Telegram widens Money wallet rollout as GRAM rises 9% to $1.56

More than a billion accounts ^[5] is the upper limit on this rollout. The pace is set by people who already hold GRAM. One holder can open the wallet for any number of contacts by sending to them ^[2], and the source describes a Walt top-up as something a recipient does once the section has appeared ^[6]. Walt's announcement does not say how many accounts now have Money.

The market figures measure trading. At $1.56, a $4.12 billion market capitalisation ^[4] implies about 2.64 billion tokens ^[17] of the asset that was renamed from Toncoin on June 15 ^[15]. The 9% day added roughly $340 million of value ^[18]. Volume of $132.4 million means about 3.2% of that capitalisation changed hands in 24 hours ^[19], against roughly $94 million the day before if the 41% rise is taken as reported ^[20]. Spread over more than a billion Telegram accounts, the whole $4.12 billion comes to at most about $4 each ^[21].

Telegram has split the jobs between two products. Money holds and sends GRAM and buys gifts and collectible usernames ^[3]. Trading and investing sit in Walt ^[7], which is built by The Open Platform and is a separate product from Telegram's native wallet ^[11]. Walt lists more than 200 cryptocurrencies and over 100 tokenized stocks, ETFs and metals ^[12], plus perpetual futures on more than 70 assets including oil and natural gas ^[13]. Telegram is keeping all of that out of its own wallet. Buying GRAM happens at another company and holding it happens in Money. Since Oct. 8, Walt has opened through Telegram search instead of the settings menu ^[14].

Self-custody here has a specific design. Under Durov's plan, holders control their cryptocurrency instead of leaving custody with Telegram or another provider ^[8]. He also said network validators approved the wallet's smart contract before release, and that developers can upgrade the wallet without holders moving assets to a replacement contract ^[10].

Transfers could chain through contact lists, with gifts and usernames ^[3] giving people outside crypto a reason to accept GRAM, until Money sits in a large share of accounts. Or activation could stay among people who already fund from Walt, and the expansion would mostly move existing holders' tokens from one app to another. A third path runs through Telegram Collectibles, which Durov said would include gifts, usernames and phone numbers ^[9]: GRAM could end up mainly as the token for buying Telegram's own goods. I think the second outcome is the most likely in the near term, because the only funding route the announcement describes runs from a Walt account ^[6]. The case against that view is that one sender can open many wallets ^[2], so a small group of holders can reach a much larger group of recipients. A Telegram count of Money accounts well beyond Walt's own users, or a wallet that appears without an incoming transfer, would show the view is wrong.