Telegram's crypto wallet goes live to its 87 million U.S. users

Telegram users in the U.S. can now send, receive, and manage cryptocurrency directly inside the app — no downloads, extensions, or separate logins required.

TON Wallet is built into Telegram's interface and is beginning its U.S. rollout this week. It is a self-custodial crypto wallet in which a user controls their own private keys.

The service, developed by The Open Platform, which is known as TOP, and built on the TON blockchain, allows users to send stablecoins and other digital tokens to their contacts as easily as sending a message.

The company says it's the first time a self-custodial crypto wallet has been embedded into a mainstream messaging platform in the U.S. market.

The wallet has already seen broad international adoption, with more than 100 million users globally having activated their wallets in 2024. The U.S. launch had been delayed amid regulatory uncertainty. Andrew Rogozov, CEO of TOP, said that began to shift over the past year.

"We started considering the U.S. as a more interesting opportunity for us," Rogozov told CNBC, citing a shift in regulatory conditions and Telegram's user growth.

He said there are a lot of crypto users on the platform, and described the wallet as "the fundamental part of this infrastructure," giving users a way to store assets and interact with Telegram's growing ecosystem of Mini Apps.

"Our goal, our mission here, is to remove as much friction as possible," Rogozov said. "And this is basically what crypto is trying to solve, especially at the global scale, by removing all the borders."

A split-key backup system — one part tied to the user's Telegram account and another to their email — allows for self-custody while simplifying onboarding.

"No need to download the wallet, no need to remember the seed phrase," he added. "This is how we simplify the whole thing."

TON Wallet supports peer-to-peer transfers, swaps between tokens, staking to earn yield, and zero-fee crypto purchases through a partnership with MoonPay. It also provides on- and off-ramps via debit cards and connects to decentralized apps inside Telegram's "Mini Apps."

Telegram formally distanced itself from the TON blockchain after abandoning its own crypto token effort in 2020 under SEC pressure. In the years since, it has continued to integrate TON-based features such as tokenized usernames, stickers, and emojis, and has publicly supported Fragment, a collectibles marketplace built on TON.

TON Wallet's expansion into the U.S. could increase competition for platforms like Cash App and Coinbase, particularly if Telegram's crypto-enabled ecosystem gains traction with mainstream users.

For now, the wallet avoids directly offering regulated financial services, instead partnering with licensed providers like MoonPay for on- and off-ramps.

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