Nairobi News

Telegram’s Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov has explained how cryptocurrency users can safely use their money without losing in the face of FTX (Futures Exchange), a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, collapsing with users’ monies.

At its peak, FTX had been worth Sh 3.9 trillion and by the time of its collapse, it had taken Sh 1.26 trillion of its customers’ funds without authorization. The company went on to file for bankruptcy, leaving their customers high and dry.

According to Durov, such a collapse would never have happened if the blockchain industry had remained decentralized instead of being concentrated in the hands of a few who began misusing their power.

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“The blockchain industry was built on the promise of decentralization, but ended up being concentrated in the hands of a few who began to abuse their power. As a result, a lot of people lost their money when FTX, one of the largest exchanges, went bankrupt. The solution is clear: blockchain-based projects should go back to their roots – decentralization. Cryptocurrency users should switch to trustless transactions and self-hosted wallets that don’t rely on any single third party,”Durov said.

“We, developers, should steer the blockchain industry away from centralization by building fast and easy-to-use decentralized applications for the masses. Such projects are finally feasible today. It took only 5 weeks and 5 people including myself to put together Fragment – a fully decentralized auction platform. We were able to do this because Fragment is based on The Open Network, or TON – a blockchain platform that is fast and efficient enough to host popular applications (unlike Ethereum, which unfortunately remains outdated and expensive even after its recent tweaks),” he further explained.

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“Fragment has been an amazing success, with 50 million USD worth of usernames sold there in less than a month. This week, Fragment will expand beyond usernames. Telegram’s next step is to build a set of decentralized tools, including non-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges for millions of people to securely trade and store cryptocurrencies. This way we can fix the wrongs caused by the excessive centralization, which let down hundreds of thousands of cryptocurrency users.

“The time when the inefficiencies of legacy platforms justified centralization should be long gone. With technologies like TON reaching their potential, the blockchain industry should be finally able to deliver on its core mission – giving the power back to the people,” said Durov.

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