Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov.
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The collapse of FTX shows that blockchain projects must return to decentralization, the CEO of Telegram said.
Pavel Durov announced that the messaging app is planning to build crypto exchanges and other decentralized tools.
“The blockchain industry was built on the promise of decentralization, but ended up being concentrated in the hands of a few who began to abuse their power.”
As the FTX collapse continues to reverberate through the cryptocurrency sector, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wants to revive some of the good will toward blockchain technology by developing a range of decentralized tools including digital asset exchanges.
“The blockchain industry was built on the promise of decentralization, but ended up being concentrated in the hands of a few who began to abuse their power,” Durov wrote Wednesday on his Telegram page. “As a result, a lot of people lost their money when FTX, one of the largest exchanges, went bankrupt.”
The antidote to FTX’s downfall is renewed prioritization of decentralization, he said. Durov maintained that blockchain projects must return to their roots of decentralization, and move away from relying on third-party corporations.
Additionally, he said it’s possible today for developers to steer the blockchain away from centralization with the release of new products that a wide audience can access.
Moving forward, Telegram, a messaging and social-media app, will build non-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges for millions of people to trade and store cryptocurrencies, Durov said.
“This way we can fix the wrongs caused by the excessive centralization, which let down hundreds of thousands of cryptocurrency users,” he said. “The time when the inefficiencies of legacy platforms justified centralization should be long gone. With technologies like TON reaching their potential, the blockchain industry should be finally able to deliver on its core mission – giving the power back to the people.”