SINGAPORE - In a move aimed at increasing the use of cryptocurrencies, messaging app Telegram has launched a digital wallet for all its users, including those in Singapore.
The wallet is built on the TON blockchain that is supported by The Open Network Foundation (TON Foundation), an entity incorporated in Switzerland in 2023.
The move comes about three years after Telegram said it would be building a Web3 ecosystem.
Web3 is a new iteration of the Internet that incorporates concepts such as decentralisation and blockchain technology.
At the crypto event Token2049 in Singapore, TON Foundation said the self-custodial digital wallet, called TON Space, would be available to about 800 million Telegram users worldwide from Wednesday.
TON is an open-source code base that anyone can access. The foundation is one of many contributors in this decentralised network.
In November, this feature will be made the default for all Telegram users outside the United States, in over 150 countries including Singapore.
Telegram planned to launch its wallet in 2019 but scrapped it after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against the firm for its US$1.7 billion (S$2.3 billion) initial digital token offering, as the regulator viewed the tokens as unregistered securities.
So the messaging app had to cut ties with the Telegram Open Network in 2020. In June that year, Telegram settled with the SEC, paying a US$18.5 million fine and promising to pay back investors any unspent funds.
Mr Ryan Dennis, the foundation’s head of brand, said the aim is to onboard 30 per cent of Telegram users by 2028, “which is a huge win in terms of mass adoption”. Currently, 15 per cent of Telegram’s global users are interested in crypto.
“Almost everybody who works in crypto, for example, has a Telegram account, so it is a platform that is ready for a Web3 experience, and this will be the first of its kind at this size and level for a consumer messaging platform the size of Telegram,” he said.
He expects the launch of the digital wallet to finally end talk from detractors who say that blockchain has to be clunky, or that the onboarding process is too difficult.
“I think it will change the entire way people think of using the Internet, payment rails, cross-border remittances, cash on- and off-ramps and all the ways that blockchain technology provides real-world use cases in the future,” he added.
Mr John Hyman, Telegram’s chief investment officer, said the development places digital ownership rights in the hands of users, while also giving TON projects the tools to reach the app’s audience in the largest Web3/Web2 integration there has ever been. Web2 is the current state of the Internet.
