Toncoin Open Interest (OI) has jumped 67% over the past 24 hours following Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s reported departure from France, where he had been required to stay since his arrest six months ago.

On March 15, Toncoin (TON) OI  — a metric tracking the total number of unsettled Toncoin derivative contracts such as options and futures —  reached $169 million, representing a 67% increase from the previous day when the reports of Durov’s departure first surfaced, according to CoinGlass data.

Toncoin open interest reaches highest level in 42 days

It is the highest level of OI in Toncoin since Feb. 1, when it was sitting at $171.49 million.

TON is The Open Network’s native cryptocurrency and is the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.

Toncoin open interest surged 67% on March 15. Source: CoinGlass

TON’s price jumped 17% over the same 24-hour period, trading at $3.45 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Trading resource account Crypto Billion said in a March 15 X post that Toncoin is “showing signs of a potential long-term accumulation phase as it stabilizes near key support levels.”

However, if this rally is short-lived, around $18.8 million in long positions could be liquidated if TON’s price falls back toward the $3 level it was trading at on March 14.

Toncoin open interest also surged after arrest in 2024

The court reportedly allowed Durov to travel to Dubai, a city with no extradition agreements with many countries.

The market’s reaction signals how significant this case is to the crypto industry. Many are worried that Durov’s arrest in August 2024 in France could set a precedent for cracking down on other privacy-focused services. He was accused of running a platform that enables illicit transactions.

Related: Bitget predicts TON ‘de-Telegramization’ in the next 2 year

Similarly, when Durov was arrested in August 2024, TON’s OI also surged. 

Following the news of Durov’s arrest on Aug. 24, 2024, TON’s OI spiked 32% over the following 24 hours, alongside its price falling almost 12%.

On Jan. 21, Telegram announced it would cease support for all blockchains other than The Open Network for its messenger services.

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A technology investor who backed ridesharing app Uber in its early days has sparked backlash from the Bitcoin community after claiming Bitcoin will inevitably be replaced by something better.

“Bitcoin has been a wonderful game, but with a couple giant players cornering the market, the timing is right to “build a better Bitcoin” — restarting the game,” prominent angel investor and internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis told his 981,600 X followers on March 14.

Calacanis, an early investor in Bitcoin-related companies like online trading platform Robinhood and Bitcoin startup Keza, said, “All technology gets replaced over time… and Bitcoin will be no different.”

Opportunity presents for Bitcoin layer-2 projects

Bitcoin (BTC) co-founders and executives were quick to push back, arguing that Bitcoin will not be replaced, though there’s still room for a dominant layer-2 protocol to emerge on top of the Bitcoin network.

Source: Pierre Rochard

Swan Bitcoin co-founder Brady Swenson said, “Winning protocols don’t get replaced; they are built upon.” 

“Bitcoin will never be replaced as a protocol for value transfer. The race is still on for the winning second layer protocol,” Swenson said.

Swan’s other co-founder, Cory Klippsten, said, “Bitcoin is a technological revolution changing all industries, not following the adoption curve of a single technology like an iPad.”

Source: Jason Lowery

Echoing a similar sentiment, Lightspark CEO David Markus said, “What it lacks in functionality can be built on L2s.” 

“Trying to build a better Bitcoin is a fool’s errand.”

Meanwhile, ShapeShift CEO Eric Voorhees said Bitcoin’s limitations can be solved “on other chains.”

The bigger Bitcoin grows, the “less likely” it is to be replaced

Many in the industry have emphasized the importance of layer-2s for Bitcoin, as they provide use cases that the Bitcoin network cannot support, such as deploying smart contracts.

However, Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks, recently told Cointelegraph that more than two-thirds of existing Bitcoin layer-2 projects will not exist within three years as their initial excitement will fade.

Source: Gastón Silva

Bitcoin advocate Wayne Vaughan said people wrongly assume Bitcoin is easily replaceable because they see it as just an asset, application, or platform.

“I think of Bitcoin as a network. The larger the network gets, the less likely it is for something else to replace it,” Vaughan said in a March 15 X post. 

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Strive Funds CEO Matt Cole said, “There will not be a “better” Bitcoin. I do think we will get occasional alt seasons of ever diminishing strength that will continue to make insiders money. Most people will end up with less Bitcoin by going to that casino.” 

This is not the first time that Calacanis’ comments have caused debate in the crypto industry.

In June 2020, Calacanis said that nearly all of the crypto projects around the world are under the control of “unqualified idiots” or “grifters” with below-average skills.

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Kaito AI, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that aggregates crypto data to provide market analysis for users, and its founder Yu Hu, were the victims of an X social media hack on March 15.

In several now-deleted posts, hackers claimed that the Kaito wallets were compromised and advised users that their funds were not safe.

According to DeFi Warhol, the hackers opened up a short position on KAITO tokens before posting the messages in the hopes that users would sell or pull their funds, which would have crashed the price and created profits for the threat actors.

The price of the KAITO token dips, presumably due to a short position. Source: CoinMarketCap

The Kaito AI team regained access to the accounts and reassured users that Kaito token wallets were not compromised in the social media exploit.

“We had high-standard security measures in place to prevent [the hack] — so it seems to be similar or the same as other recent Twitter account hacks,” the Kaito AI team added.

This recent exploit is the latest in a growing list of social media hacks, social engineering scams, and cybersecurity incidents plaguing the crypto industry.

Source: Kaito AI

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Vigilance is key: some of the latest scams and exploits to impact crypto

Pump.fun’s X account was hacked on Feb. 26 by a threat actor promoting several fake tokens, including a fraudulent governance token for the fair launch platform called “Pump.”

According to onchain sleuth ZackXBT, the Pump.fun incident was directly connected to the Jupiter DAO account hack and the DogWifCoin X account compromise.

On March 7, The Alberta Securities Commission, a Canadian financial regulator, warned the public that malicious actors were using fake news articles and fake endorsements featuring the likeness of Canadian politicians to promote a crypto scam.

The scam, known as CanCap, played on fears of a trade war between Canada and the US to lure unsuspecting victims into investing in the project, which the scammers claimed had the support of Canadian leader Justin Trudeau.

An example of a Lazarus social engineering scam where the hackers pretend to be venture capitalists experiencing audio-visual issues. Source: Nick Bax

Crypto executives are also sounding the alarm on a new scam from the state-sponsored Lazarus hacker group, where the hackers pose as venture capitalists in a Zoom meeting.

Once the target is in the meeting room, the hackers would claim they were experiencing audio-visual issues and redirect the victim to a malicious chat room where the user is encouraged to download a patch.

The patch contains malicious software designed to steal crypto private keys and other sensitive information from the victim’s computer.

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