The Future Telegram Couldn't Replicate

I've decided to continue discussing China in comparison. Using Alipay multiple times a day, I began to understand what Pavel Durov and Andrey Rogozov aimed to achieve with @wallet.

What is Alipay? You register, complete KYC, and get an account linked to any bank card. Now you can pay anyone using a QR code (similar to SBP payments). The key is that everyone has Alipay. Just like Sberbank in Russia, it's ubiquitous here. I even tried to find coins as souvenirs, but everyone uses WeChat and Alipay; no one carries cash.

It's a mix of Sberbank, SBP, Telegram (since it has a messenger), Yandex Go (with all services as mini-apps), and even TikTok (you can scroll through videos with likes and comments)

So, if you need to pay in a store, you show your ID as a QR code, and the payment is made. If you need to pay a self-employed vendor, you scan their QR and send the money. Want to message someone? You can. Want to buy a ticket? You can. The main rule: everything is in one app, and everyone has Alipay.

If Telegram had linked cards and allowed sending money to anyone with Telegram via QR, it would have been groundbreaking. However, in Russia, Sberbank allows transfers by phone number, which kills the novelty.

Andrey and Pavel likely understood this and decided that since Russia ranks second in crypto adoption, they could enable crypto transfers in the messenger. While it works, not all Telegram users need it. Buying crypto in Russia is becoming harder (integration: you can legally buy USDT through Altyn, then any crypto). Plus, anyone can replicate the wallet functionality as a bot without KYC (e.g., xRocket) - users simply don't want to use @wallet. Telegram also took a step back by releasing the Stars feature, killing the idea altogether.

Thus, mass adoption hasn't happened and likely won't, given the tightening regulations for both messengers and crypto.

In the end, if MAX integrates most Russian residents, adds services like Gosuslugi, Yandex Go, and card linking, it would be a complete Telegram + Alipay equivalent

It seems everyone sees it working in China and is moving towards it. Even X is trying to create a messenger + X Pay for user transfers (not just crypto).

So, either Nikolai Durov has planned so far ahead that Telegram will fully transition on-chain, and its era will come with crypto adoption in the CIS, or it will remain a niche crypto messenger for geeks. Only time will tell.

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