Can Telegram Make Crypto Transfers Truly Free?

Pavel Durov announced plans to integrate a new non-custodial wallet for the TON blockchain directly into the Telegram app. He called it the biggest non-custodial crypto wallet launch in history, since Telegram has over a billion monthly users. The wallet is expected to roll out in summer 2026 - so, within the next few weeks.

The announcement sounds a bit odd at first, since Telegram already has a built-in crypto wallet. It used to be called TON Space, then TON Wallet, and was just recently renamed DeFi Account.

Durov's post points to one key difference between the new wallet and the old one: transfers between Telegram users will be fee-free.

I think Telegram can actually pull this off. A couple of months ago, the company became the largest validator on the TON blockchain, which allows it to include in its own blocks transactions that might otherwise be left out because they do not pay a sufficient fee.

But that raises one serious question: can this really be called full, independent control over your own assets?

After all, users sending a fee-free transaction from this wallet would be 100% dependent on the network's largest validator. If it agrees to include the transaction, it goes through. If it does not, the transaction may never make it into a block, because smaller validators have no economic incentive to process a transaction they will not get paid for.

Transaction fees exist precisely to give miners or validators a reason to include transactions in blocks. As long as there is a fee, sooner or later someone will want to earn it, and the transaction will be recorded on the blockchain permanently.

That said, there is one blockchain that has operated successfully without transaction fees for over 10 years: Nano. And honestly, that is the one I would rather use whenever I need free transactions. On Nano, all validators operate without rewards, so users do not have to depend on the goodwill of any single validator.

If you would like to give it a try, swap Gram for Nano at rabbit.io.