In the past few years, the crypto community has relied on social media sites like Twitter or messaging apps like Discord and Telegram to interact. But some say Telegram is the ultimate hub for communication and information — an imperative place to be in the crypto community.
“Telegram usage is the bedrock of the crypto community,” the founder of Telegram channel unfolded, who goes by the username nakamotocat, said to TechCrunch. “Projects have come and go, players have risen and fallen, but much of the discourse between various projects and market participants resides on Telegram, and that remains a constant.”
Nakamotocat began using Telegram in early 2017 after a friend recommended they sign up for it to meet and learn from like-minded people in crypto. About a year later, nakamotocat formed the “unfolded” channel to provide crypto market insights. Today, the channel has117,000 members.
“I used to day trade a lot but switched to investing the last few years as the channel took most of my time,” nakamotocat said. “The space grew so much, especially in the last few years, that it’s hard to keep up.”
The 9-year-old application comes with a handful of features like end-to-end chat encryption, privacy features and anonymity, which appeals to a fair number of crypto users who prefer to be incognito (like nakamotocat). It’s one of the top five downloaded applications globally in 2022 and has over 700 million monthly active users, according to its website.
“It also helps that Telegram is free, has a fast desktop client, has robust support for bots and has a single login [that] allows you to speak to anyone on the network,” Jim Greco, general partner at F9 Research, said.
“A Telegram account is essential for crypto traders because of the platform’s network effects,” Greco said. “Everyone on crypto is, or has historically been, on Telegram, and so if you want to speak directly with counterparties it is the first, and sometimes only, option.”
Of course, not all groups are created equal, and many are spammy, nakamotocat said. There’s a seemingly unlimited number of pump-and-dump channels on Telegram, yet crypto traders still flock to the application for legitimate trading advice, information and a little bit of everything else.
“I remember when I started in crypto everyone was using Skype, then Whatsapp, and now Telegram, and it’s stayed here for the past couple of years,” a source at a crypto trading firm, who asked to remain unnamed, told TechCrunch. “About four, five years ago, Telegram became the standard.”
As of now, Telegram is pretty reliable and there haven’t been any notable security failures, so most people are relatively happy, the source said. “But it’s a plus and a minus because people can edit chats, so you can fix a mistake and change your reply, but that’s also a problem because it changes the permanent history of the chat.”
There has been an increase in usage and reliance on the application as the overall market grows and becomes increasingly institutionalized, nakamotocat noted.
“General consensus is people [are] trying to get rich quick,” nakamotocat said. “However, [there are] lots of serious and well-moderated groups with people having great discussions. Lots of smart people getting hired and lots of great projects are formed every day.”
Some of the biggest crypto trading firms in the world, which trade billions of dollars in volume, are facilitating big trades through Telegram, nakamotocat said. “Even TradFi trading professionals are on Telegram in crypto. In some cases they don’t have a Bloomberg Terminal, but they have Telegram.”
The crypto trading source agreed.
“A lot of crypto trading OTC firms conduct business over Telegram because it’s the de facto standard chatting application by those in the crypto trading world,” they said. “It’s pretty ubiquitous; everyone has it.”
Although Telegram is popular in the crypto trading community, it’s often a barrier for traditional finance (TradFi) firms because it’s harder for them to get approval to use it, the source said.
“Every firm has their own approach to monitoring them — whether it be recording chat logs … but that’s a big focus for firms right now … how do you maintain control over communication? This is a hot topic because everyone’s moving into more regulated regimes. … In practice, people use Bloomberg a lot when they can; it’s the safest alternative.”
Regardless, Telegram has become a hub of information and discourse for all different types of market participants, including traders, researchers, exchanges, hedge funds and “newbies,” nakamotocat said.
“Something better might come along, but Telegram is not losing popularity.”