Why crypto fans love Telegram despite the app rejecting decentralization

Communication with crypto fans requires specific skills and attributes. It is a esoteric language to learn, new social norms to adopt, and a toxic-positive philosophy to embrace. But perhaps the most important credential of all is a Telegram account.

The app for social media and messaging provides both public squares and private spaces for crypto enthusiasts.

The platform is so popular that without it they risk being expelled from the community. It may not sound too bad the current marketbut for anyone who is still invested or interested, Telegram is a powerful tool.

In particular, the app’s appeal has persisted despite fears that it jeopardizes a principle of cryptocurrencies: security.

A security complex

Since its founding in 2013, Telegram has been heavily marketed as privacy-centric.

Pavel Durov, the company’s CEO, was admired after refusing to give Kremlin user data from another company he had founded: VK, the largest social network in Russia. Shortly afterwards, Durov fled Russia and launched Telegram.

“We had a simple choice: either betray our values ​​or keep our values ​​and leave Russia to try to do something new,” he said. told Reuters.

Durov’s story gave credibility to his claims that Telegram is private and secure – two valuable features for cryptocurrency advocates. But critics claim that reality does not live up to the hype.

Nine years ago, I defended the private data of Ukrainians from the Russian government – and lost my company and my home. I would do it again without hesitation.

– Pavel Durov (@durov) March 7, 2022

Researchers have sounded the alarm about Telegrams encryption protocol, metadata collectionand storage of user data. But their biggest concern involves end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

Telegram chats do not have E2EE as standard – which means that anyone with access to the company’s servers can see the messages.

The app provides an opt-in E2EE – but only for “Secret chats”, which disables many platform features. Group chats, which are widely used in the crypto community, can never be encrypted from end to end.

Web security experts recommend switching to standard E2EE apps, such as Signal.

Web3 challengers are also starting to appear. In January, xx.network, a company founded by cryptography pioneer David Chaum, launched an app which promises both E2EE and metadata shredding.

“Telegram is not just not private – it is not decentralized,” Ben Werner, chief engineer of xx network, told TNW.

“In theory, the organization that runs Telegram can censor all channels, users or individual posts. The crypto community needs communication tools that are as resilient as [the] networks they build. “

Durov, Telegram’s CEO, has regularly defended his encryption strategy. He argues that E2EE makes many of the platform’s features obsolete.

These features help explain why cryptocurrencies are willing to overlook Telegram’s security vulnerabilities.

Beyond chat

Durov insists that E2EE on Telegram sacrifices usability for security.

Chats that are not end-to-end encrypted are instead backed up in the company’s cloud storage. Durov described the benefits of this approach in a post on the platform:

It enables seamless synchronization of multiple devices with access to previous chat logs, huge group chats and channels, continuous messaging history, sending large documents and videos, instant media forwarding without reloading, minimizing storage usage on your phone, never losing your messages yourself if you lose your phone – and many other great features that reduce bandwidth, battery and storage usage.

Some of these features are extremely popular in cryptocurrencies.

Channels are used to promote projects in one-way broadcasts to an unlimited number of followers, while groups can serve as billboards for up to 200,000 viewers.

Signal, on the other hand, limits group chats to 1,000 members, while WhatsApp limits them to just 256 people.

This means that Telegram users can reach a much larger audience – especially given the platform’s strong support for robots.

Channels also offer several opportunities for revenue generation. Some traders share exclusive tips in exchange for subscription fees.

“Users can participate in crypto projects to update their communities on change / progress, and to receive feedback,” said Tony Danjal, head of taxation. Koinlya platform for the taxation of cryptocurrencies.

“It is [also] things like trading signal groups where they can receive buy / sell signals for specific cryptocurrencies. “

Many Telegram users are prepared to sacrifice security for these benefits – at least until a compelling web3 alternative emerges.