Telegram Founder Announces Upcoming Non-Custodial Wallet

Telegram is planning to launch a non-custodial wallet as soon as this summer. The messaging app founder, Pavel Durov, shared this on his Telegram channel, noting that it will be the biggest rollout ever for a non-custodial crypto wallet.

The move from Telegram is the latest in a series of crypto-centric developments by the messaging platform, which boasts over 1 billion users.

Durov Teases Free Transactions in New Telegram Wallet

It is unclear how the wallet will function, but it is likely to be integrated into Telegram. Durov’s post stated that they are bringing the non-custodial Gram wallet to every Telegram app.

Interestingly, Telegram already has a native, custodial crypto wallet known as Wallet. According to the platform, it has over 150 million users.

Wallet recently integrated with Lighter decentralized perps exchange, introducing perpetual futures to its users. Other wallets also exist as miniapps on Telegram, including TON Space. It remains to be seen how the new non-custodial wallet will compete.

Durov has already teased instant, free crypto transactions for the Gram wallet users. However, he did not specify how the wallet will achieve this, suggesting it could involve Telegram subsidizing transaction fees to attract users.

GRAM Soars on News of Upcoming Wallet

Following Durov’s announcement, GRAM, formerly Toncoin, soared by as much as 10% to $1.54 today, up from a low of $1.43. While it has now dropped to $1.528, the token remains in the green, up almost 7% over the past 24 hours.

Today’s performance snaps GRAM out of its funk, as the token has been in decline since early July. However, a snapshot of its performance over the last three months shows that GRAM has mostly been falling since May, when it soared to a peak of around $2.7.

The peak coincides with Telegram announcing that it is taking over the development of the TON Network from TON Foundation and has become the largest validator.

Since then, Telegram has announced multiple developments for TON Network. These include slashing TON fees by 6x and introducing a new toolchain for network builders. It also rebranded Toncoin as GRAM, claiming that this was step 4 of its plan to make the network great again.

While the developments have had a meaningful impact on GRAM performance, the token remains down 8% year to date. It continues to trade below 80% from its peak price of $8.25 in 2024.