Within Telegram chats, users can now transfer to each other Tether (USDT), the world’s biggest stablecoin by market value.
Telegram Chat Users May Now Transfer USDT
According to a written statement shared with CoinDesk on Wednesday, USDT has been added to the @wallet_bot on Telegram, extending the messaging app’s ability to purchase and trade cryptocurrency.
Integrating cryptocurrency purchases into messaging applications like Telegram – in principle making sending cryptocurrency as simple as sharing a text or a picture – should be a huge step forward for widespread usage.
How Does @wallet Work?
The creators of the Telegram @wallet_bot, which enables Telegram users to buy digital currencies with a bank card, trade them, and move them to other accounts, have started a P2P cryptocurrency exchange.
The bot debuted in April, enabling Telegram users to purchase and transfer Toncoin (TON) within chats. The most recent upgrade will enable cryptocurrency sales between users via the Telegram application, with exchange services serving as guarantors for each transaction. In the event that the seller and buyer differ, the service will perform a conflict settlement procedure.
The service is marketed as providing “anonymous P2P deals,” but in order to transfer, trade, or buy cryptocurrency, users must share their cell phone number with the bot.
According to the creators of the @Wallet bot, users who want to trade cryptocurrencies will pay a 0.9% commission, while purchasers will not have to pay any costs.
To sell tokens, users will publish notifications in the app from which buyers can choose. Cryptocurrencies can be purchased using EUR, USD, BYN, UAH, and KZT.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Toncoin (TON) are currently available for purchase, with intentions to expand the offering at a later point, according to the company. Only TON can be sent straight between members via chats.
“It is targeted at average users and has a cheap entry point for learning about blockchain. Many of the services on TON are comparable to the apps that people are already familiar with. You can purchase bitcoin (or any other altcoin), transfer it to pals using a brief moniker rather than lengthy wallet names, use the @mobile_bot to get internet access, and pay for a membership to your favorite Telegram channel, and many other services without leaving Telegram,” a TON Foundation representative told Blockworks.
According to a statistics website given by the Foundation, the overall number of custodial wallet accounts has grown to 1.3 million. There are 630,000 members in the TON community on Telegram, and their number keeps rising.
What Are еhe Benefits & Prospects of Introducing USDT to Telegram?
Stablecoins, such as USDT, provide many of the same benefits as other cryptos, but without the price fluctuation that plagues the likes of Bitcoin and Ether. As a result, they are an essential component for customers who want to retain their money in the crypto environment without jeopardizing it by being affected by sharp price swings.
The inclusion of USDT could thus be a significant advancement for Telegram’s crypto service.
The cryptocurrency voyage of the messaging application dates back several years to the creation of the Open Network (TON) blockchain initiative. However, due to legal fights with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), this progress was halted in 2020.
Toncoin, on the other hand, has been kept alive by members of its community, known as The TON Foundation, who have kept the project moving forward. Despite not being actively engaged in TON, Telegram retains an interest in the network, as evidenced by the late-year launch of its blockchain-based bidding platform Fragment on top of it.
