The world does not need another wallet

The Bet on Messaging

Our core hypothesis was simple: in an age of AI and digital everything, messaging systems will become the central hub for our financial lives, including crypto. Based on this, we made a critical choice: we would build for Telegram. Why? Because we believed it was the most open, decentralized, and ethically-driven platform at scale. Our vision was to bring the power of EVM: dApps on Ethereum, Polygon, BNB, and more; to Telegram's vast audience, and in turn, give those protocols access to millions of new users.

For a while, the bet paid off spectacularly. We became the first EVM wallet integrated into Telegram, and our community grew to over 4 million users. We were building a bridge, and people were crossing it. It felt like the future.

The Inevitable Turning Point

Then, Telegram changed its rules. In early 2025, Telegram announced an exclusivity deal with the TON Foundation, mandating that all crypto integrations use the TON network and giving developers a very short window to migrate or be shut down [1][2]. Suddenly, our multi-chain bridge was being told it could only lead to one destination.

We are not blaming Telegram. It was our conscious choice to build in their garden. We had concerned investors who warned us of this exact risk. But our belief in the vision of an open ecosystem on Telegram was strong. Too strong, as it turned out.

What happened to us has happened many times before. When you build your business on someone else's platform, you're not just building a business, you're building on sand. A 2025 research paper documented this painful cycle, showing how platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn have repeatedly encouraged developer ecosystems only to pull the rug out from under them once they become too successful or competitive [3]. We knew the history. We took a calculated risk, and it didn't pay off.

We still believe that Telegram and TON would both benefit from true openness. But the performance of the TON token since the platform shift suggests that a walled garden may not be the path to a thriving ecosystem. After an initial peak, its value has seen a significant decline over the last year and a half [4]. Time will be the ultimate judge.

The Next Chapter

We evaluated moving to TON Blockchain. We built a mobile MVP for Grindery. But the fact is, the world does not need yet another wallet. We had our shot, our five minutes of fame, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who worked with us, believed in the opportunity, and support open ecosystems.

Now, we turn our focus to the technology that came from this journey: the 0LC protocol and Grindery.ai. Our work on agentic payments has produced something genuinely new and powerful, and our initial deployments have been a success. We will pursue this new direction, taking with us the hard-won lessons from our time building on Telegram.

Thank you for being part of the journey.

The Grindery Team