Telegram Wallet’s COO says the company avoided self-custody to make crypto onboarding simpler

Wallet’s decision to choose custody over self-custody is relevant as Telegram readies the feature for release as a native option on the platform in November.

According to a top executive, Telegram Wallet, a popular Telegram bot that facilitates the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, has opted for custody rather than self-custody in order to achieve simpler onboarding objectives.

Telegram, a popular messaging app that supports cryptocurrencies, announced the addition of a custodial crypto wallet in July 2023.

Existing Wallet users may now access the wallet bot from the Telegram app, but new users will need to activate it in their preferences.

Chief Operating Officer Halil Mirakhmed has said that “several African and Latin American countries” would be the first to get the complete deployment of Telegram Wallet in the month of November. Telegram Wallet is now available to users in some regions, allowing them to buy, sell, and exchange crypto.

When asked by Cointelegraph about the future of the deployment, Mirakhmed said, “The rollout will continue throughout MENA, South East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe.”

Once the worldwide deployment is complete, Wallet will be accessible from the Telegram settings menu everywhere except in countries where it is not yet legal to use the service.

Unlike popular self-custodial wallets like MetaMask, the Telegram Wallet bot manages a custodial wallet, as was previously mentioned. This implies that users do not have outright ownership of their currencies, but instead entrust them to a third party. To withdraw Bitcoin from the Telegram Wallet, for instance, users must have enough Bitcoin to pay the costs charged by the Telegram Wallet, which might be more than the fees charged by the Bitcoin network itself.

Mirakhmed says that the Wallet bot platform chose a custodial option over a self-custodial one for a number of reasons, one of which was that it would be easier to get new users started.

Mirakhmed said, “If you want to get as many people as possible interested in crypto, self-custody becomes very hard.”

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