After the founder's arrest, Telegram abandoned privacy protection. How does SendingNetwork achieve communication freedom?

Author: flowie, ChainCatcher

Under regulatory pressure, Telegram's privacy promises have crumbled.

Telegram has become the fastest-growing communication platform globally, boasting 900 million monthly active users and attracting the favor of the crypto community, largely due to its strong stance on privacy protection, freedom of speech, and resistance to censorship.

However, following the arrest of founder Pavel Durov in France, Telegram's privacy policy has undergone a significant change.

Telegram quietly updated its FAQ, removing the statement, "All Telegram chats and group chats are private conversations between participants. We do not process any requests related to them."

Shortly thereafter, Pavel Durov announced on Telegram that user IP addresses and phone numbers would be shared with relevant regulatory authorities. Recently, the Wallet application on Telegram also began supporting law enforcement evidence collection.

Telegram's compromise has once again raised user concerns about privacy security. Especially for crypto users, who deal with a large amount of personal information and financial data, the sharing of user data with regulatory authorities by Telegram inevitably increases the risk of transactions.

This move by Telegram may force a significant number of privacy-conscious users to "flee," seeking instant messaging platforms that do not rely on the founder's promises and achieve resistance to censorship and communication freedom from the ground up.

How Can Users Achieve Communication Freedom After Telegram Loses Privacy Security?

Telegram's abandonment of its foundational "privacy protection" due to the founder's arrest is, in a sense, inevitable.

Compared to older communication platforms like Facebook, Telegram claims to employ end-to-end encryption and cloud storage to protect user data. However, many users are unaware that Telegram group chats and default private chats mostly do not use end-to-end encryption directly; users must manually enable encryption to benefit from it.

Telegram's data is fundamentally exposed on centralized servers. When all user data must be transmitted through centralized servers, not only does this pose a single point of failure risk, but it also makes user data vulnerable to manipulation and government scrutiny.

Currently, other mainstream Web2 communication platforms rely on various centralized architectures at both the physical and network layers, leading to even more severe exposure of user information.

Various mobile devices monitor users' every move, and user content is always at risk of being banned. Additionally, personal information is often leaked in large quantities, resulting in users frequently receiving various scam calls and being forced to face intrusive app advertisements and arbitrary fee increases.

To free users from these unfriendly experiences in communication, the key lies in transforming the "old ailments" of the internet's centralized architecture and systematically addressing issues of centralization and privacy security in communication.

Recently, following Telegram's trust crisis due to changes in its privacy policy, platforms like SendingNetwork, which aim to systematically address issues of centralization, security, and privacy in communication, have garnered significant user attention.

On its decentralized communication network, SendingNetwork has developed a decentralized communication application called SendingMe, which has attracted over 400,000 users.

Crypto KOL NingNing once stated, "SendingNetwork is not just another messaging app; it is the prelude to a communication revolution. By reconstructing the underlying TCP/IP protocol of the internet, SendingNetwork is paving a decentralized information highway for the Web3 era."

Why is SendingNetwork's Decentralized Communication Network Gaining Attention?

In addition to Telegram's trust crisis drawing many users to the decentralized communication network SendingNetwork, the SendingNetwork solution also aligns with the popular narratives of DePIN and Social in the Web3 space this year. These two narratives represent a rare consensus track between the East and the West.

From the Social perspective, SendingNetwork differs from other decentralized social projects in that most of them focus solely on the network layer and rarely address the more critical physical layer to solve the problem of communication freedom.

From the DePIN perspective, among the three foundational layers of computing, storage, and communication, there are many DePIN projects focused on computing and storage, while almost only SendingNetwork focuses on the communication layer.

Specifically, the decentralized communication network of SendingNetwork has four major highlights in protecting user privacy and security.

First, the network layer reconstructs the TCP/IP protocol. The TCP/IP protocol is one of the most widely used protocols on the internet, designed to make the network as flexible and configurable as possible, but it also has structural issues such as privacy leakage, data tampering, and centralized control.

SendingNetwork is committed to rebuilding a decentralized programmable TCP/IP protocol, ensuring network stability and efficiency through a three-layer architecture: client access layer, relay layer, and consensus layer. This architecture avoids the vulnerabilities of centralized networks, allowing information to be transmitted directly between nodes without relying on a central server.

SendingNetwork also addresses the most challenging IP address allocation issue in the TCP/IP protocol, enabling users to access the network directly through wallet addresses with ID attributes. It supports converting wallet IDs into user IDs via Ethereum ENS, creating a decentralized DID identity system that avoids common attacks through IP vulnerabilities.

Second, the physical layer implements decentralized routing. In SendingNetwork, routers are no longer simple data transmission devices but become active nodes in the network. A large number of distributed nodes participate in data transmission and verification, solving the single point risk faced by traditional centralized routers.

At the same time, users can earn token rewards by contributing idle bandwidth, further promoting the decentralization of the network.

Third, all communication data is encrypted end-to-end by default. Unlike Telegram, which requires manual selection, any data transmitted between decentralized nodes in the SendingNetwork is encrypted end-to-end by default, and nodes cannot see the content of the communication. For example, in SendingMe, both private chats and group chats are end-to-end encrypted by default.

Fourth, data ownership and usage rights belong to users rather than the project party, allowing for resistance to censorship. Even if node operators and project parties need to cooperate with regulatory authorities for audits, these data are protected by technology, and they can only be accessed if users willingly provide their account keys; otherwise, project parties, node operators, or regulatory authorities cannot decrypt them temporarily.

Decentralized routing, decentralized network architecture, end-to-end encryption technology, and censorship resistance enable SendingNetwork to effectively protect users' communication privacy and security.

On the decentralized communication network infrastructure built by SendingNetwork, the official application SendingMe also boasts high privacy security while providing a user experience similar to mainstream Web2 communication platforms. Users can chat, make payments, conduct transactions, and transfer funds on SendingMe.

Currently, in addition to fulfilling privacy-secured communication needs on SendingMe, users can also participate in the SendingNetwork decentralized routing network to earn mining rewards.

During this year's Token2049, SendingNetwork launched a new product, the SendingNetwork Edge Router A1. This device integrates decentralized mining functionality, allowing users to earn rewards by utilizing idle bandwidth.

Former Microsoft Serial Entrepreneur Committed to Building Next-Generation Communication Infrastructure

Resolving the centralization issue in communication from the ground up is no easy task for SendingNetwork. The reason why SendingNetwork dares to boldly attempt this is due to its founding team's nearly 20 years of development experience in Web1, Web2, and Web3, along with their history of continuous entrepreneurship.

The SendingNetwork team originated from the early Microsoft Windows development team. Founder Mason Yang and his core team previously worked at Microsoft in key positions, focusing on operating systems for the early internet.

After leaving Microsoft, during the mobile internet wave, the SendingNetwork team launched their first startup, the Dolphin Browser, which achieved 200 million active users and was later successfully acquired for $90 million. Following that, the SendingNetwork team embarked on a second entrepreneurial venture, with their AI product receiving $100 million in funding support.

As the core team's third entrepreneurial project, SendingNetwork once again focuses on the foundational technologies of computing and the internet, addressing issues of information flow, distribution, and presentation, and utilizing Web3 technology to achieve communication freedom from the ground up.

The team's comprehensive background in technology, product, and operations, along with their focus on the high-ceiling communication sector, has made SendingNetwork a consensus project among capital from both the East and the West.

In April of this year, SendingNetwork announced the completion of a $7.5 million seed round extension, bringing its total seed round financing to $20 million. Notable institutions and angel investors from both the East and the West, including Nomad Capital, Symbolic Capital, Web3.com Ventures, Galxe, SWC Global, Coinbase Ex-CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon, participated in this round.

After completing the financing, SendingNetwork continues to expand its ecosystem and has attracted over 100 development partners, including AI & DePIN project Network3 and Web3 asset data platform RootData.

With the compromise on privacy protection following the arrest of Telegram's founder, SendingNetwork, as a more privacy-secure decentralized communication platform, is expected to enter a period of growth and realize rapid expansion under the mature development and operational experience of its team.