Telegram is Now Serving Fresh Crypto on the Side with Every Chat!

Who said that web3 only cares about Bitcoin’s price? If that would be the case, we wouldn’t see more than 10,000 people attending TOKEN2049 and countless of crypto conferences happening across Asia. And most importantly, you guys wouldn’t be any more numerous in reading The Geral every time we come back to you, with the best underreported web3 news, tips to run your community and all the other fun.

Let’s dive into what we got this week.

Coverage:

• Telegram integrates web3 wallet

• Paypal Releases crypto paiement feature

• Singapore super app partners with Circle

• How to write winning Grant Proposals

Telegram integrates web3 wallet

If you don’t use Telegram, you might not know this, but the app is as close as it gets to being a digital black market garage sale. It's like the Wild West in there! You've got everything from underground Telegram hustles to Aunt Susan's relentless family group chats (yes, it is the main messaging app in certain places). That’s why the app was able to gather an 800 million active user base, across pretty much every country you can think of.

So enough general knowledge, let’s dive into why this is relevant to The Geral. After settling a lawsuit with the SEC in 2020 on the same matter, Telegram pursued the project of integrating a web3 wallet to its platform. The company chose the TON Foundation to roll out the feature, and its capabilities are pretty cool.

On Telegram’s new custodial wallet, you will be able to access a P2P marketplace where people can directly exchange cryptocurrency for FIAT, sell and receive Telegram usernames and top up their balance using a credit card. A TON spokesperson declared that the goal is to onboard 30% of Telegram user in a 3-5 years period. 30% of 800 millions… we let you do the maths of the impact this could have on web3 adoption.

Creating super apps that combines media and payment components is not a new idea... We’re sure Elon Musk is closely watching. The odds that he challenges Pavel Durov, Telegram’s CEO, to an MMA fight seem pretty high right now…

Singapore super app partners with Circle

Before earlier this year, only a few people had heard of Circle being a major player in the web3 space. It’s only after the USDC’s potential depeg rumour, that Coinbase tried to wash their hand of that bad press by saying that Circle was actually the entity in charge of keeping USDC pegged to the US Dollar.

Now that the company’s reputation is intact and maybe even stronger, new partnership opportunities naturally come to Circle. The latest is with Grab, a Singaporean super app where users can order food, rides, get insurance and even invest their money. Not sure how they product roadmap was designed, but one thing that’s sure is that it works, and is super popular in its local market.

The new circle integration will add one more feature to Grab’s long list: a web3 wallet. With this wallet, users will be able to earn rewards and collectibles and even use NFTs as vouchers for payments. Seems like crypto wallets are trending worldwide, and we’re here for it!

Paypal Releases new crypto payment feature

After previously rolling out On-Ramps, a feature that allows users to buy crypto with Paypal, the payments giant added Off-Ramps, which allows the swapping of crypto to FIAT directly from your wallet to your Paypal balance. Guess they ran out of creativity after 'Send' and 'Request' buttons, so highways it is!

What’s interesting is that we’ve seen ways to buy crypto on various apps so far, like Cash App, Venmo and others, but big tech companies have been reluctant so far about going the other way. Handling swaps from digital assets to FIAT does raise some accounting and legal considerations, so Paypal’s move opens up the floor for other platforms to take that route (this is not a pun related to the feature’s name…).

Best practices for your token community

If you’re reading this section of The Geral, chances are you’re seriously building in web3, don’t care much about outside noise and are eager to learn more tips to manage your organization.. and we’re genuinely pleased to have such an audience, rare thing in web3 nowadays.

If you’re thinking about applying for a grant in the future or are currently in this process, we got you with the best guide to write winning grant proposals. Grant programs like Optimism and Safe Grants processed hundreds of grant applications with CharmVerse, so let us help you with the expertise we gathered.

Cool Stuff seen on CharmVerse

• Nowadays, we all constantly consume short-form content on most platforms. Scrolling on TikTok or YouTube shorts can dangerously take away hours of your life, without you noticing, when you only planned to check your phone to reply to a text message or take a picture. And most times, you feel like you didn’t learn much valuable things with that time spent.

  That’s why we, at CharmVerse, decided to flood your TikTok feed with digestible content on everything web3. If you ask us, that’s much better than learning the latest trending dance, which really became a lame thing to do if you’re above 15 years old. So go check it out!

• Last time, we asked you about the most effective governance model for DAOs. And here is what our audience had to say:

One token, one vote: 43.8%

Quadratic voting: 18.8%

Reputation-based voting: 25%

Delegated voting: 12.5%

To participate in those weekly polls, follow us on Twitter.

Memes of the month

We’re back with the best memes seen on the internet since the last time we posted, and can certify these ones are 🔥 fr fr

We’re about 2 months away from Thanksgiving, so here is a cool idea

Why buy a BAYC, when you can become one?

Some of The Geral readers, right now:

And who’s family is this??

That’s a wrap for The Geral #9! See you in two weeks for another deep dive into the world of Web3 communities.