🐹 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 🖼

🐱 Despite the fact that I am clearly a dog person, Telegram hosts the largest cat-lover community in the world — Catizen 😼

🐱 Catizen is a mini game on Telegram with over 26 million players. The game has already earned $16 million (!) from in-app purchases and donated 1% of it to rescue stray cats 😱

😄 Catizen introduced millions of people to blockchain, because it uses TON-based smart contracts for its in-game rewards. Their team also built tools for other developers to easily launch their games on Telegram and TON 🤑

👏 Well done, Catizen team — now I’m waiting for you to develop a “Dogizen”! 🐶

🚩 Big day! Today we introduce the Telegram Browser and Mini App Store, plus many other innovations ✨🍬

🖥 The Browser lets users switch between viewing websites and messaging, merging communication with news consumption. It is equipped with all the features you would expect from a browser — like search, bookmarks, and multiple tabs 🤩

💎 Most importantly, Telegram Browser allows people to view decentralized websites called TON Sites. This opens the world of blockchain-based web (often called Web 3.0) to almost a billion users. To try it out, update Telegram and open a link (like tonsite://getting-started.ton) 🌐

⭐️ Users can now gift Stars to their friends, who will be directed to the Mini App Store for examples of apps that accept Stars. To check out the mini app catalog, go to the 'Apps' tab in Search 🔎

🔝 Speaking of mini apps, they have a whole new way to spread virally across the Telegram ecosystem — via Stories, which also got an upgrade today with covers and smart animated weather widgets ☀️

💪 We’re proud to ship this. Try it all yourself or check out the video demos on the blog. Enjoy your summer holidays — we’ll keep building 👨‍💻

1️⃣1️⃣ When I turned 11 in 1995, I made a promise to myself to become smarter, stronger and freer every day. Today Telegram turns 11 years old, and it’s ready to make the same commitment. Every day, Telegram should become:

✨ 🧠 smarter (more features for the people)
✨ 💪 stronger (more popularity among users)
✨ ✈️ freer (more independent and self-sufficient)

🎂 Happy birthday, Telegram!

P. S. Just 2 weeks after the last major Telegram update, we’re launching new features today — a new type of channels and 3 new ways to support content creators. Enjoy! 🌅