2016 was just text, stickers, and simple bots. 2026 is fully integrated with ton blockchain, offering native crypto wallets, nft collectibles, and the telegram stars economy

2016 privacy meant secret chats. 2026 privacy faces intense global scrutiny, leading to a new era of high-volume moderation, massive channel takedowns, and AI-driven enforcement while maintaining its core appeal for privacy-conscious users

2016 was a messenger. 2026 is a social platform with stories, professional business tools, and mini-app games that rival app store experiences

the core philosophy remains cloud-based, cross-platform, and obsessed with speed. the interface, despite thousands of new features, still feels like the telegram we knew a decade ago. we have moved from simple chat to a global digital infrastructure

the secret origin: telegram was built in 2013 by pavel and nikolai durov after they left vk, russia's largest social network, because they refused to comply with government censorship. it started as an act of digital independence

zero marketing budget: unlike its competitors, telegram has never spent a single dollar on advertising. its growth from a small messenger to nearly one billion users has been entirely organic, fueled by people switching for better features and privacy

the trendsetter: almost every major feature you see on other apps today—like animated stickers, message reactions, and advanced bot ecosystems—was pioneered by telegram long before others adopted them

from messenger to super-app: while it started as a way to send text, it has morphed into a digital infrastructure. today, it hosts decentralized finance (defi) platforms, high-performance gaming, and an entire digital economy powered by telegram stars and the ton blockchain

infinite capacity: while apps like whatsapp struggle with small group limits, telegram handles 'super-groups' of up to 200,000 members. it is essentially a global town square that never sleeps

the cloud architecture: telegram does not store your history on your phone; it stores it in the cloud. this is why you can switch from your laptop to your phone to your tablet and find every single message, video, and file instantly waiting for you without needing manual backups

the gold standard for bots: the bot api is the most advanced in the world. in 2026, you aren't just talking to friends; you are using bots to trade crypto, manage professional workflows, and even play high-fidelity games—all without ever leaving the chat interface

true customization: telegram is the only mainstream app that lets you control everything—from the bubble colors and app icons to the way media is handled, making it the most personalized experience in the app store

1. Satoshi Nakamoto — $69,000,000,000.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the richest holder of crypto in the world. The entirety of this is from the Bitcoin he mined from 2009 and 2010 and is stored across 22,000 addresses.

2. Justin Sun — $2,700,000,000.

Justin Sun is a Chinese entrepreneur and cryptocurrency pioneer best known as the founder of TRON. He is also the CEO of BitTorrent and the owner of two crypto exchanges.

3. James Howells — $500,000,000.

An IT worker from Wales, he was an early pioneer of Bitcoin mining in 2010, using his personal laptop to mine approximately 8,000 BTC.

4. Stefan Thomas — $440,000,000.

Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer and early Bitcoin developer, is another individual whose vast on-chain wealth is locked away. In 2011, he was paid 7,002 BTC for creating an animated video explaining how Bitcoin worked.

5. Rain Lohmus — $425,000,000.

Rain Lohmus represents one of crypto's most famous cautionary tales. The Estonian banker and co-founder of LHV Bank was an early believer in Ethereum, participating in its 2014 ICO. He invested approximately $75,000 and received a staggering 250,000 ETH.

6. Vitalik Buterin — $384,000,000.

Vitalik Buterin is the visionary programmer who co-created Ethereum. As one of the project's co-founders, he received an allocation of ETH at its genesis.

7. Clifton Collins — $316,000,000.

Clifton Collins is an Irish drug dealer who became a significant Bitcoin holder after acquiring 6,000 BTC in 2011-2012 with proceeds from selling cannabis. Bitcoin was valued at around $5 then.

8. Shixing Mao — $166,000,000.

Shixing Mao, also known as DiscusFish, is the co-founder and CEO of Cobo dot com, a prominent crypto wallet and custody solutions provider. Mao is also the founder of China's first Bitcoin mining pool — F2Pool.

9. Patricio Worthalter — $107,000,000.

Patricio Worthalter is an Argentinian entrepreneur and the founder of POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol). POAP is a widely used protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem that allows event organisers to distribute crypto-badges (NFTs) to attendees, creating a verifiable record of life experiences.

10. James Fickel — $66,000,000.

James Fickel is a prominent cryptocurrency investor and trader. His journey to the crypto rich list started in 2016 when he invested $400,000 in Ethereum when the token was trading at around $0.80.

fresh rollout: meta officially started rolling out username reservations on june 29, 2026.

not in your app yet?: it is launching gradually in phases. if you do not see it yet, do not worry—whatsapp will notify you in the app as soon as it hits your account.

you still need a number: you still need a phone number to create and setup a whatsapp account.

hidden phone numbers: once you set a username, you can chat with new people and strangers without revealing your actual phone number.

added privacy pin: you can set an optional 4-digit pin so strangers cannot spam your username without knowing the code.

the app still works: the main telegram app is working perfectly. inside the app, all chats, channels, and links function normally.

browsers are blocked: if you click a t.me link from facebook, twitter, or any website, it will show an error and will not open.

the new fix: telegram has replaced the broken links with a longer version: telegram.me when you copy a link inside the app now, it automatically updates to the new address.

the official registry that manages all ".me" web addresses has placed the t.me domain on a technical status called serverhold. this means the registry has completely removed t.me from the internet's global phonebook.

a registry usually triggers a serverhold block for a few specific reasons:

abuse and reports: telegram hosts thousands of public channels, some of which get flagged for copyright issues, spam, or financial scams.

legal compliance: the registry might have received legal complaints or government orders to suspend the domain until telegram addresses specific security concerns.

identity verification: sometimes domains are temporarily frozen for mandatory compliance checks.

neither telegram nor the registry has released an official statement yet, but the block was a deliberate action taken by the domain registry, not a technical bug or an app crash.

there is no official timeline for a fix. because the block is controlled by an outside registry and not by telegram's own engineering team, telegram cannot fix it with a simple app update.

if telegram resolves the legal or compliance issues with the .me registry, the t.me domain might start working again in a few days or weeks. however, because registry suspensions can sometimes be permanent, telegram has already built a permanent backup by shifting entirely to telegram.me

what you should do right now
if you share your telegram channel links on external social media, websites, or profile bios, you must manually update your links.

old broken format: t.me/yourusername

new working format: telegram.me/yourusername

make sure to update your shared links immediately, or your followers will get an error screen when they try to click through to your channel from outside the app.

links are restored: you can now use and click t.me links normally in browsers like chrome, safari, and edge. they resolve instantly without any errors.

telegram.me still works: the backup domain telegram.me created during the crash remains fully active as a secure alternative.

thanks to direct statements from the registry operator identity digital, the exact reason for the temporary serverhold block has been confirmed:

the vpn sanction mistake: the united states treasury department (ofac) recently issued sanctions against a malicious vpn provider called first vpn service, which was helping cybercriminals distribute ransomware.

the registry's error: in the official government documents, the u.s. treasury listed the vpn's telegram channel link (t.me/firstvpnservice) as an active target.

the complete shutdown: instead of blocking just that specific channel, the american registry operator identity digital followed the ofac order by shutting down the entire t.me root domain, instantly breaking millions of links worldwide by mistake.

the issue was tracked and corrected within a few hours. on the afternoon of july 14, the registry recognized the mistake, lifted the serverhold status, and restored t.me to the global dns system.

you do not need to panic or rush to change all your external social media links anymore. both formatting options work perfectly fine:

format 1 (original): t.me/yourusername

format 2 (backup): telegram.me/yourusername

if you have already updated your bios or posts to telegram.me, you can leave them as they are, but any new links you share using the standard t.me shortener are completely safe to use again.

premium users can now create complete article-style posts directly inside chat boxes and channels. the update allows you to write long-form posts up to 32,768 characters with proper formatting like headings, tables, bulleted or numbered lists, code blocks, and quotes. you can also place photos and videos anywhere between your paragraphs. a built-in text helper running on the privacy-focused cocoon network allows users to generate and modify text, formulas, and tables securely without compromising data.

telegram has introduced communities, giving admins the power to group multiple related channels, discussion groups, and bots into a single unified space. members can see and jump between all connected chats from one central location in their main chat list. community managers can choose to make individual chats visible to everyone or keep them hidden for specific member tiers or admin tools.

to prevent public group chats from getting flooded with bot replies, bots can now send hidden or disappearing responses that only the specific interacting user can see. these ephemeral private messages can deliver greetings, error alerts, buttons, menus, or automated summaries without showing up for other group members.

telegram has fully overhauled its gif search engine by transitioning to an internally managed offline library. the engine contains over 350 million high-quality animations across 36 languages, indexed using open-source ai models to ensure fast loading times while keeping searches completely private from third-party networks.

the gram rebranding: the recent community vote that officially changed the native token name from toncoin to gram (gram) on june 15, 2026, alters the identity and branding, but it does not inherently print wealth for individual holders.

blockchain speed updates: technical advancements and speed accelerations on the network make transactions faster for developers, but they do not add immediate balance to a regular user's wallet.

the mtonga dilemma: community meme initiatives like make ton great again (mtonga) attempt to revive community hype but struggle significantly because structural attention models are fading. without concrete user-utility, sustaining these projects becomes nearly impossible.

gimmicks like telegram gifts and basic tapping apps are no longer enough to support a multi-billion dollar ecosystem. until pavel durov and telegram developers create structured, sustainable protocols to properly monetize global user attention, speculative assets will continue to face fatigue. true community monetization requires real economic utility, not just ad-heavy clicker loops.

the multi-billion empire: trump's official 2025 financial disclosures reveal a massive $1.4 billion extracted via token licensing deals, stablecoin holdco shares, and private equity profits tied directly to his personal ecosystem.

the prediction market game: even institutional text monitoring is compromised. his personal white house teleprompter operator, gabriel perez, was officially put on unpaid leave after being caught using advance speech text access to game the kalshi mentions market for over $100,000.

the retail devastation: while the inner core extracts massive wealth, public projects are collapsing. the flagship family protocol token $WLFI dropped over 85% from its launch valuation, generic licensing memecoins plummeted over 98%, and global macro crypto valuation lost nearly 2 trillion dollars in total market cap during the peak stagnation cycles.

the ultimate sign of institutional greed happened on july 16, 2026, when trump media formally launched the truth api. the service explicitly sells direct, real-time access to the president’s market-moving updates to high-frequency trading firms and wall street banks milliseconds before the general public can see them.

rather than building global decentralized infrastructure, the model has shifted to charging corporate premiums for early market access while regular retail traders absorb the downside volatility. the expectation of a structural revolution has turned into a classic monetization trap.

mrkt has officially announced that it is ending structural support for sticker packs and in-game assets originating from not games. following the announcement, users were given a strict 23-hour window to withdraw their digital holdings—over 30,000 uncollected sticker packs currently remain sitting on the protocol.

mrkt's proprietary digital collections were launched roughly a year ago, but the core team has now openly acknowledged that sticker packs have failed to prove themselves as a sustainable or suitable investment vehicle. as a result, they plan to systematically return all corporate profits generated from the initial sales back to the community users.

visit @mrkt immediately just in case, verify if your wallet holds any active stickers on the marketplace, and manually withdraw everything you have left before the protocol access closes completely.

the platform: the tournament features 32 global teams from top universities and tech enterprises. every single team is given the exact same base model, the engineai t800 general humanoid robot, standing at 1.73 meters tall.

the rules: teams are allowed to program their own custom combat behavior algorithms, design martial arts movements, install structural armor, and make mechanical engineering upgrades to the limbs.

the prize: the grand champion of the tiered tournament running through the end of 2026 will receive a gold championship belt valued at 10 million yuan, equivalent to roughly 1.5 million dollars.

the opening bouts delivered a dramatic moment that went completely viral across global media networks. during a fight between two t800 units named white eagle and matador, the white robot executed a precise martial arts high kick directly to the head socket of its opponent.

the impact completely dislodged the robot's head module, leaving it swinging precariously by internal wires. despite losing its head-mounted cameras and visual sensors, the robot continued to throw punches and absorb strikes using its torso-based core processing unit before finally collapsing. martial arts star donnie yen, who served as an event mentor, noted that the live visual execution outperformed anything seen in modern science fiction films.

this is no longer battlebots featuring simple remote-controlled saw blades or wheeled wedges. this is an autonomous software stress-test utilizing advanced posture control, dynamic balance perception, and bipedal physics. the league serves as a massive experimental platform to gather real-world durability and impact data for commercial humanoids. as engineering teams rapidly optimize high-intensity combat code, structural bipedal fighting leagues are shifting from standard entertainment to a massive technological category.