Layer-1 blockchain Solana is celebrating its fifth year since its mainnet launch in 2020 — becoming one of the biggest chains by transaction activity and one of few select cryptocurrencies included in a proposed US digital asset stockpile. 

Since the first Solana block was built on March 16, 2020, the network has processed more than 408 billion transactions and nearly $1 trillion worth of value on decentralized exchanges — establishing itself as one of the industry’s leading layer-1 blockchains.

Source: Solana

Here are some of the Solana ecosystem’s most notable milestones since it was launched by Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal to the public in 2020.

Solana was born just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit

While Solana’s origins can be traced back to late 2017 when Yakovenko released a white paper outlining a timekeeping method for blockchains called “Proof of History,” but Solana wasn’t launched until March 2020 — right as the world started to enact emergency measures against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The high-speed, low-cost layer 1 Solana blockchain launch was assisted by crypto-focused venture capital firm Multicoin Capital, leading a financing round for Solana, which brought in roughly $20 million worth of private token sales in July 2019.

Source: OKX

Additional funding poured in soon after, and within 20 months of launching, Solana was hailed as a potential “Ethereum killer” as it soared to a $77.8 billion market cap at the peak of the 2020-2021 bull cycle.

Solana hit hard by 2022 bear market, FTX collapse — but bounced back

The 2022 bear market, coupled with the catastrophic collapse of crypto exchange FTX, tanked Solana’s market cap to $3 billion — a whopping 96% fall from its previous peak — by late 2022.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s former firm purchased around 58 million Solana tokens — currently worth $7.4 billion — from Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation and was “by far the most serious” layer 1 that FTX was helping scale, Fortune said in an April 2022 report.

FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, and is still in the process of unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of staked Solana tokens from FTX’s wallets. Solana’s price fell to $8.30 on Dec. 29, 2022.

Despite the setback, 2023 marked the start of Solana’s impressive comeback, which saw its market cap rise nearly 50-fold from $3 billion to over $140 billion by Jan. 19, 2025.

Memecoin craze takes Solana adoption to the next level

One of the biggest reasons behind Solana’s comeback was the crypto memecoin craze that took place between late 2023 and 2024 — a $100 billion market that Solana dominated.

Several Solana memecoins such as Bonk (BONK), Dogwifhat (WIF), Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) rose to multibillion-dollar market caps in early 2024 — around the time Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun became one of the most popular crypto platforms for memecoin lovers. 

Pump.fun alone has raked in over $540 million in revenue over the last 12 months and even surpassed Ethereum over 24-hour intervals at some points.

Solana is home to many of the largest memecoins by market cap. Source: CoinGecko

No Solana memecoin, however, drew more attention than the Official Trump (TRUMP) token launched by now-US President Donald Trump’s inner circle on Jan. 17 — which soared to a $14.6 billion market within two days before it came crashing down.

The TRUMP memecoin briefly pushed Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked to $14.2 billion, trailing only Ethereum, DefiLlama data shows. 

happy 5th birthday @solana 🥳congratulations on 5 years of building & shipping the greatest tech to ever grace our industry 🫶manlets on top 🎉 pic.twitter.com/Clkv3eEpn9

— pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) March 16, 2025

The Solana blockchain has also become the third largest adopter for stablecoins behind Ethereum and Tron.

Solana unveils the first major crypto phone

In May 2023, Solana released the first major crypto phone, called “Solana Saga.”

Sales for the Android device with the built-in crypto wallet started slow but skyrocketed after a 30 million BONK airdrop enticed memecoin enthusiasts to make a purchase.

Solana also unveiled a newer, shinier Solana “Seeker” smartphone last September to better facilitate memecoin trading and accrue token rewards.

While most reviewers say the Solana phones lack the technical capabilities of an iPhone or Google Pixel, Solana has seen over 140,000 presales for the two products.

The Solana Seeker phone is currently priced at $500.

Hardware specifications of the Solana Seeker phone. Source: Solana Mobile

Solana, however, has also been plagued with several network outages over its five-year span — halting block production for 20 hours in some instances. 

Solana validators have been forced to restart the network on several occasions when network activity surged.

A new independent validator client called Firedancer is scheduled to go live on Solana’s mainnet sometime in 2025 to address Solana’s client diversity woes. It has been touted as a superior solution to “QUIC” — a Google-developed data transfer protocol that has failed to process transactions on Solana over a dozen times.

Solana set to be included in Trump’s Digital Asset Stockpile

The Trump administration says it will include Solana in the Digital Asset Stockpile, which it confirmed through an executive order on March 7. It is the youngest cryptocurrency on the list.

The Digital Asset Stockpile will initially use cryptocurrency forfeited in government criminal cases.

Related: Solana proposal to cut inflation rate by up to 80% fails to pass

The US doesn’t appear to hold Solana, according to crypto analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. However, the White House said it would complete an audit of crypto asset holdings.

Trump initially announced that Solana would become a US reserve asset on March 2.

Source: Donald Trump

However, he later established a Bitcoin-only reserve and the Digital Asset Stockpile, which looks like it will include Solana in addition to Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA).

Solana is currently priced at $128.17 — the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $64.5 billion. Solana is down 56% from its all-time high as the broader market continues to navigate through recession fears and weakened market sentiment of late.

Magazine: Comeback 2025: Is Ethereum poised to catch up with Bitcoin and Solana?

Crypto exchange OKX has temporarily paused its decentralized exchange aggregator to prevent “further misuse” by North Korean hacking collective Lazarus Group.

“Recently, we detected a coordinated effort by Lazarus group to misuse our defi services,” said OKX on March 17.

“After consulting with regulators, we made the proactive decision to temporarily suspend our DEX aggregator services. This move allows us to implement additional upgrades to prevent further misuse.” 

The OKX helpdesk confirmed that the DEX aggregator was temporarily suspended for an “internal review and upgrade” but did not provide a timeline. 

It added that crypto wallet services will remain available to all customers, but it will “pause new wallet creation in select markets during this time.”

Source: OKX

On March 11, Bloomberg reported that European Union financial watchdogs were investigating the firm’s DEX aggregator, called OKX Web3, and its wallet services for their alleged role in laundering funds from the Bybit hack.

“Over the past few days, we’ve faced targeted media attacks questioning our integrity and operations,” the firm stated in a blog post. It added that it “can’t ignore the fact that these attacks are happening at a time when we are actively fighting against financial crime.”

According to Bybit CEO Ben Zhou, nearly $100 million from the $1.5 billion Bybit hack had been laundered through OKX’s Web3 proxy, with a portion of the funds now untraceable.

OKX responded on March 11, stating that the “Bloomberg article is misleading,” saying that when Bybit was hacked, OKX reacted in two ways: by freezing associated funds from moving into its CEX, and developing the new hack detection features.

Related: Lazarus Group sends 400 ETH to Tornado Cash, deploys new malware

OKX stated that the goal is to ensure that explorers properly highlight the actual DEX processing trades “rather than mistakenly identifying our aggregator as the point of trade.”

The exchange has already deployed a “hacker address detection system” for its DEX aggregator in addition to a system to track the hacker’s latest addresses and block them on its centralized exchange in real time.

“We already rolled out a lot of controls for OKX Web3 to fight with the misuse, including prohibited markets’ IP blocking and real-time black address detection and blocking system,” said OKX CEO Star Xu on March 17.

The firm also clarified that the OKX Web3 DEX aggregator is not a custodian of customer assets, adding that its function is to provide access to liquidity across multiple protocols. However, “some have deliberately misrepresented our platform,” it said. 

Magazine: ETH may bottom at $1.6K, SEC delays multiple crypto ETFs, and more: Hodler’s Digest

The Bank of Korea says it is taking a “cautious approach” to potentially including Bitcoin as a foreign exchange reserve.

Officials from the Korean central bank said in a March 16 response to a written inquiry that they have not looked into a potential Bitcoin (BTC) reserve, citing high volatility. 

Responding to a question from Representative Cha Gyu-geun of the National Assembly’s Planning and Finance Committee, central bankers said that they have “neither discussed nor reviewed the possible inclusion of Bitcoin in foreign exchange reserves, adding that “a cautious approach is needed,” according to the Korea Herald.

“Bitcoin’s price volatility is very high,” the central bank noted, before adding that “in the case of cryptocurrency market instability, transaction costs to cash out Bitcoins could rise drastically.”

Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin prices have swung wildly between $98,000 and $76,000 before settling at current levels of around $83,000 in a 15% decline since Feb. 16, according to CoinGecko. 

The decision comes amid increasing global discussions on the role of crypto assets in national financial strategies, sparked by US President Donald Trump’s executive order earlier this month establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve and digital asset stockpile.  

At a seminar on March 6, crypto industry lobbyists and some members of Korea’s Democratic Party urged the country to integrate Bitcoin into its national reserves and develop a won-backed stablecoin. 

However, the Bank of Korea emphasized that its foreign exchange reserves must have liquidity and be immediately usable when needed, as well as a credit rating of investment grade or higher, criteria that Bitcoin does not meet, in its opinion. 

Professor Yang Jun-seok of the Catholic University of Korea concurred, stating, “It is appropriate for foreign exchange to be held in proportion to the currencies of countries with which we trade.”

Professor Kang Tae-soo from the KAIST Graduate School of Finance commented on the US being likely to leverage stablecoins rather than BTC to maintain dollar hegemony before adding, “Whether the IMF will recognize stablecoins as foreign exchange reserves in the future is important.”

Related: Democrat lawmaker urges Treasury to cease Trump’s Bitcoin reserve plans

Earlier this month, South Korea’s financial regulator examined the Japanese Financial Services Agency’s legislative trend toward crypto assets as it mulls lifting a ban on crypto exchange-traded funds in the country.

Magazine: ETH may bottom at $1.6K, SEC delays multiple crypto ETFs, and more: Hodler’s Digest

Crypto platform Debiex has been ordered to pay around $2.5 million after it failed to respond to a US Commodity Futures Trading Commission suit accusing it of being a romance scam ring.

Arizona federal court Judge Douglas Rayes on March 13 granted the CFTC’s earlier motion for summary judgment in its case and ordered Debiex to pay back around $2.26 million it stole from its customers, along with a civil penalty of nearly $221,500.

Judge Rayes said there was no evidence that Debiex’s failure to respond to the CFTC was the result of “excusable neglect.”

The CFTC sued Debiex in January 2024, saying its staff ran a so-called “pig butchering” scam, where they initiated romantic relationships with customers over social media to gain trust to convince them to invest in the platform.

The scheme hooked five victims who deposited around $2.3 million in total onto Debiex, which the purported trading platform stole, the CFTC said.

A highlighted excerpt of Judge Rayes’ order summarizing the CFTC’s case against Debiex, Source: CourtListener

The CFTC also accused Zhāng Chéng Yáng of being a “money mule” for Debiex, whose crypto wallets were used to accept and steal victims’ funds.

Judge Rayes granted a CFTC motion for default judgment against Zhāng on March 12, finding it adequately alleged he controls a crypto wallet with OKX “that received digital assets to which he had no legitimate claim.”

He said OKX was “voluntarily preserving” the crypto in Zhāng’s account and ordered its contents, consisting of $5.70 worth of Tether (USDT) and nearly 63 Ether (ETH) worth around $119,500, to be transferred to an unnamed victim.

The CFTC said in its January 2024 complaint that Debiex’s scheme saw its unknown managers target potential victims through social media to lure them to websites it had created marketing itself as a “Blockchain Network Decentralized perpetual contract trading platform” where users can conduct futures trading and “Mining transactions.”

Related: Four suspects charged in home invasion of streamer Amouranth 

Debiex’s staff would present as females and built a rapport with victims through “continuous and repeated messaging and sharing purported pictures of themselves” while claiming to be “highly successful digital asset commodities traders,” the CFTC said.

Once an account was created and the customers sent over their crypto, the CFTC said Debiex would share “fictitious information” about customer balances, trading positions and profits.

“All of this information was most likely false,” the CFTC said. “The evidence shows that the Customers’ digital assets were simply sent to numerous digital asset wallets in an attempt to obfuscate their destination.”

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered 

A UK man’s bid to obtain a permit to search a landfill for his hard drive — holding private keys to 8,000 Bitcoin — has been rejected by the UK Court of Appeal.

“Appeal request to the Royal Court of Appeal: refused,” Howells said in a March 14 X post.“The Great British Injustice System strikes again… The state always protects the state,” the early Bitcoin adopter added before revealing his “next stop” would be the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

UK Royal Court of Appeal Judge Christopher Nugee knocked back Howells’ application, stating that there was no “real prospect of success” and there was “no other compelling reason” as to why it should be heard, according to a March 13 filing shared with Cointelegraph.

Source: James Howells

Nugee’s decision follows an earlier dismissal on Jan. 9 from High Court Judge Andrew Keyser, who similarly said there was “no realistic prospect” of Howells’ case succeeding at a full trial.

In a note to Cointelegraph, Howell said his “last legal option” to exhaust is at the ECHR — where he will claim that the UK High Court and UK Court of Appeal breached his right to property and right to a fair trial under Article 1 of Protocol 1 and Article 6 of the ECHR.

“The British establishment want to sweep this under the carpet, and i will not let them. It will not go away — no matter how long it takes!”

The ECHR cannot overrule a UK court decision — however, a verdict in Howells’ favor would call on the UK courts to consider whether its legislation was interpreted in a way that is compatible with the ECHR’s provisions.

In a separate statement shared with Cointelegraph, Howells said he would file a claim to the ECHR in the “coming weeks.”

The court filings follow repeated rejections from the Newport City Council allowing Howells to search through the Docksway landfill — where Howells’ former partner disposed of a bag containing the hard drive at the site in 2013.

Related: Burning quantum-vulnerable BTC is the best option — Jameson Lopp

Howells’ 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC) is worth around $660 million at current prices. While few predicted Bitcoin would reach such heights back then, Howells’ incident illustrates the importance of properly securing self-custodied crypto funds.

Howells also appears to be running out of time, as the Docksway landfill is reportedly set to shut down sometime during the UK’s 2025-2026 financial year, BBC News reported on Feb. 9.

Magazine: Bitcoin vs. the quantum computer threat: Timeline and solutions (2025–2035)

Four suspects were charged in connection with the home invasion of online streamer Amouranth, whose real name is Kaitlyn Siragusa. The streamer says she was held at gunpoint by several individuals demanding that she hand over the private keys to her crypto.

According to Fox 26, the suspects include Dylan Nesho Campbell, Bryan Anthony Salazar Guerrero and two additional suspects between the ages of 16-17.

Campbell and Guerrero were each charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, as was the 17-year-old suspect.

Siragusa reported that several armed individuals entered her home late at night on March 2, beat her and held her at gunpoint, demanding her cryptocurrency.

Source: Amouranth

Luckily, her husband was on speakerphone, which the gunmen took in an attempt to access a crypto app. The husband, having been alerted to the situation, grabbed a handgun while attempting to gauge where the armed men were in the home.

The online streamer led the assailants around the home and convinced them to start looking for a cold storage device.

As the armed robbers were looking for the device, Siragusa ran upstairs to her husband, who was also watching the situation unfold on the home’s network of cameras.

Once she was safely upstairs, her husband fired off three rounds at the assailants, likely shooting one in the process before the home invaders retreated and law enforcement arrived at the scene.

Siragusa’s husband later revealed that he was the one posting from her account as the incident unfolded. Source: Amouranth

The streamer previously disclosed that she held roughly 211 Bitcoin, worth over $20 million in November 2024 — making her a target for armed robbery.

Related: UK authorizes charges against NCA officer for alleged Bitcoin theft

Crypto kidnappings and extortion on the rise

The incident is merely the latest in a string of kidnappings and armed robberies aimed at crypto holders.

In January, a UK court sentenced seven gang members for the kidnapping and extortion of a crypto investor, who was repeatedly assaulted and coerced into handing over funds over several months.

During that same month, reports emerged that Ledger co-founder David Balland was kidnapped in France and held for a crypto ransom before being rescued by law enforcement.

Magazine: Scam AI ‘kidnappings’, $20K robot chef, Ackman’s AI plagiarism war: AI Eye

Four suspects were charged in connection with the home invasion of online streamer Amouranth, whose real name is Kaitlyn Siragusa. The streamer says she was held at gunpoint by several individuals demanding that she hand over the private keys to her crypto.

According to Fox 26, the suspects include Dylan Nesho Campbell, Bryan Anthony Salazar Guerrero and two additional suspects between the ages of 16-17.

Campbell and Guerrero were each charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, as was the 17-year-old suspect.

Siragusa reported that several armed individuals entered her home late at night on March 2, beat her, and held her at gunpoint, demanding her cryptocurrency.

Source: Amouranth

Luckily, her husband was on speakerphone, which the gunmen took in an attempt to access a crypto app. The husband, having been alerted to the situation, grabbed a handgun while attempting to gauge where the armed men were in the home.

The online streamer led the assailants around the home and convinced them to start looking for a cold storage device.

As the armed robbers were looking for the device, Siragusa ran upstairs to her husband, who was also watching the situation unfold on the home’s network of cameras.

Once she was safely upstairs, her husband fired off three rounds at assailants, likely shooting one in the process before the home invaders retreated and law enforcement arrived at the scene.

Siragusa’s husband later revealed that he was the one posting from her account as the incident unfolded. Source: Amouranth

The streamer previously disclosed that she held roughly 211 Bitcoin, worth over $20 million in November 2024, to online followers — making her a target for armed robbery.

Related: UK authorizes charges against NCA officer for alleged Bitcoin theft

Crypto kidnappings and extortion on the rise

The incident is merely the latest in a string of kidnappings and armed robberies aimed at crypto holders.

In January 2025, a UK court sentenced seven gang members for the kidnapping and extortion of a crypto investor, who was repeatedly assaulted and coerced into handing over funds over several months.

During that same month, reports emerged that Ledger co-founder David Balland was kidnapped in France and held for a crypto ransom before being rescued by law enforcement.

Magazine: Scam AI ‘kidnappings’, $20K robot chef, Ackman’s AI plagiarism war: AI Eye

Four suspects were charged in connection with the home invasion of online streamer Amouranth, whose real name is Kaitlyn Siragusa. The streamer says she was held at gunpoint by several individuals demanding that she hand over the private keys to her crypto.

According to Fox 26, the suspects include Dylan Nesho Campbell, Bryan Anthony Salazar Guerrero and two additional suspects between the ages of 16-17.

Campbell and Guerrero were each charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, as was the 17-year-old suspect.

Siragusa reported that several armed individuals entered her home late at night on March 2, beat her, and held her at gunpoint, demanding her cryptocurrency.

Source: Amouranth

Luckily, her husband was on speakerphone, which the gunmen took in an attempt to access a crypto app. The husband, having been alerted to the situation, grabbed a handgun while attempting to gauge where the armed men were in the home.

The online streamer led the assailants around the home and convinced them to start looking for a cold storage device.

As the armed robbers were looking for the device, Siragusa ran upstairs to her husband, who was also watching the situation unfold on the home’s network of cameras.

Once she was safely upstairs, her husband fired off three rounds at assailants, likely shooting one in the process before the home invaders retreated and law enforcement arrived at the scene.

Siragusa’s husband later revealed that he was the one posting from her account as the incident unfolded. Source: Amouranth

The streamer previously disclosed that she held roughly 211 Bitcoin, worth over $20 million in November 2024, to online followers — making her a target for armed robbery.

Related: UK authorizes charges against NCA officer for alleged Bitcoin theft

Crypto kidnappings and extortion on the rise

The incident is merely the latest in a string of kidnappings and armed robberies aimed at crypto holders.

In January 2025, a UK court sentenced seven gang members for the kidnapping and extortion of a crypto investor, who was repeatedly assaulted and coerced into handing over funds over several months.

During that same month, reports emerged that Ledger co-founder David Balland was kidnapped in France and held for a crypto ransom before being rescued by law enforcement.

Magazine: Scam AI ‘kidnappings’, $20K robot chef, Ackman’s AI plagiarism war: AI Eye

Jameson Lopp, the chief security officer at Bitcoin (BTC) custody company Casa, recently argued against allowing quantum recovery of lost BTC and said that burning these coins to protect the integrity of the protocol was the preferable option.

According to Lopp, allowing individuals or institutions with quantum computers to recover lost coins violates the Bitcoin network’s properties of censorship resistance, transaction immutability, and conservatism.

In a March 16 article, the crypto executive wrote that allowing quantum recovery is not good for anyone. Lopp added:

“Allowing quantum recovery of bitcoin is tantamount to wealth redistribution. What we would be allowing is for bitcoin to be redistributed from those who are ignorant of quantum computers to those who have won the technological race to acquire quantum computers.”

“It is hard to see a bright side to that scenario,” the executive continued before concluding that quantum recovery can only harm the security of the Bitcoin network.

The threat posed by quantum computers to Bitcoin continues to be hotly debated, with some arguing that the threat to modern encryption is decades away, others arguing that quantum computers will never be practical, and some warning that the threat is imminent.

Jameson Lopp discusses the risks posed by quantum computers at the Future of Bitcoin Conference in 2024. Source: Future of Bitcoin Conference

Related: Crypto, quantum computing on collision course as Microsoft debuts new chip

The great quantum scare of 2024

In October 2024, researchers at Shanghai University claimed they broke encryption standards used in military and banking applications using a quantum computer.

However, YouTuber “Mental Outlaw” later asserted that these claims were overblown and that the researchers did not break modern encryption standards.

The YouTuber said that the quantum computer used by the research team could only factorize the integer 2,269,753, which set a new record for quantum computers but still lagged behind some classical computers.

Mental Outlaw added that the device used in the experiment could only break a 22-bit key, while the record set by a classical computer was breaking an 892-bit key.

Modern encryption key sizes can range anywhere between 2048 to 4096 bits, with the option of extending key sizes in the future to make them even more secure.

Magazine: Bitcoin vs. the quantum computer threat: Timeline and solutions (2025–2035)

Telegram founder and free speech advocate Pavel Durov was born on Oct. 10, 1984, in St. Petersburg, Russia, and demonstrated an early knack for computer science, culminating in the entrepreneur establishing several successful online social media platforms.

While studying at Saint Petersburg State University, Durov became inspired by the success of the Facebook social media site and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg — eventually starting the social media platform VKontakte (VK) in 2006.

VK is a platform similar to Facebook but geared toward Russian speakers, and it is one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

A picture of Pavel Durov as a teenager. Source: Cointelegraph

The meteoric growth of the platform eventually attracted the attention of state regulators, who pressured the company to censor the platform and comply with government requests to provide user information.

Durov refused to comply with these requests out of a principled stance on freedom of speech, online expression, and user privacy, which caused the tech founder to be ousted from the company he started in 2014.

However, the tech founder was already hard at work on his next venture before departing VK, a messaging platform that has become a household name in crypto — Telegram.

Related: TON Society celebrates Pavel Durov leaving France as free speech win

Pavel and his brother Nikolai Durov launch Telegram

The Durov brothers launched Telegram in 2013. Since then, the platform has garnered over 950 million users worldwide due to its privacy-enhancing technology, which encrypts messages end to end.

Telegram also has robust features that include decentralized web surfing, a torrent of mini-apps and games.

The platform also has a symbiotic relationship with The Open Network (TON) — a separate blockchain network that has become a staple for users of the messaging application.

The Telegram founder discussing messaging applications at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference. Source: TechCrunch

According to Forbes, the Telegram founder has a net worth of $17.1 billion as of March 16, 2025 — mainly through his ownership of Telegram.

In March 2024, the entrepreneur announced that Telegram was nearing profitability and was considering an initial public offering to become a publicly traded company.

Pavel Durov is known for advocating individual freedoms, which is reflected in Telegram’s approach. In a January 2025 post, Durov wrote:

“I am 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.”

The Telegram founder’s libertarian ethos, commitment to free speech, and privacy eventually put the entrepreneur in the crosshairs of the French government.

Pavel Durov arrested in France amid cries of politically-motivated censorship

Pavel Durov was arrested in France on Aug. 24, 2024, due to a lack of content moderation on Telegram, and subsequently charged by French prosecutors with complicity with illegal activities and refusal to communicate with authorities.

Durov speaks with independent news host Tucker Carlson about free speech and privacy shortly before his arrest in August 2024. Source: Tucker Carlson

Shortly after his arrest, the Telegram founder posted bail and was released from custody on the condition that he remain in France during the legal proceedings.

The arrest drew strong reactions from the crypto community and free speech advocates worldwide, who criticized the French government for its actions, expressing concerns about potential pressure on Pavel Durov to modify Telegram’s policies or provide access to its encryption keys.

French President Emmanuel Macron was accused of orchestrating a politically motivated arrest, a claim the French leader denied, which only prompted more backlash from the crypto community.

On March 15, Pavel Durov reportedly left France and headed to Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered, after receiving permission from French law enforcement officials to leave the country.

However, it is unclear how long Durov will remain in Dubai as the global fight for freedom of speech, privacy, and autonomy continues.

Magazine: Did Telegram’s Pavel Durov commit a crime? Crypto lawyers weigh in