Wallet in Telegram has rebranded as Walt, with more than 300 supported assets, as Telegram prepares to extend its separate Gram wallet to its users.
Summary
- Walt offers trading, yield products, tokenized assets, and perpetual futures inside Telegram.
- Telegram’s self-custodial Gram wallet supports purchases, transfers, and payments within the app.
- Walt says crypto cards and AI-assisted trading tools will follow in separate launches.
- Walt will provide a way for users to top up their Gram wallet.
In a Sep. 28 announcement shared with crypto.news, Wallet in Telegram said the Walt name covers a product that has grown from a wallet for buying Toncoin and Bitcoin into a platform for trading and holding multiple assets. The company said Walt and Telegram’s own Gram wallet will serve different uses within the messaging app.
Telegram plans to make Gram wallet available across a platform with more than 1 billion users. Walt, which is built by The Open Platform, said it already serves tens of millions of people. The announcement did not give a date for the full Gram wallet rollout or for Walt’s planned card and AI features.
How Walt and Gram wallet divide their roles
Telegram’s Gram wallet is designed for activity within the app. According to the Walt announcement, users will be able to buy Gram, send Telegram Gifts, purchase Stars, transfer funds to friends, and pay for services offered through Telegram apps. The wallet uses a self-custodial model, under which users control their assets.
Walt handles activities beyond those everyday transactions. Its users can hold assets across several blockchains, trade crypto, and access products tied to stocks, exchange-traded funds, and metals. Walt said its infrastructure will also let users add funds to their Gram wallet directly from Walt.
The distinction matters because Gram wallet is a Telegram product, while Walt is built by The Open Platform, or TOP. Andrew Rogozov is the founder and CEO of both TOP and Walt. The two wallets will operate alongside one another inside Telegram rather than share the same name.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov first described plans for a native, self-custodial Gram wallet in July. As crypto.news reported in July, he proposed instant transfers without fees for a service intended to reach Telegram’s billion-plus monthly users. At the time, Telegram had not given a fixed launch date or explained the wallet’s recovery system and regional availability.
By late August, Telegram had begun giving selected users access. The initial Gram wallet rollout was set to expand gradually, with Durov saying the wallet would appear in Telegram’s settings and support payments and Telegram Collectibles. He did not disclose how many users received access in the first phase.
What Walt users can access now
Walt said users can deposit, hold and withdraw more than 300 assets across four blockchains. Its trading service covers more than 200 crypto assets, while its tokenized asset offering includes over 100 stocks, ETFs and metals.
The app also lists yield-bearing Earn products for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins, Gram, Tether Gold, Solana, Ethereum and Tron. Its perpetual futures service covers more than 70 assets, including contracts linked to oil, natural gas and metals. Perpetual futures let traders take a position on an asset’s price without a fixed expiry date.
Those figures describe different parts of the service: the number of assets users can hold, the number available to trade and the number of perpetual contracts. Walt did not say that every supported asset is available across all three functions.
Rogozov said the rebrand follows four years of product additions, including Earn and perpetual trading.
“We started as a simple wallet for buying Toncoin and Bitcoin, but over the past four years we’ve grown into a full-scale crypto platform inside Telegram.”
The company describes Walt as Telegram-native and closely integrated with The Open Network, or TON. The Walt name applies to the former Wallet in Telegram product; Gram remains the name of Telegram’s native wallet and the blockchain’s token.
Crypto cards and AI trading remain planned
Walt said it plans to introduce crypto cards for spending and AI tools for its trading products. The proposed AI features would let users ask questions about markets, review portfolio risk, find trades and execute perpetual futures through a conversational interface.
Neither feature is part of the Sep. 28 launch announcement as a completed rollout. Walt said the cards and AI integrations will receive dedicated launches as they become available, with the card release taking place in phases.
Rogozov said Walt will publish an updated product strategy in the coming weeks. He also said the company would continue working alongside Telegram’s native wallet while developing tools for users who want access to trading and other crypto products.
For U.S. readers, Walt’s tokenized stocks and perpetual contracts need to be distinguished from owning shares through a conventional brokerage account. A Sep. 21 report on tokenized stocks covered TD Cowen’s view that U.S. investors already have ready access to listed shares and may see limited reason to use stock tokens.
The report also described conditional SEC relief for qualifying tokenized securities venues, including requirements concerning shareholder rights. Walt’s announcement did not specify which of its tokenized assets or futures are available to U.S. users, so it does not establish that those products fall under that SEC framework.
Gram has a separate U.S. regulatory history. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Telegram in 2019 over its original Gram token sale, alleging an unregistered securities offering. Telegram later agreed to return more than $1.2 billion to investors and pay an $18.5 million civil penalty. Independent developers continued work on the network after Telegram withdrew from the original project, as the earlier Gram wallet coverage detailed.
Walt said its next product announcements will cover the card rollout and AI-assisted trading separately.