While Facebook and Libra are facing regulatory challenges in the US and around the world, plans for Telegram seem to be on the right track. The platform has told investors that Gram, Telegram’s cryptocurrency, will arrive in the next two months and it will soon be possible to engage in crypto trading using the Button Wallet.
Telegram is also planning to make its wallet available to 300 million users worldwide, according to the New York Times, although the people who leaked this information did not want to reveal their identity, as they signed non-disclosure agreements.
After raising $1.7 billion from investors, some of whom are established companies in Silicon Valley, the ambitions of the messaging platform, a direct competitor of WhatsApp, are very high.
Alex Safonov, co-founder and CEO of Button Wallet, explained:
“Cryptos’ biggest obstacle is mass adoption and what we’ve created will help people comfortable with trading cryptocurrency without using real money”.
Yesterday, what will probably be the first free test within the Telegram network was unveiled and GRAM tokens will be gifted to encourage adoption.
Anyone can activate the Telegram Open Network Wallet and receive 6.6 GRAM within the testnet directly on their account. Button Wallet supports bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), litecoin (LTC) and other cryptocurrencies.
Unlike Facebook, which published all the information about Libra long before the token was ready, Telegram did everything behind the scenes, trying to lay low. Surely, this choice will have a major impact when it comes to dealing with government authorities and releasing the GRAM token to the public.
