Leaked letter suggests FSB wants to block Telegram because of upcoming cryptocurrency

The trustworthy Russian news website RBC.RU tells about the letter the journalists of this outlet have managed to acquire. The letter dates back to 12 April 2018 and its author is Roman Antipkin, employee of the FSB’s Center 12. The authenticity of the letter has been confirmed by a federal official who preferred to stay anonymous, as well as an executive of one of the local telecom firms. Bitnewstoday provides a translation.

“Colleagues, this story is not about this at all, how come you don’t understand this! The story is not about keys or terrorism <...> Pasha Durov has decided to become a new Mavrodi. As he launches his crypto, we’ll have a totally uncontrollable financial system here in Russia. And that’s not Bitcoin for marginals, it’s going to be simple, reliable and without any control. This is a threat to the state security. All the dope, cashing, organ trafficking to come through Pasha’s crypto, and he’s going to say “I have nothing to do with this, you can forbid words, terrorists use them too””.

This stream of consciousness requires some clarification for foreign readers. Mavrodi was probably the most famous classic Ponzi scheme founder in Russia who recently passed away. “Pasha” is informal “Pavel” - imagine “Bobby” instead of “Robert Downey” and you’ll get the idea. The phrase of Durov that Antipkin imagines has actually been said by the former in response to the block of Telegram.

The letter indicates that the Russian authorities do not want to see TON used in Russia even before it’s introduced. As a reminder, this Telegram Open Network will indeed create a financial space which might be hard to control. The block of Telegram in Russia has been largely unsuccessful, more on this matter can be read in a separate report - in that material one can see the connection of Bitcoin to the story.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons