Cryptocurrencies have always had intricate relationships with social media platforms, where investors and crypto enthusiasts can share news and suggest coins and projects that they deem the most cutting edge. While Twitter was always seen as a space dedicated especially to arguments like crypto, the conversation has recently shifted to more innovative spaces like Discord – which we have already discussed in this forum – and Telegram.
Telegram grew exponentially within crypto circles in the past three years. This is especially due to its benefits of encrypted messaging, ability to create good group chats and bit functionalities that help automate tasks on the channel, such as linking useful resources for projects and queries. As is known, crypto users and enthusiasts prefer acting anonymously, usually only publicizing their username and wallet address, and therefore Telegram’s ability to encrypt messages on chats has undoubtedly had a hand in helping the social media popularize itself within crypto ecospheres.
However, there is an even more unique trait that has attracted crypto investors to Telegram: its foundation of “The Open Network” (TON) in 2017, a platform within Telegram that was developed for decentralized applications and as an alternative payment network to major centralized carriers. A TON representative indicated to Cointelegraph that “Telegram is a user-friendly platform for everyone in the Web 3 world – both for communication and developing products using their disruptive technologies.”
In fact, the TON has also recently developed a wallet bot that revolutionizes the transferring of cryptocurrencies, allowing Telegram users to purchase and sell digital assets without having to leave the application. By simplifying the use of blockchains, the wallet bot developed by TON opens the door to crypto adoption by users and people who may not be familiar with digital assets to a great extent, while its simplification of transactions also makes it appetible to veteran crypto traders as well. However, it must be stated that, at the moment, it is only possible to Toncoin (TON) and bitcoin (BTC) on the app, but the project is working to have more crypto available for purchase in the near future.
In addition to its tangible innovation within the app, Telegram’s importance towards user privacy, as mentioned above, is another reason why it has become decidedly popular among crypto circles. In addition to encryption its messages, Telegram has also rolled out a new update that enables users to create accounts using blockchain-base anonymous numbers, as opposed to cell phone numbers, which means that user will be able to hide their number from everyone they don’t want accessing it, which is not so much the case now, even though Telegram already hides users’ private phone numbers from non-added users on the app. In addition, the fact that Telegram relies on public usernames instead of mobile numbers to add one another for direct messaging, means that no contact info is necessarily required, and a username can be invented as well, giving user anonymity the utmost protection.
The development of a bot and the TON network certainly demonstrate that Telegram is not shying away from incorporating crypto-friendly users on their platform, and the fact that the app has over 500 million users worldwide is certainly a good marketing tool for spreading info and announcements about exciting new crypto technologies and projects. Its protection of user data and chats is yet another demonstration that it has been maneuvering to create a crypto user-friendly atmosphere within its platform,
