Telegram, crypto vouchers and the 90s deja vu effect
At the beginning of 2024, Telegram introduced the ability to give users gifts in the form of Premium subscriptions, which seemed harmless. But by 2025, a whole market had grown on the basis of Telegram and the TON blockchain platform — crypto vouchers, transferred, traded and exchanged directly in chats. They became a new digital "asset" — liquid, decentralized and incredibly similar to what the post-Soviet world experienced in the 90s.
Many remember the "Chubais vouchers" — paper certificates that gave citizens the right to a share of national property. Most exchanged them for shares of dubious enterprises or simply sold them for a pittance. An analogy with current crypto vouchers arises involuntarily: mass distribution, essence that is unclear to most, speculative promises of future value.
Digital voucher from Pavel Durov
What Telegram is doing is similar to the old scenario, but on the blockchain. TON, as an infrastructure, offers:
- Tokenization of everything: from subscriptions to NFT and access to closed channels
- Simple login for the average person through Telegram bots
- Integration of payments and wallets within the messenger
At first glance, it is a technological miracle. But in fact, we are witnessing a new model of privatization of attention and digital trust, when each user is the owner of a small share of the ecosystem, which he does not control, but actively promotes.
The collapse of interest in smartphones: technology no longer drives
Against this background, another phenomenon becomes noticeable — a decline in interest in devices, especially smartphones. Once upon a time, video reviews of new models collected millions of views, but today even top bloggers, like Wylsacom, are showing a noticeable decline.
The reasons are obvious:
- Smartphones have ceased to surprise: all models are similar, functions are predictable
- People are tired of the upgrade race
- Value has shifted to software and services, not hardware
- Attention has shifted to AI, metaverses, tokens and privacy
Phones have become household utilities, like a microwave. Necessary, but not exciting. And in this shadow, a new cult is growing — of digital ownership, status and participation in the blockchain game.
Symbols of the future: the merger of Apple, Amazon and Twitter?
Visual trends are a reflection of big meanings. Look at the logos of the major tech players:
- Amazon — an arrow from A to Z, symbolizing complete control and delivery of “everything”
- Twitter (X) — has transformed into a universal platform for communication, payments, identity
- Apple — the iconic bitten fruit, a symbol of rational consumption and design
But now, in a world where attention is directly monetized, and each user becomes a point in the Web3 network, it is possible for their philosophies to merge into something new.
Imagine a logo that combines:
- Amazon arrow, but not for the delivery of goods, but meanings
- Elon Musk's X, as a transition from a social network to a digital nation
- apple, but no longer as a gadget, but as a biometric key to the metaverse
The era of hypnotic privatization
We have entered the quarter of two thousand and one hundred (2025 sounds almost like science fiction), and the old logic of ownership is being restarted again - only now not in the form of factories and shares, but in the form of digital influence and participation in decentralized systems.
Telegram, TON, X (Twitter), Amazon, Apple are no longer competitors, but participants in the same scenario: total digitalization of individuality.
Gifts in Telegram are not just a gesture of generosity. This is the entry point into the attention economy, where you yourself become a product, an asset and a holder of a voucher of the future.
Improve Telegram Gift/Voucher
We are experiencing a repeat of the 90s, but in a digital key. At that time, we were given a piece of paper and promised "the whole country". Now we are given tokens and told about "the future of Web3". History is not just repeating itself - it is encrypted under innovation. And if earlier enterprises were privatized, now - consciousness, behavior and time.
And the question remains the same: have you already ACTIVATED your VOUCHER?