Federal Security Service (FSB) before making "financial transactions through Telegram channels."
"No paid subscriptions, no buying of TON currency, and so on. In other words, I do not recommend our citizens to make any transactions in the Telegram ecosystem," Svintsov reportedly stated to the state news agency.
He reiterated the demands that Russian authorities have presented to Pavel Durov: Telegram must open an office in Russia, store user data on Russian territory, and "cooperate with the special services."
Svintsov's statement followed a report that Durov has been charged in Russia with facilitating terrorist activity. The FSB statement claims that Telegram failed to remove "numerous channels, chats, and bots" that are "actively used by Ukrainian intelligence services, terrorist, and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass killings, and cyber fraud on the territory of the Russian Federation." The agency added that these actions have led to "numerous human casualties, including among women and children, as well as material damage amounting to several billion dollars."
The Russian Investigative Committee clarified that the criminal case against the founder of VKontakte and Telegram is related to the dating chat bot 'Divingchik/Leo,' which has over 13 million users. The FSB claims that agents of Ukrainian intelligence used this bot to recruit young Russians by posing as women. Durov, detained by French authorities, wrote at the end of February that Russian authorities had initiated a criminal case against him on charges of facilitating terrorism.
In June, Durov announced that Gram — a crypto project he founded in 2019 — would return to its original name, and Telegram would take full control over it. Following the announcement of charges against Durov, the Gram exchange rate slightly declined, dropping on July 29 from $1.45 to a daily low of $1.38. Within 24 hours, the token's rate recovered to around $1.42. However, the Gram rate remains significantly below its May 8 peak of just over $2.70 and is down 14% over the year.
end-content
