The largest cryptocurrency and betting resources may be banned

On Friday Tagansky District Court of Moscow decided to block Telegram, a popular messenger and a platform for online publications. Now, Russian-speaking users will have to say goodbye to their favorite channels or learn to skirt the ban. The numerous Telegram channels include top resources for betting and cryptocurrency; some of them has hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

The first version of the Telegram client appeared in August 2013. The idea and realization belong to the brothers Durov – Pavel (the founder of the social network VKontakte) and Nikolay. According to Pavel, for the first time, he thought about creating a ‘safe’ messenger, when realized that he did not have a reliable and private means of communication with his brother. Therefore, the main feature of Telegram was the encryption of user messages. The technology of MTProto cryptographic encryption was developed by Nikolay Durov.

The messenger (and Telegraph, a platform for the publication of texts) was actively promoted in 2014-2015. Today, Telegram has over 200 million users, including not only Russian-speaking audience. Here you can communicate in chat format or lead communities – information channels that make publications in the format of a news feed with posts.

Top betting channels:

• Bookmakers and everything (@bk_news) – key news and analytics;
• Rating of bookmakers (@rbinfo) – channel of a large Russian gambling portal;
• Bookmaker analysts online. Bets. Aggressive betting! (@bk_newsCHAT) – chat for talking about sports betting;
• Blocknote (@xgblocknote) – channel of the Blocknote public page with football statistics;
• yellowcorner (@ yellow_corner) – statistical calculations on cards, corner kicks, etc.;
• GamblingNews (@gamblingnews) – channel of the Login Casino portal;
• Bets from bookmakers and BBB. LIVE/DOMATCH (@betnice) – bets + current news;
• PAN ili PAPAN (@Tri_PPP) – author's channel: bets and forecasts.

The topic of cryptocurrency goes hand-in-hand with gambling now. Large online casinos provide bitcoin payment options, and all industry participants are trying to find out what cryptocurrency is and how it can be used. Telegram is a convenient resource for education, because it can provide users with short informative posts on the phone, which can be read at all reasonable time.

Top cryptocurrency channels:

• DeCenter (@DeCenter) – the largest and most informative channel.
• 10$ Baffetta (buff_10) – channel on investing in the cryptocurrency.
• Cointelegraph (@thecointelegraph) – channel of the popular website.
• ForkLog (@forklog) – channel of the largest Russian-language resource about crypto.
• News.bitcoin.com (@www_Bitcoin_com) – news about bitcoin.
• Penthaus (@penthaus) – experiment channel. Million with bitcoin – is it real?
• BitLenta (@BitLenta) – brief news on the blockchain world.
• BitNovosti.com (@bit_novosti) – cryptocurrency and blockchain news.
• Coinspot (@coinspot) – current news about cryptocurrency.
• Coin Post (@coin_post) – brief news of the crypto world in a clear format.

Why Telegram is banned?

Unfortunately, all this valuable content can become inaccessible to users in the near future. The reason is a court decision made on Friday to block Telegram on the territory of the Russian Federation.

As early as the summer of 2017, the Federal Security Service of Russia requested from Telegram the information necessary to decrypt user messages. Nikolay and Pavel Durov refused to provide it, stating that this, first of all, contradicts the messenger's privacy policy, and secondly, it is technically impossible: the Telegram servers are decentralized, that is, they are located in several countries, and information from the cloud chats is stored there in decentralized way. As a result, on April 13, the court decided to restrict access to Telegram in Russia until the requirement is fulfilled.

The Telegram lawyers (represented by the human rights organization Agora) didn’t attend the court: it was a decision of Pavel Durov in order ‘not to legitimize this farcical play’. As noted by the Telegram representatives, the court session had a number of violations: in the case, the company was marked not as a defendant, but as an interested person; before the court lawyers didn’t receive a text of the suit, an order on its listing for trial. Now Agora is preparing to appeal the decision.

The Telegram ban came into effect on April 16. Pavel Durov said that the messenger has built-in evasion tools, so users will not have to adjust anything to read their favorite channels. Indeed, on April 16 and 17, after a short period of communication failures, Telegram worked correctly with most users. Meduza reported that Roskomnadzor had blocked several Google and Amazon subnets that use Telegram. But it is still impossible to completely block access to the messenger.

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