Pavel Durov’s fortune rose by $13.8 billion in 2021

Telegram founder Pavel Durov outpaced other Russian billionaires in 2021, with assets up fivefold to $17.2 billion, according to Forbes.

\n\n

The main driver of this rise, according to journalists, was difficulties at Facebook (Meta) and its services. Massive outage in October boosted Telegram’s user base by 70 million.

\n\n

In May 2020, Durov announced the closure of the Telegram Open Network (TON) project amid a legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a ban on token distribution.

\n\n

In December 2021, he publicly supported the developers of Toncoin — one of the projects built on the TON code.

\n\n

Subscribe to ForkLog news on Telegram: ForkLog Feed — all the news feed, ForkLog — the most important news, infographics and opinions.