Telegram pushes for blockchain adoption with mini app store

Introduction

The blockchain industry has been clamoring for mass adoption even since Bitcoin broke into the scene. The efforts have largely been about making blockchain features better and overcoming known issues like scalability. There have been improvements all round to prepare for the arrival of the masses. However, no one ever saw or predicted that a messaging app would be at the center of the drive for blockchain mass adoption. Here we are today, Telegram is firmly driving millions into the blockchain universe.

The founder of the Telegram messaging app Pavel Durov recently announced that a new feature would be coming to Telegram. It is called mini app store. This store would be a place where users could see all the blockchain mini-apps instead of just starting them with a bot. This marketplace will make it easy for the masses to kick-off their blockchain experience right from the Telegram app.

Besides the mini app store, Durov also announced that Telegram would soon feature in app browser. Beyond just suffing web pages right from inside Telegram, the browser would provide yet-to-announced support for any web3 projects in the crypto space. This would be another huge platform for web3 projects and teams to promote their work and reach out to millions of users of the Telegram app.

Telegram is already driving mass adoption

Durov spoke highly of the impact that Telegram has made in the crypto space in such a short time. Several users from around the world are already playing tap-to-earn games on Telegram. The surge in the number of players came especially after the success of NOT coin which has now been listed in top exchanges including Binance. Right now, games like Hamster is being played by millions of Telegram users from around the world. These huge crowds are mainly comprised of people that are not in the crypto space before now. Here is what the founder said about this:

2024 will go down in history as the year when hundreds of millions of people became familiar with blockchain. We’re proud that Telegram is at the epicenter of this societal transformation source

Adding more features like the mini app store would increase the opportunity that everyone especially new users have to explore blockchain projects. Just like the popular Google playstore for Mobile apps, the new mini app store would be a place to shop Ton blockchain powered Dapps including games and other categories. It would be easy especially for new users to just walk into the app shop and discover new blockchain projects. And adding support for Web3 projects through the browser will elevate the entire blockchain experience that new users and of course everyone would enjoy.

Scam is still a problem

Hackers are still proving difficult to deal with in the crypto space. Each day and week, there are reports of various crypto projects suffering breaches. As is often the case, assets of users worth millions of dollars are lost to these attackers. A most recent case is found in this article involving the Li.Fi, a cross-chain bridge. So how does Telegram plan to deal with scammers that will definitely try to infiltrate the messaging app?

Durov also assured users that Telegram is ready to fight off any attackers. There will be a number of other features that will make it harder for scammers to swindle Telegram users. Below is one of the features that will soon go live:

Soon, Telegram will begin displaying the month of registration and principal country for public accounts (similar to Instagram). source

This would be some massive addition to fight crime. Currently, it is hard to determine the age of any public Telegram account. It is also not easy to know where a user come from. But with this new addition to come, users can easily tell when am account was created. This would be useful in determining intent and offers. For example, it will be difficult for a scammer to use a new account to offer fake airdrops or similar give-away. Again, it would be easy to know the country of origin of any public accounts, making it easy to avoid countries that are known to have a high number of scams or scammers.

There is yet another feature to be added to help project owners protect their community from fraud. Here is what Durov said about it:

We will also allow organizations to use their mini apps to issue labels for channels, creating a decentralized marketplace for third-party verification source

There are many fake channels today on Telegram. Fraudsters often try to give their channels names similar to the original one. But with a way for admins to label channels, it will be easy for users not to be in the wrong channel and get scammed. Genuine channels will carry special labels made by the owners to set them apart from the scam channels. This way, there would be a way to verify the originality of projects, mini apps and communities.

The future of mass adoption

Blockchain mass adoption will eventually happen if there are more efforts such as the one Telegram is doing. dApp developers and project owners could borrow a leaf from what Telegram is doing. To create a platform that is easy to use, fun to interact with, and rewarding to spend time on. The gamified approach using blockchain mini apps like the tap-to-earn games would ensure that the crowds will get involved without even realizing they are already enjoying their first blockchain experience.

note: Thumbnail from Pixabay

Posted Using InLeo Alpha