Pavel Durov Will Hold His $7 Million Gift in Notcoin Until It Raises 100x

In summary

More than half a million Notcoin users donated a portion of their in-game coins to Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram.
Durov received over 1.03 billion NOT tokens, initially worth $6.8 million, now worth $7.3 million.
Durov expects his NOT tokens to reach a value of $680 million before selling them to support Telegram, while NOT has fallen 50% since its debut, its market capitalization remains high.

Notcoin Users Were Generous Ahead of Token Launch NOT on Thursday, as more than half a million players of the viral Telegram-based game donated a portion of their in-game coins to Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram. Now that loot is worth millions of dollars, and Durov says he’s waiting for a potential 100x win.

More than 552,000 Notcoin players donated a portion of their in-game coins to Durov last Februaryas part of an effort by the Notcoin team, called Open Builders, as a thank you to the founder of Telegram for the messaging app that hosts the cryptocurrency game.

Finally, Durov finished with over 1.03 billion NOT tokens, or just over 1% of the total Notcoin supply on The Open Network (TON). That gift is worth about $7.3 million at the time of this writing, but was slightly less, $6.8 million, when Durov He made his gift public last Friday.

Durov, who is estimated to be worth $15.5 billion, according to Forbes, he barely needs the money, so according to him he will not sell his tokens. Although if NOT increases in value, he says he would sell them to better support Telegram ultimately.

“Half a million Notcoin users gifted me $6.8 million worth of Notcoin! Thank you,” Durov wrote on Telegram. “I will hold these coins until they become $680 million, at which point I will use them to purchase more servers for Telegram.”

Notcoin performed the biggest gaming token release to date, debuting with a market capitalization of nearly $1.5 billion early Thursday. New cryptocurrencies are typically volatile, and in fact NOT has fallen in value since its debut, declining 50% to a current price slightly above $0.007, according to CoinMarketCap.

Still, NOT is the 101st most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap at $746 million, and racked up over $1 billion in trading volume in its first 24 hours after launch.

Notcoin paused its game in April to prepare for the token’s launch, but is set to relaunch its cryptocurrency-earning game and ultimately serve as a platform for additional games in an effort to become the “Netflix of social gaming and viral,” he told Decrypt’s GG in April Notcoin co-creator Sasha Plotvinov.