Du Rove's Channel

💭 This is what the brightest minds of Silicon Valley are saying about The Open Network.

Peter Fenton, Partner at Benchmark:

📝 Telegram’s user base, which is expected to grow to over 1.5 billion through 2030, creates an unprecedented opportunity in the history of humanity to provide ubiquitous financial flows that have been limited until now to information flows, TON provides the backbone for human-scale democratization of financial activity.📝

Micky Malka, Founder at Ribbit:

📝 Ribbit partners with exceptional teams tackling and solving the world’s biggest problems. TON and Telegram exemplify this, working together to expand financial access globally by coupling the best technology with a seamless consumer experience.📝

Tim Draper, Founder of Draper Associates:

📝 I’ve been a long-time believer in the potential of blockchain to disrupt traditional industries and systems. TON’s technology is highly impressive, and its integration with Telegram provides it with a distribution that no other blockchain can match.📝

Shaun Maguire, Partner at Sequoia Capital:

📝 The TON team is the best in the world at the intersection of consumer product thinking and crypto infrastructure. When you combine this with the global distribution of Telegram, we’re very excited to see where they go.📝

🔮 I know only a few people who can spot technology trends as sharply as Peter, Micky, and Tim — and most of the others have also invested in TON. I haven’t met Shaun from Sequoia yet, but from everything I’ve heard, he’s just as visionary as the rest of this stellar group of investors 💫

📈 Good month for The Open Network: the biggest names in venture capital invested over $400M into TON and publicly backed it. Among them are the legends of Silicon Valley: Sequoia, Benchmark, Ribbit, Draper, VY, and other world-famous funds 💸

🪙 Over the past year, TON has become the backbone of creator economy on Telegram. It is the exclusive withdrawal method for millions of content creators and mini app developers and the only way to pay for Telegram Ads in most countries. Every Telegram-related asset — from usernames to digital gifts — is tradeable solely as a TON-based NFT, and Telegram Mini Apps use TON exclusively as their blockchain. Telegram’s in-app economy is exploding in volume, fueled by constant innovation — like the Star Messages we launched earlier this month, an overnight success rivaled only by the tokenized gifts introduced in January 🎁

⛏️ What’s more, The Open Network remains the only blockchain technology built to scale — with sharding and the capacity to process transactions for billions of users. It’s one of the few blockchain networks with real, fundamental value. I’m not surprised the smartest people on the planet are endorsing TON 🚀

📰 As you may have heard, I’ve returned to Dubai after spending several months in France due to an investigation related to the activity of criminals on Telegram. The process is ongoing, but it feels great to be home 🇦🇪

🙏 I want to thank the investigative judges for letting this happen, as well as my lawyers and team for their relentless efforts in demonstrating that, when it comes to moderation, cooperation, and fighting crime, for years Telegram not only met but exceeded its legal obligations 💼

🤲 I’m also deeply grateful for the millions of people around the world who have shown their support throughout this unexpected journey — it has meant a lot. There is nothing our billion-strong community can't overcome 🚀

#️⃣ I wrote about MemHash earlier — a mini app single-handedly built over a weekend. It inspired dozens of copycats and established an entirely new genre of mining mini apps on Telegram.

📈 MemHash proved there’s always room for a new app on Telegram — provided you deeply understand which features made its predecessors popular. The key is to borrow only what works while innovating and differentiating elsewhere 💡

✉️ This is exactly how Telegram itself became popular. We didn’t invent messaging, but in 2013, we took only what was necessary from existing apps. Then, by continuously listening to users and innovating, we introduced hundreds of new useful features over 12 years. This not only brought Telegram immense popularity but also helped establish a new genre of messaging 💭

💡 I know Telegram’s success story inspired the creator of MemHash, and I hope future app creators will draw inspiration from us as well. Good luck! 🍀

⭐ Happy Chinese New Year!

Following the success of the Chinese startup DeepSeek, many are surprised at how quickly China has caught up with the US in AI. However, China’s progress in algorithmic efficiency hasn't come out of nothing. Chinese students have long outperformed others in math and programming at international olympiads 🏆

When it comes to producing outstanding performers in math and science, China's secondary education system is superior to that of the West. It fosters fierce competition among students, a principle borrowed from the highly efficient Soviet model 🎖

In contrast, most Western schools discourage competition, prohibiting public announcements of students' grades and rankings. The rationale is understandable — to protect students from pressure or ridicule. However, such measures also predictably demotivate the best students. Victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin. Eliminate the losers — and you eliminate the winners ☯️

For many students, motivation to excel in high school comes from treating it as a competitive game, striving to rank first against strong opponents. Removing transparency in student performance can make school feel meaningless for ambitious teenagers. It’s not surprising that many gifted kids now find competitive gaming more exciting than academics — at least in video games, they can see how each player ranks 😵

Telling all students they are champions, regardless of performance, may seem kind — until you consider how quickly reality will shatter this illusion after graduation. Reality, unlike well-meaning school policies, does have public grades and rankings — whether in sports, business, science, or technology. AI benchmarks that demonstrate DeepSeek's superiority are one of such public rankings. And more are coming. Unless the US secondary education system undergoes radical reform, China’s growing dominance in technology seems inevitable 🇨🇳

🤝 We agreed with the TON Foundation to make TON the exclusive blockchain partner of Telegram. TON will be our blockchain infrastructure for tokenization, payouts, mini app integrations, and more 🏆

🙂 This standardization will be great for Telegram users — giving them a consistent, predictable experience and better protection against scams 🛡

🖥 Mini app developers can check out the Blockchain Guidelines to see what’s new. I foresee a wave of innovation coming from this strong integration between Telegram and TON 🔗

🧐 I’m proud that Telegram has supported freedom of speech long before it became politically safe to do so. Our values don’t depend on US electoral cycles.

😂 Today, other platforms are announcing they’ll now have less censorship. But the real test of their newly discovered values will come once the political winds change again. It’s easy to say you support something when you risk nothing.

🐵 Humans are hardwired to copy others by evolution — for a good reason. Mimicking those around us has been the most efficient survival strategy for millions of years. However, the world is different today. We now live in an age of rapid change — what used to be efficient becomes a recipe for mediocrity and decay ☠️

🥂 Let 2025 be the year we rely on our own opinions — not imposed stereotypes and outdated thought patterns. Only by trusting our instincts and following our own unique paths can we fulfil our potential and make great contributions to the world 🎨

🎆 Have a happy and productive 2025, everyone! 🚩

🆒 We planned an epic New Year’s Eve update with unique gifts for our users. Unfortunately, it’s been stuck in Apple’s review process for a few days, and we still have no response from them. Thanks for your patience — and happy 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣5️⃣

🍌 Access to certain Russian media has been restricted in the EU under DSA/sanctions laws 🇪🇺

🔉 Meanwhile, all Western media Telegram channels remain freely accessible in Russia 🇷🇺

🤔 Who would have thought that in 2025 Russian Telegram users would enjoy more freedom than European? ❓