GRAM fell between 2% after India ordered Google and Apple to delist Telegram from their app stores, cutting off access for an evaluated 104 to 150 million users, and Pavel Durov is not happy. It’s cutting Telegram’s single largest national consumer base.
Executed under Section 69A of India’s Information Technology Act, it is clear temporary, tied to the NEET-UG scientific entrance re-examination scheduled for June 21.
The whole investment thesis for the TON blockchain and its native token rests on Telegram as a distribution moat, a billion-consumer platform that embeds the chain natively into daily messaging. One government’s Section 69A order just showed that the moat has a trapdoor.
This will possibly affect the crypto market too, with India as one of the largest nations with active crypto holders, and Telegram, along X, are in where crypto communities are spending their days.
What Has The Indian Government Done?
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, acting on a formal request from the National Testing Agency, invoked Section 69A of the IT Act to limit access to Telegram ahead of the NEET-UG re-exam. The National Testing Agency had canceled the original May 3 exam amid allegations of paper leak, with Telegram channels involved in distributing, and in some case fabricating, leaked materials.
A separate government direction needs Telegram to disable its message-editing characteristic for Indian users till June 30. This is targeting the precise mechanism that investigators say cheating networks used to form backdated fake leak evidence.
As of nowadays, the delisting order runs until June 22, 2026, or one day after the re-exam.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov replied on X with a sharp counter-allegation, blaming India telecom Reliance of using BGP hijacking. He observed that they’re particularly abusing the Border Gateway Protocol via autonomous system number AS18101 to reroute and disrupt Telegram access for outside India, including in the UAE.
BGP hijacking is a way where a network operator broadcasts false routing information to redirect interest traffic; if genuine, it would mean Telegram’s connectivity issues extend nicely beyond the Indian government order. Pave; Durov also alleged that Reliance and WhatsApp lobbied collectively to impose the India ban, citing Reliance’s partial ownership by Meta as a motive.
A senior India telecom industry source flatly rejected the claims, telling the Economic Times that Pavel Durov conflated two wholly separate entities. Reliance Communications, which operates subsea cables and holds AS18101, and Reliance Industries Ltd, the parent of Jio, wherein Meta holds only a minority stake with no operational function.
The supply called the conflation both a misunderstanding of the sector or deliberate misinformation. Telegram, Jio, Meta, and Reliance Communications had no responded to media queries at the time of publication.
Not Just Pavel Durov, Crypto Takes a Hit by India Decision
The bull case for Gram, or TON blockchain, has constantly been distribution, so is crypto in general. Telegram’s crypto funnel is running at scale. India, with 104 to 150 million Telegram users, is the largest single node in that funnel. Per the report, the disruption of crypto hit tap-to-earn games, every day quiz apps, and Web3 mini-apps instantly, with Indian users locked out of on-chain participation overnight.
The distinction between Durov’s two claims matters for the funding calculus. If the Indian ban is purely regulatory, a government acting on legitimate examination-integrity worries, then it’s bound sure by way of those issues and ends when they’re resolved.
If Durov’s allegation holds, and WhatsApp and Reliance entities lobbied to suppress a competitor, then the ban is an device of competitive war. Competitive suppression is episodic and generally reversible while the political cost rises. Genuine regulatory action can evolve into something structural.
The BGP hijacking claim, if established, would be independently alarming; it’d mean disruption to Telegram get access to is being produced at the routing layer, outside any government order, affecting customers in third countries just like the UAE.
