Observer

⚠️ JUST IN: Black background Plush Pepe trades for $65K on Tonnel

A Pink Galaxy Plush Pepe (#2144) on black background just swapped hands on Tonnel Market for 6 regular Plush Pepes plus 17,000 GRAM (~$65K total).

In the meantime, Telegram quietly applied for the .gram top-level domain with ICANN. If approved, every user gets their own domain tied to their handle: @durov becomes durov.gram, @monk becomes monk.gram, with interactive websites hosted directly by Telegram.

A big week for the GRAM ecosystem. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Man who promised 25% monthly crypto returns deported from Fiji after 2 years

Edward Zimbardi told 6,000+ investors his "Crypto Program" would generate 25% returns every month. He collected $165M in crypto, lost $34M on forex bets, then spent $10M+ on himself: a house for his son, luxury vehicles, and alimony payments to his ex-wife.

When it collapsed in 2023 he fled to Fiji, skipped his son's wedding to dodge FBI agents, and stayed hidden for over a year. Fijian authorities deported him August 14. Now faces 25 federal charges.

Nothing is guaranteed 👇

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😂 FUN FACT: Someone paid $92,500 for Telegram gifts worth a few thousand dollars

An unknown user just bought 5 Telegram gifts on Fragment for 69,506 GRAM (~$92,500), paying far above market value for each. A Heroic Helmet worth ~500 GRAM went for 20,000 GRAM. A UFC Strike worth 15 GRAM sold for 14,400 GRAM.

All the transactions are real.

Nobody knows why. Theories? 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Lucha now holds 53 different #1 gifts after $191K sweep

Lucha just bought 18 more #1 gifts in a single purchase for 144,000 GRAM (~$191,500), bringing his total collection of #1 gifts to 53.

The most serious #1 collector in the Telegram gifts market. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Same wallet drained twice, $25.6M gone in identical attack

An unknown victim just lost $25.6M in WBTC, cbBTC, LDO, USDS, and CRV, all swapped to DAI and ETH by the attacker. The exact same wallet was drained for $24.23M in September 2023 via malicious token approvals. That attacker returned ~90% of funds.

Address: 0x8fEB0c...1F95Ae

Getting drained twice from the same wallet. Some lessons cost $50M to learn. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Intelligence Cup gifts are live

Telegram just distributed the Intelligence Cup gift to all IOAI 2026 math olympiad prize winners. One is already upgraded: Intelligence Cup #2.

The most exclusive gift drop yet: you can't buy it, you have to win it. 👇

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🎉 $500 - @sold in the name for an extra entry 🎉

Hosted By: @sold

To Participate:
• Join @sold
• Add "@sold" to your name for an extra chance
• Tap Participate

⬜
Participants: 2
Winners: 2

Giveaway Ends In: 13d 23h 57m

⚠️ JUST IN: Vintage Cigar #1 flips from $1.90 to $15,000

@null (Ferrari) bought Vintage Cigar #1 from a user who had been holding it since upgrading for just 125 Stars ($1.90). That's a 7,800x return for the seller.

Ferrari now holds 27 different #1 gifts. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Fake Trezor site ranked #1 on Google Ads

A phishing page hosted on Google Sites appeared as a sponsored result above the real Trezor website. It asked users for their seed phrase, immediately draining their wallets. ~80 transactions, 24 BTC stolen. At least one victim lost their entire life savings.

Trezor flagged this in March and again this week. Google still ran the ad.

EXPLANATION (optional, only if really interested):
The fake site looked identical to trezor.io but was hosted on sites.google.com, making it appear legitimate. When users entered their 12 or 24-word seed phrase thinking they were "recovering" their wallet, the phrase was sent directly to the attackers who instantly swept every wallet generated from it. The attack worked because Google's ad system allowed anyone to buy a sponsored placement above the real Trezor site, and the Google Sites domain gave it a false sense of legitimacy. Never enter your seed phrase on any website, ever.

Never type your seed phrase anywhere except your physical Trezor device. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Telegram gift system is rigged?

A researcher noticed that every time a "beautiful number" like #2222, #3333, or #7777 was about to be upgraded, user "Tanya" would claim it minutes after it mysteriously became unclaimed. Tanya has been linked to "Artem," a confirmed Telegram developer, through matching surnames, same city, and similar age. We documented the evidence in the image above. More proof exists beyond what fits in one post.

Documented cases: Fine Pen #4444, #5555, #7777. Bling Binky #5555, #7777. Timeless Book #22222 and #48885 (0.5% black background, 1-second claim window). Pretty Posy #33333. Durov's Glasses #2222 and #3333 (2.5 hour gap from #3332).

EXPLANATION (proofs + more arguments, skip if not interested):
Here's exactly what happened to @m1stervlad. He tried to upgrade #5555 of a gift collection. The number simply didn't exist yet. He got #5556 instead. A few minutes later, #5555 suddenly appeared, already owned by Tanya. Same with #7777: #7776 and #7778 were both upgradeable, but #7777 didn't exist. Minutes later, it appeared. Tanya's again.

How is this possible? A researcher building his own MTProto server (j++gram) confirmed that gift attributes and numbers are almost certainly pre-calculated and stored in a database before anyone upgrades, because true randomness can't maintain accurate rarity percentages over time. Anyone with database access can see which number produces a rare black background or a #X000 result, then place a server-side hold on that number so nobody else can claim it, releasing it only when they personally upgrade. For earlier gifts, no lag was even needed: Tanya and Artem simply claimed rare numbers in the exact millisecond they became available, which is only possible if you already know which number to watch. As the pattern grew more obvious, the method shifted to actively locking numbers for minutes at a time.

Should Telegram respond to this publicly? 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: One year later, @Deluxe's murder, here's what we knows.

Nearly a year after the murder of Roman Novak, owner of @mafia, @deluxe, @fintopiochannel and other high-value Telegram handles, new details emerge. Seven people arrested, three confirmed as the killers. The group was led by Konstantin Shakh, a former St. Petersburg police officer. Three trips to Dubai: two for surveillance, one for the hit.

Estimated cost of the operation: ~$1M. The "crypto robbery gone wrong" narrative has been debunked. This was a premeditated contract killing, planned since 2024. The person who ordered it remains unknown. Novak had allegedly scammed Chinese, Arab, and Ukrainian businessmen plus a Russian State Duma deputy out of $5M+.

Who ordered the hit? 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: NFT founder raised $10M, spent it on gambling, a Miami condo, and DJ lessons

Taj Tarsha raised $10M from 67 investors for Few and Far, an NFT marketplace on NEAR blockchain. Almost immediately he blew it on online casinos, personal crypto trades, a Miami condo, and DJ equipment. He also paid himself $1M in secret bonuses while the company had zero revenue and no product.

The $FAR token launched in May 2024 and collapsed within weeks. Tarsha faces up to 20 years on securities and wire fraud charges.

What would you do with $10M? 👇

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⚠️JUST IN: Ex-cop gets life plus 15 years for robbing a teen’s Bitcoin

Former LAPD officer Eric Halem dressed as a cop, broke into a 17-year-old’s Koreatown apartment with his crew, used real LAPD handcuffs to restrain the teen’s girlfriend, and threatened to shoot him unless he handed over a hard drive containing $350K in Bitcoin. Sentenced yesterday to life plus 15 years.

The judge called it “sheer and utter greed.” The teen he robbed had apparently made part of that $350K by scamming others himself.

Thieves robbing thieves. 👇

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⚠️JUST IN: FBI agent fired and indicted for stealing $1M in crypto using FBI intelligence

Patrick Yaroch, an FBI agent working on national security and counterintelligence, used classified FBI data to access a target’s crypto wallets and transfer $1M to himself. He then asked ChatGPT how to flee the US with $1M and start over in Portugal. Flights to Lisbon already booked for September.

He was fired July 31 and arrested the same day. The guy hunting cybercriminals was googling “how to escape to Europe” between shifts. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Someone just won $199,000 mining Bitcoin alone at home

A solo miner, basically one person with a home device competing against industrial warehouses full of machines, found Bitcoin block #960,804 today and kept the full $199,000 reward. No pool, no splitting, all theirs.

The odds of this happening? About 1 in 18,000 years for a small home device. It happened today. 👇

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⚠️ JUST IN: Two French crypto holders kidnapped and tortured for 52 hours in London

Two French crypto millionaires in their 20s were abducted at gunpoint in east London and held for over two days in a flat in Canning Town. They were beaten, burned with cigarettes, and scalded with boiling water while captors demanded $150K in crypto. One paid $30K and was released, the other was handed to a second gang before police ended it with a high-speed chase.

Six men convicted. The alleged mastermind directed everything via WhatsApp from abroad and is still at large.

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⚠️ JUST IN: Crypto CEO thought he hired a hitman. He hired a fed.

Marcos Kleiman, CEO of Moneyflip, hired what he thought were real hitmen to kill a Mexican businessman over an unpaid debt. They were actually undercover federal agents pretending to be criminals.

He paid $40K total, including 25,000 USDT after agents showed him fake photos of the "victim" captured and killed. He said "Count on it" and sent the crypto. Arrested in Miami the next day.

He was already under investigation for laundering $750K in drug money through his own exchange. "I don't get scared, dude." 👇

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🛡EXPLOIT: Coldcard firmware bug drains $38M from 500 wallets in 25 minutes

A bug introduced in Coldcard's firmware back in March 2021 caused the wallet to generate private keys using predictable data (serial number, clock registers) instead of true randomness. An attacker figured out the pattern and swept 594 BTC (~$38M) from ~500 wallets in under 30 minutes early this morning.

If you created a wallet on Coldcard Mk3 firmware 4.0.1 or later, move your funds now to a freshly generated wallet.

UPDATE: Galaxy research reveals the real number is much bigger than reported: 1,082 BTC ($70.2M) from 1,196 wallets.

EXPLANATION (skip if you don't care):
When you set up a hardware wallet, it creates a secret key using random numbers. Coldcard's bug made those "random" numbers predictable because they were based on non-secret device info anyone could know. It's like a safe that claims to use a random combination, but actually bases it on the safe's serial number printed on the outside. Once you know the pattern, you can calculate the combination for any affected device and empty it remotely, no physical access needed.

Is your hardware wallet actually secure? 👇

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😂 FUN FACT: Weapons found in Durov's collection

Following Russia's terrorism charges against Durov, users started digging through his gift collection. Turns out he's sitting on a golden AK-47, an American assault rifle, and a golden bomb (and a few more).

https://t.me/nft/PartySparkler-9474

Did you expect anything like that from him? 👇

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