Telegram launches integrated bitcoin wallet “Telebit”

Telegram, considered as a rival to popular messaging app Whatsapp, has gained 50 million users and still counting.

Its new feature "Telebit" already has 700 users, within few weeks of its launch, a strong reading in an industry with no dearth of wallet offering. It is an integrated bitcoin wallet, which enables bitcoin transfers between users and to external addresses.

On activating the feature, the user will receive a bitcoin address, QR code and an introductory gift of 0.00025 BTC ($0.06). To send bitcoins to external addresses, texting is used within the app, with a set of predefined commands.

Bitcoins are not stored on the device, but on the app itself. If users are apprehensive about the storage of large amounts of bitcoin on the cloud, an external bitcoin address can be created and amounts exceeding a given limit can be automatically forwarded to it.