Telegram wants to give a billion people a crypto wallet — what 'non-custodial' means

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said on Tuesday that the messaging app will add a built-in cryptocurrency wallet for its more than one billion users this summer. He called it "the largest rollout of a non-custodial crypto wallet in human history." No exact launch date was given, and several details are still unannounced.

The wallet is designed around Gram, the coin formerly known as Toncoin and the native token of The Open Network (TON), a blockchain closely tied to Telegram. The token was renamed to Gram in June after an 81% community vote, reviving the name Telegram first used in a 2018 white paper. On the announcement, Gram rose about 7% to just above $1.52, though it remains far below its earlier levels this year.

The word to understand here is "non-custodial." A custodial wallet is like money in a bank: a company holds it for you and you trust them to give it back. A non-custodial wallet is more like cash in your own pocket — you hold the keys, and no one can move your funds without your permission. Telegram already has a wallet bot (@wallet) with over 150 million users, but it runs partly in custodial mode. The new wallet would be non-custodial from the start and built directly into the app.

The scale is what makes this notable. Popular self-custody wallets today count their users in the tens of millions; Telegram is talking about a billion. Durov also promises instant, zero-fee transactions, which could turn sending crypto into something as simple as sending a text.

There is history behind the caution, too. Telegram raised $1.7 billion for this project in 2018, then settled with the U.S. SEC in 2020 — returning $1.2 billion to investors and paying an $18.5 million penalty — before the community kept the chain alive on its own. Durov retook the reins this year.

If the wallet arrives, treat "you hold the keys" as a responsibility, not just a feature. With true self-custody there is no help desk to reset a lost password: whoever controls the secret recovery phrase controls the money. Write it down, keep it offline, and never type it into a link someone sends you. A billion new wallets will also mean a billion new targets for scammers.