Telegram has rolled out its own self-custodial Gram wallet as the default crypto wallet in user settings, while rebranding Wallet in Telegram as “Walt” — a split that puts a non-custodial wallet in front of more than a billion users for the first time.
By Amir Hassan | August 31, 2026
The Hook: A Billion Users Get Their Own Keys
The change, announced to Cointelegraph on Monday, reorganizes Telegram’s crypto offering around two services. The new Gram wallet is a self-custodial wallet — meaning users, not a company, hold the private keys that control their funds, like keeping cash in your own pocket instead of a bank’s vault. It is now the default wallet in Telegram’s settings and will focus on payments, transfers and purchases across the app.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov first teased the wallet in July, saying the company planned to bring a native non-custodial wallet to every Telegram app. “We’ll be gradually rolling it out to our billion+ users over the next couple of weeks,” he said in a Telegram post on Monday.
What Each Wallet Does
The two services remain connected but serve different jobs:
- Gram wallet — self-custodial, Telegram’s transaction layer for transfers and payments; supports purchases of Telegram Collectibles including gifts, usernames and phone numbers, plus payments for services
- Walt (formerly Wallet in Telegram) — the broader platform: no longer the default wallet, accessible through search, but offering trading, investing and multichain support; Walt users can also make multichain crypto deposits to Gram wallet
The numbers behind Walt explain why the rebrand makes sense. The platform supports deposits, holdings and withdrawals for more than 300 crypto assets across four blockchains, trading in more than 200 of them, and more than 100 tokenized stocks, ETFs and metals. It also offers crypto yield services and perpetual futures — derivative contracts with no expiration date — across more than 70 assets, including oil, natural gas and metals.
The Core Shift: From TON Wallet to Full Platform
“We started as a simple wallet for buying TON, but over the past four years we’ve grown into a full-scale crypto platform inside Telegram, launching Earn, real-world assets and perpetual trading,” said Andrew Rogozov, founder and CEO of The Open Platform (TOP), the company behind Walt. The rebrand reflects that growth: Walt is no longer a wallet app with extras, but a financial platform that happens to live inside a messenger.
The renaming also closes a chapter. Wallet in Telegram began as a service primarily used to buy and hold Gram (GRAM), the token formerly known as Toncoin (TON). With the new structure, the custodial platform takes a new identity while the “Gram” name moves to the self-custodial wallet that carries the brand forward.
Market Implications: Self-Custody at Mainstream Scale
Self-custody has mostly been a niche practice for enthusiasts willing to manage their own keys. Making it the default for one of the world’s largest messaging apps is a genuine shift — it introduces the “not your keys, not your coins” principle to people who have never thought about it. That comes with responsibility too: a self-custodial wallet means Telegram cannot recover funds if a user loses access, a trade-off every new user should understand before moving significant money.
For payments adoption, the move is constructive. A simple wallet focused on transfers, collectibles and everyday purchases — sitting in the settings menu of an app billions already open daily — removes most of the friction that has kept crypto payments niche. The connection to Walt gives users a bridge from that simple experience into trading and yield when they are ready.
The Verdict: What This Means for You
If you use Telegram, expect the Gram wallet to appear in your settings over the coming weeks. Treat it as you would physical cash: convenient, fast, and yours alone to protect. Write down any recovery phrase the app gives you, keep it offline, and start with small amounts until you are comfortable. For the broader crypto market, a default self-custodial wallet at billion-user scale is one of the largest mainstream on-ramps ever built — the long-term effect on everyday crypto usage could be substantial.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
self custody as the DEFAULT for a billion users is genuinely wild. most of them wont back up the seed phrase and support is about to be flooded with lost wallet tickets
Thats the real test though. Telegram has a billion users but how many understand there is no recovery option once they hold the keys themselves?
skip button plus no forced backup is how you mint permanent losses at scale. telegram has onboarding data on a billion users, they know people skip everything
wallet rollout stats put seed phrase completion under 30 percent. at a billion users telegram scales that into coins lost forever
under 30 percent seed completion plus a skip button is brutal math at billion user scale. gate the first deposit behind the backup and the number fixes itself overnight
gate the deposit and activation drops, someone upstairs panics, gate quietly removed within a quarter. frictionless onboarding IS the product, the burn event is collateral damage
under 30 percent seed completion is the stat that decides this whole experiment. forced backup or bust, no optional modals
The 30 percent stat comes from wallets that let you bail. Gate the balance behind the backup and completion looks very different
lmao uncle walt. still better than a rebrand committee picking something with a dot app domain
telegram a b tests everything with a skip button. no way the irreversible loss modal survives a metrics review meeting
Making self custody the DEFAULT for a billion users is the biggest UX shift in crypto since exchanges went mobile. Durov actually shipping it is another thing entirely.
splitting custodial Walt from self custodial Gram is cleaner than i expected. just hope the onboarding screen explains the difference because your average telegram user has never heard of a seed phrase
right, if the seed backup flow is anything less than dead simple were gonna see a generation of permanently lost grams. UX is the whole ballgame
a generation of permanently lost grams already reads like a documentary title. half these wallets will sit dormant with zero balance anyway imo
onboarding needs a forced backup check before the wallet holds anything. one optional modal about irreversible loss and a billion people are going to tap skip
a skip button plus a billion users is the largest accidental burn event in crypto history. gate the whole flow, no optional modals
gating the first deposit is the only version that actually works. telegram a/b tested the entire world into tapping skip, one optional modal wont survive contact with their own funnel team
The rebrand to Walt for the old custodial side is smart separation. Payments on Gram keys, trading on Walt, cleaner story for regulators too.
Durov putting keys in front of a billion people is the largest self custody experiment ever attempted. wait for the lost seed stories in a year
lost seed stories are guaranteed, the stat i want is dormant wallets. most of those billion will sit at zero balance forever and never matter to anyone
Teased in July, default by September. Telegram moves faster on crypto rails than most chains move on core upgrades.
splitting payments into Gram and pushing Walt toward trading is cleaner than cramming both into one app. but Walt? sounds like my uncle who still asks what a bitcoin is
walt sounds like a mascot for a regional bank lmao. the custody split is right though, regulators would have never cleared one wallet doing payments and trading
durov teased this in july and its already the default in settings. compare that to wallets that spend a year in beta behind a waitlist