Telegram has begun rolling out the Gram wallet to a select group of users with the goal of reaching 1 billion wallets

Telegram founder Pavel Durov confirmed that the rollout of Gram Wallet, the app's built-in decentralized cryptocurrency wallet, has begun with an initial offering to a select group of users.

9/1/20264 min read

Smart contracts for validators

Durov's emphasis on validator approval of smart contracts to address a specific operational problem has impacted the wallet infrastructure across blockchain ecosystems. When the underlying smart contract of a wallet cannot be upgraded in place, improving wallet functionality requires deploying an entirely new contract and requiring all users to transfer their funds from the old contract to the new one. This migration process creates friction, burdens support, generates a large number of users who never migrate and remain using outdated infrastructure, and poses security risks because migration time is an ideal time for phishing attacks targeting users expecting valid migration instructions.

The upgradable contract architecture, approved by validators, allows Telegram developers to implement improvements to Gram Wallet functionality without touching user funds or requiring any user action. For a wallet targeting over a billion users, the difference between an upgradable and a non-upgradable contract architecture is the difference between a product that can continuously improve and one that will fragment its user base with each significant improvement.

The trade-off that upscalable contracts bring is more of a governance issue than a purely technical one: an upscalable contract means that a party or process has the power to change the contract's behavior after a user has deposited funds into it. The validator approval requirement is the mechanism for distributing that authority across the entire TON validator pool instead of concentrating it on Telegram, although the specific governance parameters – the required validator approval thresholds, what changes can be made, whether users have any veto power or withdrawal mechanisms – have not yet been detailed in the deployment announcements.

Gram wallet is non-custodial compared to existing custodial wallets on Telegram.

Gram Wallet has a different structure compared to Telegram Wallet, an existing custodial product operated by The Open Platform, a third-party company. Under the custodial model, TOP holds users' funds and requires identity verification, meaning users trust a company to secure and return their assets, and can regain access through customer support if login credentials are lost.

Gram Wallet's non-custodial structure means users directly control their private keys. Telegram cannot access users' funds, cannot freeze them, and, more importantly, cannot recover them if the user loses their recovery phrase. That difference is the fundamental trade-off of self-custodialism: complete user autonomy over assets coupled with the user's complete responsibility for managing their keys, with no mechanism to recover lost keys.

The deployment of a non-custodial wallet to over a billion users, many of whom have never interacted with cryptocurrency and lack experience managing recovery phrases, represents the largest-scale test ever conducted to see if self-custodialness can become accessible to the general consumer. Open Platform's Wallet product, with over 150 million registered users, will continue to operate as a separate multi-chain product with a broader feature set, including trading, perpetual contracts, tokenized assets, and its Earn tool. TOP CEO Andrey Rogozov stated that the two products complement each other rather than compete.

The MTONGA roadmap and Durov's direct control over TON

The Gram wallet is the latest step in what Durov calls "Making TON Great Again," a seven-step network improvement program he has been implementing since taking on a more direct personal role in TON's development in 2026. Step one, announced in April 2026, is a tenfold speed upgrade, including a sixfold increase in block creation speed, bringing TON to under-one-second transaction completion. Step two is a sixfold reduction in transaction fees. The renaming from Toncoin back to Gram in June 2026, approved by 81% of the community users, is a symbolic reset before the wallet's launch.

The renaming mechanism was designed to be trouble-free: the transition took approximately three weeks and required no action from token holders, no token swaps, and no address changes. Balances simply began displaying as Gram instead of Toncoin. Wallet addresses remained the same, meaning TON holders could use the same address to store and spend Gram without any transition. In the spring of 2026, Durov announced that Telegram had become the largest validator of TON and the TON Foundation was no longer the primary driver of the project, asserting that the messaging company now held a central operational position in the network's development. The return of the Gram name signaled that transition, connecting the 2026 network with the original ambitions Telegram had nurtured in 2018.

Assessment and Conclusion

The scale of distribution that Gram Wallet aims for far exceeds the entire global cryptocurrency user base. Estimates of the total number of global cryptocurrency holders range from approximately 560 million to 700 million, meaning that a successful rollout of Gram Wallet to Telegram's more than one billion monthly active users would double the number of people with access to cryptocurrency wallets, even taking into account the overlap between existing cryptocurrency users and Telegram's user base.

The key difference, as 99Bitcoins noted in its article about the initial announcement in July, is that distribution and activation are not one and the same. Putting a wallet in front of a billion users doesn't mean a billion users will deposit funds into it, trade with it, or participate in cryptocurrency in any meaningful way. The actual outcome depends on whether Telegram's integration makes the cryptocurrency use case clear and easy enough for users to adopt it for purposes they already have, such as buying Telegram Collectibles, sending money to contacts, paying for services within the Telegram ecosystem, rather than requiring users to develop new behaviors around an unfamiliar technology.

The ability to offer instant, fee-free transactions addresses the most common pain point in consumer adoption of cryptocurrency: transaction fees that make small-value transactions economically unfeasible. If Gram Wallet succeeds in providing truly free instant transactions on a large scale, the main technical barrier to using cryptocurrency for small-value everyday transactions in a messaging context will be removed, leaving only user education and clarity of the use case as hurdles to overcome before adoption.

Disclaimer: The content in this article is for informational, research, data analysis, and reference purposes only regarding the cryptocurrency market. All opinions, assessments, forecasts, or opinions reflect the author's perspective at the time of publication and do not constitute investment advice, solicitations for buying or selling, trading recommendations, advertising, marketing, or promotion of any financial products, services, or cryptocurrencies. Mentions of projects, tokens, protocols, exchanges, wallets, or cryptocurrency service providers (CASPs) are for research, analysis, or informational purposes only and should not be construed as endorsements, recommendations, or guarantees in any way. HCCVenture does not broker, advertise, market, promote, or connect users in Vietnam with any cryptocurrency services from CASPs. HCCVenture does not accept asset custody, investment mandates, manage assets, or execute transactions on behalf of clients. All investment decisions are made entirely through the reader's own research (DYOR), evaluation, and responsibility; HCCVenture is not liable for any losses or damages arising from the use of or reliance on the information presented in this article.

Compiled and analyzed by HCCVenture

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