Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has created one of the clearest long-term calls in Bitcoin using a wide range of conversations on the Lex Fridman podcast. The statement appears in Friedman’s newly released episode with Doloff.
Why Bitcoin reaches $1 million: Pavel Durov
As to why Fridman continued to accumulate Bitcoin and whether he would look even more upside down, Doloff traced his beliefs to the earliest days of assets and its financial design. “I had a great belief in Bitcoin, more or less,” he said. He recalled “the first thousands of Bitcoin in 2013” as “$700 per Bitcoin,” and later refused to sell it even if the price fell to $300.
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“And my reaction to them, I don’t care. I’m not going to sell it. I believe in this.” For Durov, the core is Bitcoin’s censorship resistance and predictable issuance. “No one can confiscate Bitcoin from you. You can’t censor you for political reasons. This is the ultimate exchange. The government will continue to print money like tomorrow.
Durov also painted a sharp line between his personal finances and Telegram’s operating economics, saying that Bitcoin valuation effectively funded his lifestyle, not profiting from the company. “Telegram is a money-loss surgery for me personally. Bitcoin has allowed me to float,” he pointed out, adding that his long-term horizon on assets has not changed since his early purchase over a decade ago.
The timing of Durov’s $1 million paper is worth noting given the growing role of Telegram in Crypto’s Consumer Edge. The company gradually integrated the Ton ecosystem into its products and business models, committed to channel owners Toncoinbase advertising payments and revenue sharing, and opened an advertising platform in a wide range of markets. The tons of advertising infrastructure is rated as catalyzing user and developer activity across Telegram’s mini-application economy.
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On the wallet side, Telegram’s cryptographic features (originally deployed internationally) will expand to the US in July 2025, allowing for in-app transfers and payments to the Ton Community Wallet Mini App. The US expansion follows Telegram, which has been described as a nine-digit global wallet activation metric in 2024, highlighting the scale of on-chain payments and gaming’s potential distribution channels.
For the million dollars themselves, Durov has locked it into supply discipline and illegal decline, not a short-term market catalyst. His reasoning track with hard cap arguments has been long gone by Bitcoin’s most committed holders. Issuance is programmatic and terminal, and financial and financial expansion is discretionary.
Just: Telegram CEO says he thinks Bitcoin will go to $1,000,000 👀
“The government continues to print money like tomorrow. It’s not printing bitcoin.” 🚀 pic.twitter.com/aidwr7xvkq
– Bitcoin Magazine (@bitcoinmagazine) September 30, 2025
Whether or not the macro story alone can offer seven-figure prices is a market question. What Durov revealed is that his own positioning reflects his ten-year belief. “Look at the trends,” he told Fridman. “Bitcoin is here to stay. We don’t see all the Fiat currency yet.”
At the time of pressing, Bitcoin was traded for $114,372.
Featured images created with dall.e, charts on tradingview.com