Telegram Gets the Russian Runaround: Crypto Community Scrambles for New DMs

Russia has been trying to restrict access to Telegram for several weeks now and the country's crypto community is struggling to find a decent substitute. After an initial slowdown, attempts to block the messenger started ahead of a reported April 1 deadline for the compliance with Moscow's demands. Nothing says "we respect digital rights" like a good old-fashioned embargo on your DMs, apparently.

Telegram users in Russia report issues with the service. Russian authorities have been ramping up pressure on Telegram for months under the pretext that the messaging app is not complying with local rules, most notably regarding the removal of content prohibited in the country. Voice calls through the platform were limited in August 2025, with regulators claiming it had become a favorite tool for fraudsters, extremists and cybercriminals. Because nothing says "crime prevention" quite like cutting off 95 million people's communication channels during a Monday morning.

Last month, the Telegram channel Baza revealed that Roskomnadzor, the country's telecom watchdog which also acts as a media censor, intends to commence the full blocking of the messaging service on the first day of April. The RKN neither confirmed, nor denied reports quoting the post. Classic Kremlin energy: neither confirming nor denying, just letting the anxiety build like a DEX before arugment.

User signals about difficulties from across the vast country started mounting well ahead of that deadline. Websites like Detector404.ru and Cбой.рф have been receiving a flow of reports of network failures and other issues with both the mobile app and the desktop version affecting various features. Spikes were registered throughout the past several weeks, including on Wednesday. As of the time of writing, Detector404 has received at least 5,500 reports in the past 24 hours. That's a lot of "why is my VPN not working" tweets in a country that banned VPNs last year. Oh wait, they didn't ban VPNs yet. My bad.

According to data compiled by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), a global platform tracking online censorship, anomalies increased in mid-March and Russian internet service providers began actively blocking Telegram on March 20. Yet, the messenger's estimated availability in Russia remained at around 40% by the end of the month. So basically, if you wanted to use Telegram in Russia, you had a coin flip's chance. Not great odds, but better than most shitcoins.

Telegram became Russia's most popular messenger this year, with over 95 million active users in January, overtaking Meta's WhatsApp, which has been blocked since the RKN removed its domain from its DNS servers. In February, founder Pavel Durov accused Moscow of trying "to force its citizens to switch to a state-controlled app built for surveillance and political censorship." He was likely referring to Russia's so-called "national messenger" Max, which already has over 100 million users, according to stats quoted by official media, including a daily audience of 70 million. Nothing says "organic user growth" quite like mandatory government installation. Just ask North Korea.

However, finding an independent and viable alternative to Telegram is not an easy task. Russia has already banned a number of other platforms such as Viber, Signal and Discord. Instead, members of the crypto community have been looking for ways to maintain communication through their favorite messenger by employing tools to bypass restrictions such as VPNs. It's almost like building a censorship-resistant communication network is... exactly what crypto people do for a living. Who could have possibly predicted this skill set would come in handy?

"There's little point in jumping between messengers. Others will also be at risk of being blocked as they become more popular," commented Bits.media founder Ivan Tikhonov, who recommended that crypto projects take into consideration where their audience is. Basically, welcome to the hamster wheel of banned apps, except the hamster is the entire Russian internet.

Some believe there's hardly a substitute for Telegram, mainly because of the ecosystem built around the messaging platform, including mini apps and bots. According to Sarkis Darbinyan, co-founder of Roskomsvoboda, a Russian NGO resisting internet censorship, Telegram is hard to replace due to its convenience and functionality, although platforms like the decentralized, open-source Deltachat offer anonymous messaging, too. It's like trying to replace your