Telegram is splitting its crypto business in two: a new self-custodial Gram wallet is rolling out as the app’s default wallet for everyday payments, while the older Wallet in Telegram platform is being rebranded as Walt and pushed toward trading, investing and multichain services.
By Carlos Martinez | August 31, 2026
The reshuffle, announced on Monday, August 31, according to Cointelegraph, puts a wallet that only you control the keys to at the center of Telegram’s crypto plans. For the roughly one billion people who use the messaging app, that means the way they buy, hold and send crypto inside Telegram is changing — and holders of Gram (GRAM), the token formerly known as Toncoin, are watching the move closely as the ecosystem’s flagship asset gets a bigger stage.
The Hook: A Default Wallet for a Billion Users
The biggest change is simple but important: the Gram wallet is now the default wallet in Telegram’s user settings. Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who first teased the wallet in July 2026, said in a Telegram post on Monday that the company will be “gradually rolling it out to our billion+ users over the next couple of weeks.”
Why does “default” matter? Think of it like the wallet that comes pre-installed on your phone. Most people never change the default — they just use whatever is already there. By making a self-custodial wallet (meaning the private keys, and therefore the funds, belong to the user rather than to a company) the default option, Telegram is effectively introducing a billion potential users to the idea of holding their own crypto.
What Gram Wallet and Walt Each Do
Under the new structure, the two services have clearly separated jobs:
- Gram wallet — the transaction layer. It handles payments, transfers and purchases across Telegram, including buying Telegram Collectibles such as gifts, usernames and phone numbers, plus payments for services and everyday purchases.
- Walt (formerly Wallet in Telegram) — the broader platform. It offers deposits, holdings and withdrawals for more than 300 crypto assets across four blockchains, trading in more than 200 assets, over 100 tokenized stocks, ETFs and metals, yield products and perpetual futures on more than 70 assets, including commodities like oil and natural gas.
Walt will no longer be Telegram’s default wallet. Instead, users will find it through search. The two remain connected, though: Walt lets users make multichain crypto deposits straight into their Gram wallet.
The Core Conflict: Payments App or Trading Platform?
The split answers a strategic question Telegram has faced for years: is its crypto business mainly about spending money or about investing money? The Gram wallet bets on payments — small, frequent, everyday transactions like tipping a creator or buying a username. Walt bets on the full financial supermarket — leveraged trading, tokenized equities and yield.
“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 also reflects how far the service has moved from its origins. Wallet in Telegram began life primarily as a place to buy and hold Toncoin, now called Gram. According to crypto.news market data at the time of writing, GRAM was trading around 1.41 USD, up roughly 2 percent on the day — a modest but positive reaction on an otherwise red day for the broader market.
Market Implications for GRAM Holders
For regular investors, the practical takeaway is distribution. If Gram wallet reaches even a fraction of Telegram’s user base, the number of people who can easily hold, send and spend GRAM-related assets grows without them needing to sign up anywhere else. Distribution has always been the hardest part of crypto adoption, and Telegram starts with an audience most projects can only dream of.
There are caveats. A self-custodial wallet also means self-custodial responsibility — if you lose your keys, there is no customer service desk to recover your funds. And a payments-focused wallet drives usage, but usage does not automatically translate into price appreciation; GRAM’s value will still depend on demand for the token itself within Telegram’s ecosystem.
The Verdict
Telegram is quietly building one of the largest crypto distribution machines in the world, and Monday’s split makes its structure clearer than ever: Gram for paying, Walt for trading. If you already hold GRAM, the news is a structural positive — the token’s home app is putting a native wallet in front of a billion users over the coming weeks. If you don’t, the rollout is worth watching as a real-world test of whether mainstream audiences actually want self-custody.
As of the time of writing, Bitcoin trades around 78,700 USD and Ethereum around 2,470 USD, with the broader altcoin market slightly lower on the day.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
a non custodial wallet sitting in settings by default is the biggest soft onboarding crypto has ever had. normies will hold their own keys without ever reading the word seed phrase
and thats exactly the risk. default self custody with zero education is how people lose funds and then blame crypto as a whole
support burden is the real cost here. a billion users and telegram support is a chatbot telling you to restore your seed phrase lol
support burden is underrated. walt keeps the exchange licenses so custodial users get recovery paths, gram users get a 12 word riddle and a shrug
the 12 word riddle line is too real. telegram could ship social recovery or passkeys like every modern wallet and kill half this problem before launch
raw 12 word seeds for a payments audience is a support disaster waiting to happen. passkeys or social recovery and half the new-user pain disappears on day one
^ passkeys would kill half of this. telegram already trusts sms for logins, extending that to recovery is the same tradeoff every mobile wallet already made
exactly, and the first wave of lost seed stories will be brutal PR. onboard a billion people, some fraction always fumbles, and that fraction is now huge in absolute numbers
Splitting into Gram for everyday payments and Walt for trading is honestly the most coherent crypto strategy Telegram has had. Previously it was one app doing everything badly.
The multichain services angle on Walt is the sleeper detail. If they aggregate swaps across chains for a billion users that is real volume.
GRAM getting default wallet placement in front of a billion users is a big deal for the token. payments volume first, multichain via Walt later
gram as the default in settings while walt keeps the exchange licenses is a clean split. payments on self custody, trading behind kyc, regulators get a clear line to point at
The clean line only stays clean while GRAM is small. If default placement pushes real volume, a payment service designation lands on the self custody side too.
durov said gradually rolling out to a billion+ users. gradual is doing heavy lifting there, toncoin holders got rebranded to GRAM and now wait to see if usage actually follows
gradual plus search-only discovery for walt. they basically moved the whole trading product into a drawer and called it a rebrand
kinda funny that walt keeps the oil and nat gas perps while gram gets the squeaky clean payments story. the messy half of the business got renamed, not removed
Good catch on the commodity perps. Watch which licenses end up under Walt, that list tells you exactly where regulators will aim while Gram keeps the clean payments story.
gram sitting default in a billion installs still needs people to actually send payments. toncoin had the distribution before and usage never showed up in the chart, now we watch a rebrand try it twice