Pavel Durov, an important figure in the crypto community and founder of Telegram, is paying network administrators in bitcoin due to the imposed ban in Russia. According to an announcement made on his Telegram’s Channel, Russians are trying to bypass the ban using VPNs and proxies.
Pavel Durov Uses Bicoin to Bypass Russian Ban
This is not the first time that Pavel Durov is being censored and pressed by Russian authorities. Due to this situation he has decided to live in exile and work for Russia’s privacy policies from abroad. 
In order to support internet freedoms in Russia and anywhere else, he started to give bitcoin grants to individuals and companies that run socks5 proxies and VPN. He explained that he will donate millions of dollars to this cause hoping for other people to follow his decision.
Pavel Durov explained:
“To support internet freedoms in Russia and elsewhere I started giving out bitcoin grants to individuals and companies who run socks5 proxies and VPN. I am happy to donate millions of dollars this year to this cause, and hope that other people will follow. I called this Digital Resistance – a decentralized movement standing for digital freedoms and progress globally.”
He has also stated that Russia accounts just for 7% of the total Telegram’s user base. But even when they would lose such market, organic growth from other regions around the world would compensate for this loss in the next few months.
In the statement that he uploaded, he is very grateful to other companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, that decided not to take part in the political censorship that is harming Telegram and its community in some countries.
In the past, the Iranian government stated that is set to completely block the messaging app created by Mr Durov. According to Al Jazeera, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, announced the ban while talking with a local press agency.
Image Evening Standard
