- Telegram’s new verification programme allows third-party consortiums to independently verify business accounts
- The move is aimed at “prevent[ing] scams” and “reduc[ing] misinformation”
- Additional changes to the platform for January 2025 include gift-to-NFT conversions and a search bar filter
Popular messaging platform Telegram has introduced a “decentralised” verification system, allowing large, already verified organizations to verify entities in their sector.
In a blog post, the company noted while accounts verified under the original system will retain their standard blue checkmark, those that have secured third-party verification will have a unique logo that reflects their respective industries (a fast food chain gets a carrot, for example) alongside a note as to what organization verified the account and why.
The move, which Telegram says sets a “new safety standard”, does, on paper, seem like a safer way of outsourcing verification than, say, X Premium, the introduction of which on the platform formerly known as Twitter notoriously removed centralised verification ticks in favour of being able to pay for one outright.
More Telegram updates
The flipside of decentralization is that it’s the core concept of electricity-guzzling, climate-heating technologies like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which gifts received on Telegram can now be turned into – head off fraud on your platform by introducing a means by which you could, theoretically, launder money.
“Collectible gifts have special attributes and can be transferred to other users or auctioned on NFT marketplaces,” says the blog post. “Collectibles also receive a random set of secondary traits […] every collectible gift is a unique work of art – and that some will be more rare than others.” Anyway, it’s not interesting.
Elsewhere, you can now react to service messages, and the search bar lets you filter between chats, channels, media and more; which is, to be fair, useful.
Via TechCrunch