Telegram logs 700,000 new Gram wallets in 48 hours, Durov says

What happened

Telegram recorded more than 700,000 new self-custodial Gram wallets over a 48-hour period, founder Pavel Durov said in a November 9 post on X. A dashboard image shared with the post showed 714,844 registrations across the two days, including 329,952 wallets created on November 9 alone. Crypto.news and U.Today both reported the figures.

Durov credited the wallet's automatic activation feature, which creates a wallet as soon as a user receives Gram tokens rather than requiring them to set one up in advance. "Adoption spreads virally: a wallet activates the moment someone receives Grams," he wrote, adding that "the crypto revolution is going strong."

The wallet is a non-custodial product that lets users hold and transfer the TON blockchain's native cryptocurrency from inside the messaging app, along with purchases involving Telegram gifts and collectible usernames. Because it is self-custodial, funds are not held by an exchange or another intermediary. According to TON developer Andrew Rogozov, the older custodial wallet inside Telegram remains a separate product.

Why it matters

The numbers give Telegram one of the largest distributions of a self-custodial crypto wallet among consumer apps, and the company has framed the rollout as a way to bring crypto transfers to its billion-plus monthly users without fees. For TON, the blockchain the wallet runs on, the growth represents a direct pipeline from a mainstream messaging audience into on-chain accounts.

Whether that pipeline produces durable activity is a separate question. The Gram blockchain explorer separates wallets registered through Telegram from active wallets, which must complete an on-chain transaction to qualify. A November 6 analysis by market researcher Ismail Rustamov estimated roughly 282,000 active wallets over a 24-hour period and about 2.2 million monthly active wallets, or around 0.2% of Telegram's reported user base.

What the data shows

Beyond the headline registration count, the reports point to a mixed picture of network use. Rustamov estimated that TON processed about 5 million daily transactions, with roughly $2.7 million in daily decentralized exchange trading volume. He put the network's total value locked at approximately $42.9 million, down from $92 million in May; U.Today cited DefiLlama data showing $42.01 million.

U.Today reported that many of the new addresses are used for small payments such as Telegram Premium, in-app advertising and modest peer-to-peer transfers. Rustamov also flagged a scheduled release of 1.08 billion GRAM tokens in February 2027 as a potential market factor. At the time of reporting, Gram was trading at $1.05, more than 87% below its 2024 high of $8.25.

Background

Telegram's path to the current wallet began in 2020, when Durov abandoned the original Telegram Open Network after a US Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit and returned more than $1.2 billion to investors. Community developers kept the open-source code alive as The Open Network.

This year Telegram took a more direct role. In May, Durov said the company would replace the TON Foundation as the network's primary driver and become its largest validator, and he said transaction fees had dropped sixfold to near zero. In June, a community vote with 81.22% support renamed the token from Toncoin to Gram without changing the underlying blockchain. Durov announced in July that a native wallet would be built into every Telegram app, describing it as "the largest deployment of a non-custodial crypto wallet in history," and a phased rollout began on August 31.

What is still unclear

The reports do not establish how many of the newly created wallets will go on to transact, or how quickly activation converts into repeat use. Telegram has not published a breakdown linking the 48-hour registrations to on-chain activity, and the explorer's methodology treats the two categories separately. It is also unclear how much of the growth reflects existing users receiving their first transfer rather than new entrants to crypto.

What to watch

Two issues are likely to shape the next phase. The first is access: U.Today reported that the native wallet is still unavailable to users in the United States, leaving a large market outside the rollout. The second is network structure, with critics arguing that Telegram's position as the largest validator concentrates influence over a blockchain closely tied to a single platform. How the February 2027 token release is absorbed, and whether liquidity recovers from its May levels, will also be closely watched.

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