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Eurasia
February 2, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 21
Iranian general warns of threat posed by Telegram's Gram cryptocurrency to banks
bne IntelliNews
The head of Iran’s Passive Defence Organisation has described the planned Gram cryptocurrency of encrypted instant messaging application Telegram as a considerable challenge to Iranian banks and companies, Mehr News Agency reported on January 30.
The comments from Brigadier General Gholam- reza Jalali, the chief of an organisation that is a subdivision of the Joint Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, clearly demonstrate nervousness among top officials ahead of secretive Russian-owned, Dubai-based Telegram's Initial Coin Offering (ICO), due to take place by the Persian New Year in March. The company is aiming to float some $1.2bn worth of Gram cryptocurrency coins as it seeks to enable its messenger app, hugely popu- lar among Iranians, to double as a global payment platform. Iranian authorities, who are suspicious of the motives of Telegram and its true ownership, are closely watching developments.
Jalali, while noting Telegram’s massive presence on the local messaging market – its messaging traffic market share is reckoned to reach up
to 95% – was also critical of the enterprise's messaging app for its adverse impact on society in general. The authorities, he said, were startled by the prospect of the Gram, which was launched with the offer of $20mn “Whale” blocks of coins this week. It could “affect jobs in Iran to the point where we can no longer have any cooperation with our banks,” he remarked.
General Jalali says Iranian authorities are startled by the prospect of the Gram and accuses Telegram of selling Iranian Big Data to adversaries including US intelligence agencies.
The general went so far as to claim that Telegram’s Russian CEO Pavel Durov – reported by Bloomberg in December to have settled in Dubai after three years roaming the globe in self-exile – sells Iran’s Big Data to adversaries of Iran. “The owner of Telegram does not receive payments for the app’s services... so to earn money, he sells our data to those countries which need it to monitor and analyse Iran,” he said.
Clients for “our data stored in Telegram" include “special clients” such as the US intelligence agen- cies, Iranian enemies of the Islamic Republic and Israel, he added.
Telegram, with around 180mn users globally, is thought to have some 40mn users in Iran alone — equivalent to half the country's population — and many continue to use the service despite threats of another disconnection by telecom officials.
The service was lately disconnected during the nationwide street demonstrations that rocked Iran for around a week from the end of December as officials sought to thwart organisers who were attempting to spread the unrest.
“When Telegram was blocked in Iran, the coun- try’s cyber traffic dropped by 80%,” Jalali not-
ed, adding that “threatening communications stopped, and security forces managed to make timely arrests in various cities across the country and identify the ones leading the protests”.