👁 What lies ahead for Telegram?

⚫️ Trying to predict the future is always a bit like reading tea leaves, and we ourselves usually warn against making confident forecasts. But in the Friday #opinion column, it’s fair to speculate: the point isn’t that the prediction is correct, but that it sparks discussion.

⚫️ Every so often, Pavel Durov posts things along the lines of: “look how fast our metrics are growing, TON is leading NFT sales” (he wrote that at the peak of gift sales — it certainly isn’t leading now). The tone often feels as if he’s pitching Telegram to potential buyers: look, here’s a successful project, worth snapping up.

⚫️ He’s also mentioned the possibility of an IPO, where shares would become publicly available so anyone could literally “buy a piece of Telegram.” Going public lets companies raise money and channel it into further growth. Yet Durov insists Telegram doesn’t spend on marketing and grows organically. So how exactly would he put that fresh influx of capital to use?

⚫️ This brings to mind a passing comment he made about his brother Nikolai working on “real AI that can reason logically, unlike today’s LLMs that don’t actually understand anything.” As with most of Pavel’s statements, it’s best to take that with a grain of salt. It could easily be an exaggeration we’ll never hear about again. Still, the idea fits well with his level of ambition.

⚫️ Durov has always sought out ever-larger projects. He started with a small student forum, then built a hugely popular Russian social network, then moved on to a global market with Telegram. Now, with 12 years behind the messenger and close to a billion users, the timing seems right for the next step. And what’s bigger than that? A revolutionary AI would certainly qualify, something with the potential to affect all of humanity.

⚫️ Here’s the catch: the AI race already has giants spending billions of dollars to train their models. To not just catch up but overtake them, Nikolai’s talent alone wouldn’t be enough. It would take massive computing power — and the kind of money to pay for it. Which circles us back to the question of how IPO proceeds might actually be invested.

💡 In the end, it would be fascinating if all those “look how well our gifts are selling” posts turn out to be laying the groundwork for an attempt to change the course of human history.

@thedailyton