➕ One year ago, the French police detained me for 4 days because some people I’d never heard of used Telegram to coordinate crimes. Arresting a CEO of a major platform over the actions of its users was not only unprecedented — it was legally and logically absurd.

A year later, the ‘criminal investigation’ against me is still struggling to find anything that I or Telegram did wrong. Our moderation practices align with industry standards, and Telegram has always responded to every legally binding request from France.

Ironically, I was arrested due to the French police’s own mistake: before August 2024, they ignored French and EU laws and hadn’t sent any of their queries to Telegram via the required legal process. They could have learned the correct procedure simply by googling it or asking.

One year after this strange arrest, I still have to return to France every 14 days, with no appeal date in sight. Sadly, the only outcome of my arrest so far has been massive damage to France’s image as a free country. 🛠

✊ We’ll keep fighting — and we will win 😎

- @Durov

📰 Now this is what the gift 🎰 upgrades process looks like.

By the way, in addition to the post above: You can pay with ⭐️ for upgrades to rare gifts for other users. 💡 He will receive a notification about it.

📰 The built-in gift marketplace is temporarily disabled, users report. The exact cause is unknown, but it is most likely due to maintenance. In other words, you cannot search for gifts for purchase through Settings › Telegram Gifts. 👌 In all other cases, the interaction with the purchase/sale is fine.

UPD: At the time of sending, the marketplace was immediately turned on again.

🏎 NFTs are back — reimagined. 18 Telegram gifts bought for just $57 a few months ago were traded for a $350,000 car. 🚗

📰 Context for Durov's post:

🏎️ This is a Porsche 911 GT3RS. The deal was organized by @luchathoughts. The idea is that Roxman (and another holder of gifts for Lamborghini Urus) exchanged their gifts, which grew from $57 to $350,000, for the "car, the dream of Dubai." As we can see, the deal was successfully completed.

📰 The "My Stars" section has been updated.
1. Received statistics have been added.
2. Star withdrawal to Fragment is now available. Most likely, this refers to the stars earned by the user, not those purchased personally.

⭐️ Surprisingly, this functionality appeared only 5 months after the update with star messages.
💎 As with TON withdrawals, additional conditions will be required (similar to transferring a channel to another admin) in the form of a non-changeable password for 7 days and session activity within 24 hours.