Telegram Officially Confirms Crypto Move With ‘Gram’

Facebook has hogged most of the crypto headlines of late as its Project Libra has continued to receive flak from both financial regulators as well as former partners that belonged to the Libra Association.

With the spotlight on Facebook, Telegram, the popular messaging app has quietly announced the launch of its Gram Wallet.

The company did a stealth update of its Terms of Service (ToS) and introduced their Grams Wallet. According to the ToS, it will be either offered as a standalone app or be integrated into the messenger app.

Telegram has been very secretive about how their crypto plans have been proceeding and preferred to keep things under wraps. Market analysts believe that Telegram was wise to do so as it would have faced a similar scrutiny as Project Libra had they come out in the open and revealed details about their crypto plans. 

However, the Russian app has never really paid a lot of attention to financial regulators and their policies. Telegram’s plans to make their crypto wallet available to more than 300 million global users will give them a lot of control in the crypto market.  

The company is not just offering a wallet though. Telegram will start offering its own coin called the Gram. Early users will receive the first batch of Gram soon. The ToS provide some information as to how Telegram will operate. The app promises that it will not keep any users’ public or private keys, backup phrases, or passwords. Users are warned that if they lose their credentials, they will lose access to their Grams.

No Control Over the Blockchain

The Gram is intended to become an international currency and Telegram is optimistic that things will go as per pan. The big concern for Telegram, which boasts about its encryption services, is that it has no control over the TON blockchain network. 

This network is where all Gram transactions are created, validated, and recorded. The plan is to launch the TON blockchain project by October 31, based on the information found in agreements with TON investors. However, there has been no public announcement from Telegram.

This is not the first time that Telegram entered the crypto world. The messaging app did an initial coin offering in 2018 and managed to raise $1.7 billion from less than 200 private investors. However, the company would later cancel the ICO. This time around Telegram has even bigger plans in the crypto market and it will be interesting to see how financial regulators respond!