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0 CommentsThe Open Network is enabling users to send Toncoin (TON) via Telegram chat. The Open Network was built off of Telegram’s deserted cryptocurrency project.
Telegram now lets users send Toncoin, the cryptocurrency built off of Telegram’s abandoned blockchain effort, directly from chats within the messaging app, Protocol reported. In a tweet, TON (The Open Network), announced that Telegram now supports Toncoin transactions with no fees attached.
TON included a short video showing how crypto transactions work on the platform. To get started, you’ll have to add Telegram’s Wallet bot to your attachment menu, which allows you to “purchase cryptocurrency by bank card, exchange, and transfer to other wallets.”
When you’re ready to send crypto, you can pull up the Wallet from your attachment menu while in a chat, enter the amount of Toncoin you want to send, confirm all the details, and then hit “Send.” Your recipient will receive the Toncoin through the chat.
“It is hoped that this simplification of the cryptocurrency transaction process will enable greater adoption around the world, and help to embed blockchain payment solutions into people’s daily lives,” a TON Foundation spokesperson said in a press release.
Telegram has a long history with crypto. In October 2019, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against the messaging app after Telegram raised $1.7 billion via a private token sale. The SEC alleged that Gram tokens were unregistered securities. As part of a June 2020 settlement, Telegram agreed to return $1.224 billion back to investors.
In the process, Telegram handed control of the Telegram Open Network and Toncoin – now the 205th-largest cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap.com with a value of $2.83 billion – to The Open Network community, an open-source community dedicated to developing Toncoin and the associated blockchain.
Like Discord, Telegram allows users (such as The Open Network) to create bots to automate activities on the platform. While Telegram allows the wallet bot, that doesn’t necessarily mean it endorses it.
A similar tool was created in 2019 by Lightning Labs, a group developing the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Dubbed the Lightning Torch, users could send small amounts of Bitcoin, known as satoshis, via Twitter. In September 2021, Twitter made tipping in Bitcoin via the Lightning Network a part of its platform and, in February, added Ethereum addresses to its Tips feature.
