How Telegram Built the Super App Silicon Valley Couldn't

For a better part of the last decade, American tech companies have tried long and hard to come up with an effective super app. But, despite pouring billions of dollars into these efforts, Telegram did the impossible through the crypto unlock.

Even serial innovators like Elon Musk struggled to convert X (formerly Twitter) into a super app rivalling the Chinese WeChat that can handle everything from messaging to booking appointments. The same happened with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, as they already had popular apps built around messaging and ride-hailing, respectively.

They all struggled to create super apps.

However, the past 18 months or so have been a major turning point as Telegram, a once obscure messaging app, has quietly achieved Silicon Valley’s dream. Using crypto-based applications it has helped develop functioning super-app ecosystems. With hundreds of millions of active users, there is genuine utility within its offering.

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Why Asia Took a Lead in Super-Apps?

Telegram isn’t the first major super-app in the world, as Chinese platform WeChat has been successfully doing this for a better part of the last decade. But it didn’t start its life as a super-app. Launched back in 2011, it was a rudimentary messaging app that did its job well enough.

Fast forward 14 years, WeChat has over 1.4 billion users worldwide. It is the single largest digital platform in China with 850 million users, representing 57.86% of the entire population. App engagement numbers are among the highest in the world, with 30% of online screen time spent within the WeChat ecosystem, as they use it for all kinds of daily activities.

From wealth management to splitting restaurant bills, the app offers a real “super app” experience.

WeChat’s expansive playbook was clever, yet rudimentary: Dominate different facets of daily activities and then expand laterally.

The Chinese app started with messaging and then added payments that instantly enabled 930 million of its users, which caught on as well. When it was able to integrate payments, the company opened its doors to mini apps-lightweight programs that can be run within the main WeChat app.

Now, over 1 million mini apps are available on WeChat and are steadily growing.

Another Asian super app success story is Grab, a ride-hailing company. It started with ride-hailing in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Thailand. Once it was able to capture this market, it swiftly expanded into digital payments, food delivery, and finance. Now, the app has a 55% share of the $375 billion market across the region.

Silicon Valley tried to copy this model, but failed because it tried to skip steps. Uber never owned the payment side of things, while Zuckerberg forced Meta into business and payments before users trusted it with their money. Musk tried to force app integrations into Twitter, even though he failed to settle on one sticky user behavior.

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The Accidental Super App

Telegram was able to appeal to users with two unique capabilities: privacy and decentralization. The TON blockchain, native crypto infrastructure, and executives are long aligned with decentralization, lending credence to its efforts.

While other aspiring apps struggled with getting users to adapt to new features, Telegram got lucky as it identified a crucial vector: viral gaming.

The Tap-to-earn (T2E) phenomenon became extremely popular in 2024, including games like Hamster Combat, and Notcoin brought with them millions of addicted gamers with zero-friction gameplay.

Users didn’t need to download individual apps to take advantage of the T2E gold rush, as their mini apps were available on Telegram. They spent hours and hours on the messaging app. There was no need for complex wallet setups, seed phrases, and heavy graphics slowing systems down.

While the P2E games were often dismissed as petty cash grabs, for the most part, critics were right about sustainability, but they did benefit Telegram immensely. They were never the endgame for Telegram, but a useful means to funnel millions of users into the Telegram ecosystem.

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The T2E Playbook

The mini apps within the Telegram ecosystem were themselves instrumental in the growth of the platform. Blum was among these breakout gaming apps as it managed to make the best of the rising sensation.

It started with a basic mobile game that gave users rewards based on the number of taps. The simple T2E game resulted in the acquisition of a whopping 95 million users, a number most crypto exchanges haven’t been able to court in many years of operations.

But the Blum executives didn’t stop there. They wanted to build an ecosystem on top of this enchanting gaming experience. They used this daily engagement-based incentive to build trust and goodwill around the company.

The next stage came in September 2025 when it launched an integrated futures trading feature within the Telegram ecosystem. The platform leveraged the goodwill of the last year or so and now offers a complete crypto derivatives experience in addition to the T2E game. Rather than downloading separate apps that are a hassle to use, the game’s users could trade crypto derivatives directly through the mini game within Telegram.

Platforms like Blum help transition Telegram into a payments-enabled platform and unlike WeChat, which spent years and years doing this, Telegram was able to pull off this major transition in a matter of months.

"The Web3 revolution clearly illustrates the paradigm shift in trading operations where the importance of trading apps is receding and the divide between social life and financial access is disappearing,", CEO Gleb Kostarev noted.

By embedding simplified trading experience within apps that many users already spend hours and hours on a daily basis, Blum and many other Telegram mini apps were able to reduce the distance between interest and actual usage. This nature of super apps is a crucial aspect of the Web3 experience.

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The Telegram Ecosystem Play is Working

Blum is by no means the only successful long-term application to come out of the T2E revolution. There are multiple useful apps that are tapping entry points into the Web3 universe.

Notcoin is another popular tap-to-earn initiative that is pivoting to an economic engine that draws interest towards other Web3 projects.

Built within the useful TON ecosystem, Notcoin landed over 35 million users through its rudimentary Tap-to-earn game. It has since shifted to an explore-to-earn model that may allow it to become a marketplace/broker of future Web3 projects.

HOT wallet, another successful Telegram mini app, took a different route towards success. After gaining traction on the messaging app, it proceeded to create browser extensions and dedicated iOS and Android apps. It has moved beyond Telegram constraints to become a powerful app that supports 150 blockchain networks.

The pattern is quite well-defined here, as it starts with a viral game/experience that attracts a large number of users. Then, these platforms expand laterally and offer related online experiences. Telegram is enabling this considerable advancement because of the underlying TON blockchain infrastructure and a commitment to privacy.

Telegram’s success may go on to mirror or exceed even WeChat’s, as the latter has to satisfy extensive Chinese censorship and government control. Telegram is largely free from these concerns and is being accepted on a global level.

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The $6 Billion Present and Trillion Dollar Future

Web3 infrastructure is set to reach as high as $6.15 billion in 2025, representing a healthy 38.9% annual compound growth. While these are encouraging figures, the tap-to-earn boom is now officially over, as it was unsustainable to begin with.

The challenge for these viral gaming platforms is user retention and growth. Many of them were able to get millions of users piggybacking on the success of the tap-to-earn phenomenon. They need to find a way to become useful by offering them the Web3 experience they require.

The more these apps become useful, the more indispensable Telegram becomes with time. WeChat’s model gives us crucial lessons, as the Chinese cannot function without the app, as their daily lives are so intertwined with it.

If Telegram’s model proves its resilience with time, it can become the biggest success in Web3 and position itself for the future in a way no competitor has been able to achieve to date.

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