Telegram Messenger App Launches USDT Transfer Feature Within Chats, Expanding Crypto Services – Crypto Adoption on the Rise?

As the world of digital currencies continues to expand, TON Blockchain has introduced a new feature that enables Telegram users to transfer Tether (USDT), the world’s most popular stablecoin, through messenger chats. 

The news was tweeted by the TON blockchain, with the team writing: “Imagine being able to buy and sell crypto via a messaging app. Now imagine it’s already here,” adding the link to the Wallet. 

Telegram Integrates USDT into @Wallet Bot for Greater Convenience and Accessibility.

Kirill Malev, a Partner at First Stage Lab, a venture capital firm and ecosystem builder on the TON blockchain, recently shared exciting news for the TON community via Twitter. 

He announced that the popular instant messaging app, Telegram, has integrated USDT into its @wallet bot, allowing users to send the stablecoin to friends along with the native TON coin. 

This new feature offers greater convenience and accessibility for TON users, highlighting the platform’s ongoing commitment to expanding its crypto capabilities.

This means that users are now able to select the USDT altcoin within their Telegram chat boxes to transfer money to their peers directly and instantly.  

Per Decrypto, however, Telegram will, for now, only support the USDT run on the Tron blockchain, TRC20. 

The wallet also allows users to convert USDT TRC-20 tokens to purchase TON, Malev added.

This latest development should, theoretically, be positive for the industry. Malev argued that, 

“This is a great step forward for crypto adoption! […] This is not just a major milestone for the TON blockchain community, but also a significant step in bridging the gap between cryptocurrency and mainstream users. Now we all can easily *show* how crypto works to our non-cryptonative frens.”

He also named some possibilities created by this Telegram/USDT move, including new and different types of transactions, shopping, and crowdfunding. 

Telegram is said to have 700 million monthly active users, per Demand Sage, with projections of over one billion users by the end of the year. 

The user count has increased by 175% since 2018. Furthermore, the app has 55.2 million Daily Active Users as of 2023.

Meanwhile, USDT is the world’s largest stablecoin per market capitalization ($78 billion), and the third among all cryptocurrencies, behind Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), respectively. 

Though initially dismissive of the network, Pavel Durov, the mastermind behind Telegram, last year praised the efforts of TON – a blockchain project built from the ruins of his own vision of a global stablecoin. 

TON’s Rebranding and Expansion into Crypto Capabilities

In 2020, American regulators dealt a major blow to Pavel Durov’s original Telegram Open Network (TON) project, forcing it to be abandoned at the eleventh hour. 

However, a breakaway group of developers and community members, known as The TON Foundation, repurposed the project and rebranded it as The Open Network. 

This new iteration of TON features Toncoin as its native currency, replacing the original gram coin.

In a recent statement, Durov hinted at Telegram’s potential future plans to launch a blockchain-powered marketplace for usernames, emojis, and other app-based assets. 

He proposed that TON and Toncoin may be the best choice of network and currency for such a marketplace, highlighting the benefits of securing username ownership through a non-fungible token (NFT)-like smart contracts on the blockchain.

Adding to this, TON developers announced the launch of a peer-to-peer (P2P) market in October 2022, enabling Telegram users to trade Toncoin directly on the messaging platform. 

This new feature allows users to buy and sell the crypto from each other, with the wallet service acting as a guarantor of the transaction.

These developments mark a significant expansion of TON’s crypto capabilities and demonstrate Telegram’s ongoing commitment to exploring new blockchain-based services for its users.

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