🚀 This month we added 17 new features. These are not just minor improvements or bug fixes. Most of these new additions significantly expand how people use Telegram.

💡 For example, users can explore recommended channels (Search -> Channels) similar to ones they have already joined, while infinite live locations can turn groups into small location-based networks for families and close friends. Custom emoji transform good old polls into infinitely adjustable surveys, while the newly added My Profile section (with birthdays, personal channels, username collectibles, and pinned stories) makes Telegram a much more social space. Notifications for story reactions make posting stories more fun, while new admin tools in groups simplify moderating large communities. And don’t get me started on the epic Sticker Maker we introduced 10 days ago… 🤩

17 new features in one month! Other apps consider themselves fast if they manage to add this many features in a year 😆

🤫 A story shared by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, uncovered that the current leaders of Signal, an allegedly “secure” messaging app, are activists used by the US state department for regime change abroad 🥷

🥸 The US government spent $3M to build Signal’s encryption, and today the exact same encryption is implemented in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Messages and even Skype. It looks almost as if big tech in the US is not allowed to build its own encryption protocols that would be independent of government interference 🐕‍🦺

🕵️‍♂️ An alarming number of important people I’ve spoken to remarked that their “private” Signal messages had been exploited against them in US courts or media. But whenever somebody raises doubt about their encryption, Signal’s typical response is “we are open source so anyone can verify that everything is all right”. That, however, is a trick 🤡

🕵️‍♂️ Unlike Telegram, Signal doesn’t allow researchers to make sure that their GitHub code is the same code that is used in the Signal app run on users’ iPhones. Signal refused to add reproducible builds for iOS, closing a GitHub request from the community. And WhatsApp doesn’t even publish the code of its apps, so all their talk about “privacy” is an even more obvious circus trick 💤

🛡 Telegram is the only massively popular messaging service that allows everyone to make sure that all of its apps indeed use the same open source code that is published on Github. For the past ten years, Telegram Secret Chats have remained the only popular method of communication that is verifiably private 💪

💎 Notcoin, a miniapp on Telegram, reached 35M active users in just a few months.

🐸 In this app, users could earn a game currency “notcoins” by clicking on the screen. Yesterday, the cryptocurrency Notcoin was minted on the TON blockchain and listed on all major cryptoexchanges. All of a sudden, Notcoin users who just played this game for fun could convert their in-game currency into real money 🤑

🚀 Notcoin instantly became a top-10 cryptocurrency in the world by trading volume, and reached almost $700 million in market capitalization. Imagine — hundreds of millions of dollars in value were created for Telegram users in this miniapp out of nowhere in a matter of months 😲

💪 This amazing success story shows how powerful the Telegram / TON ecosystems are for app developers. Telegram offers app developers more freedom than any other platform, providing unmatched opportunities to leverage social interactions for viral distribution. TON, in turn, provides scale and flexibility for any blockchain project on top of it 💎

We are now seeing a large wave of new miniapps being built on Telegram and TON. Notcoin, the leader of the pack, used its mighty paws to pave the way for many apps to come 🐺

💔 My phone got “unlocked” by the Dubai heat 🫠

👴 I’ve been using this $180 Samsung as my primary device for the last two years. I chose it because it’s one of the most widely used phones among Telegram users. I wanted to understand their experience to serve them better 🫡

But it seems I’ll have to change my phone soon 😂

🧠 Last week, Microsoft introduced its Copilot AI bot on Telegram.

😌 I am not surprised to see big tech launching their apps on Telegram. Telegram is the only platform that is friendly to all AI developers and doesn’t impose its own competing chatbots on users.

⭐️ The new Stars payments, where Telegram takes almost no commission (less than 5%) and subsidizes ads, are not only lucrative for developers but also compliant with Apple’s and Google’s rules. That’s why we will recommend bots and mini apps that accept Stars in relevant parts of the Telegram apps.

📬 For example, we will start showing an AI section of our upcoming “Mini App Store” to businesses that are adding bots to process customer feedback. Or suggest bots that help create stickers to the users who try our Sticker Maker ⭐️

And so on. The possibilities are endless ⭐️

🐹 Hamster Kombat has become the latest Internet phenomenon everyone's talking about. 239 million people have signed up for this Telegram mini app in just 3 months 🔥

📈 It took Hamster only 73 days to reach 100 million monthly users. Each day, 4-5 million new users join Hamster Kombat, making it the fastest-growing digital service in the world 🔝

🍆 As I said a few months back, a new wave of mini apps on Telegram is coming, and Hamster Kombat is now leading the pack. Its amazing growth shows the viral potential of the Telegram mini app platform 🦠

🍸 Soon, Hamster’s team will mint its token on TON, introducing the benefits of blockchain to hundreds of millions of people. A new era is about to come, and we are witnessing its arrival in real time 🖼