🏆 Yesterday marked a historic milestone: for the first time, investors gained access to a TON-holding company listed on the US stock market (ticker: VERB). This company is deploying $558 million to accumulate Toncoin — never selling, only buying more over time.

↗️ VERB’s stock more than doubled on its first trading day, pushing its market cap above $1 billion and earning it unicorn status on day one. The investor list includes long-time TON supporters like Kingsway, Vy Capital, and Ribbit, alongside many new institutional backers.

🪙 TON (The Open Network) is an infinitely scalable blockchain that we helped develop years ago to meet the needs of Telegram’s hundreds of millions of users. Today, TON is the economic backbone of Telegram — much like a national currency powers a country’s economy.

🌎 On Telegram, everything runs on TON: from payouts to creators and app developers to ad payments, mini apps and collectibles like usernames, numbers, and gifts. As a result, TON is now the #2 blockchain by daily NFT trading volume, second only to Ethereum.

🧠 It’s no surprise that Verb Technology — to be rebranded as TON Strategy — has chosen TON as its primary treasury asset. It’s mirroring MicroStrategy’s bitcoin playbook, which let it grow from $1B to $100B+ in 5 years. The half a billion $ Verb is investing into TON is just the start.

📣 Following my post 20 days ago, users have sent us hundreds of reports about scams and blackmail. 👮‍♂️

⛔️ Based on these reports, this week we’re banning numerous channels for doxxing and extortion. 🔒

❌ A ban for this reason means we have undeniable evidence that a channel’s admins published defamatory posts, then deleted them in exchange for payment from victims. Some have even been caught selling so-called “protection blocks” — fees victims must pay to avoid being targeted. 💵

❌ Telegram is not a place for doxxing or blackmail. And to those running such channels: don’t waste your time creating clones — we’ll find you. 📡

🇪🇺 Telegram sent this message to all its users in France regarding Chat Control. People must know the names of those who try to steal their freedoms:

Today, the European Union nearly banned your right to privacy. It was set to vote on a law that would force apps to scan every private message, turning everyone’s phone into a spying tool.

France led the push for this authoritarian law. Both former and current Interior Ministers, Bruno Retailleau and Laurent Nuñez, supported it. Last March, they declared that police should see French citizens’ private messages (more info here). The Republicans and Macron’s Renaissance group voted for it.

Such measures are supposed to “fight crime”, but their real target is regular people. It wouldn’t stop criminals — they could just use VPNs or special websites to hide. Officials’ and police messages wouldn’t be scanned either, since the law conveniently exempts them from surveillance. Only YOU — ordinary citizens — would face the danger of your private messages and photos being compromised.

Today, we defended privacy: Germany’s sudden stand saved our rights. But freedoms are still threatened. While French leaders push for total access to private messages, the basic rights of French people — and all Europeans — remain in danger.

🕷 A great game about me escaping a French prison — and fighting all the shady characters inside. Give it a try!

The Telegram Mini App platform gives developers more freedom and power than any other. The kinds of games it can support are insane.

🎃 Happy Halloween!