Pavel Durov, the creator of Telegram, announced that the messaging app will soon have a built-in digital wallet for its own cryptocurrency. This wallet, called Gram, will be available to all Telegram users this summer and is designed to give users full control of their funds.
If successful, the launch will give over a billion Telegram users direct control of their cryptocurrency, making it one of the biggest efforts yet to bring blockchain technology to everyday people.
Self-custody at internet scale
Non-custodial wallets give you complete control over your digital assets, unlike traditional wallets where a company holds your private keys. With a non-custodial wallet, *you* are in charge of keeping your recovery phrase and private keys safe – there’s no middleman involved.
Telegram’s Durov Teases Largest Non-Custodial Crypto Wallet Launch
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Durov said the wallet will allow users to send and receive cryptocurrency instantly with no fees, indicating it’s meant for regular purchases instead of just holding crypto. More information about how the wallet works and which cryptocurrencies it will support is still coming.
A long crypto journey
The announcement is yet another chapter in Telegram’s long relationship with blockchain technology.
Telegram collected about $1.7 billion in 2018 to build the Telegram Open Network (TON) and create the Gram token. But the project was stopped when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took legal action, claiming the token sale violated securities laws by not being properly registered.
In 2020, Telegram stopped working on its initial TON project after reaching a legal agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Since then, the TON Foundation has continued developing the blockchain on its own, and Telegram has been gradually adding more blockchain features to its apps and services.
Crypto ambitions continue
Pavel Durov recently hinted that Telegram is expanding its focus to include both communication and cryptocurrencies, blending messaging with the world of digital money.
Putting a built-in digital wallet inside a popular messaging app like Telegram could make using crypto much easier by removing the need to download and manage a separate wallet app. If widely adopted by Telegram’s users, this would be one of the biggest expansions of self-custody technology ever seen in the crypto world.
2026-07-22 01:07