Telegram Collectibles as an OSINT Trail
Since Telegram turned “gifts” into tradable collectibles, a genuine market has grown up alongside the messenger. That matters for investigative work, because for the first time economic activity is publicly attached to a Telegram account.
We looked at what can actually be collected from this - and where the limits are.
What the market yields
The resale market is queryable through the official interface. A snapshot from 28 July 2026:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Gift models in the catalogue | 149 |
| Editions per model | 100,000 - 600,000 |
| “Timeless Book” - units listed | 10,685 |
| “Timeless Book” - lowest offer | 566 Stars (≈ 5.82 TON) |
| “Snoop Dogg” - units listed | 36,839 |
| “Snoop Dogg” - lowest offer | 650 Stars (≈ 6.69 TON) |
The decisive point for investigators: for every listing the interface also returns the seller’s numeric Telegram ID - along with the price, the serial number and, if the item has been moved onto the blockchain, its TON address. Anyone who sells is therefore identifiable; unlike gifting, selling offers no anonymity option.
The estimated value is not the market price
One detail with practical consequences: Telegram displays an estimated value for a collectible. For one item we examined that figure was EUR 113. The actual market floor for the same model at that moment sat at 566 Stars, or 5.82 TON.
Converted, that is the decisive point: at the rate of 29 July 2026 (1 TON ≈ EUR 1.24), 5.82 TON comes to roughly EUR 7. The estimate shown in the app therefore exceeds the price at which the same model is actually offered on the market by more than fifteenfold.
| Figure | Amount |
|---|---|
| Value estimated by Telegram | EUR 113.00 |
| Market floor (566 Stars / 5.82 TON) | ≈ EUR 7.20 |
| Ratio | ≈ 16 : 1 |
Copying the in-app figure into a report unchecked therefore documents a vendor estimate, not a market value - and here it is off by more than an order of magnitude. For asset recovery or valuation that difference matters considerably. Only a timestamped market extract is defensible - and it moves: within minutes, the floor in our measurement rose from 550 to 566 Stars.
The conversion rate itself needs a source too: crypto rates differ noticeably between trading venues. A report should record the rate used, along with its source and timestamp.
What can be attributed to an account
An API profile lookup returns considerably more than the public t.me/… web page:
- the numeric account ID - permanent, unlike the username, which can change at any time
- the full account bio, including any linked domains
- status markers such as a Premium subscription, or bot, scam and fake flags
- the visible collectibles, with the date received, rarity values and a value figure
- whether a collectible is worn as an emoji status - a visible link between person and object
The combination is what carries weight: an account that looks anonymous behind a generic display name becomes very tangible through a permanent ID, a domain in its bio and a uniquely numbered collectible.
Where the trail ends
Three limits are worth knowing, because ignoring them invites false conclusions.
Anonymous senders stay anonymous. When gifting, the sender can hide. This is not a display setting but server-enforced: the response simply contains no sender ID. That holds even towards the recipient. No technical trick gets around it.
A missing sender is not evidence of concealment. The same empty field appears when someone simply bought the item themselves.
No provenance without a blockchain export. As long as a collectible stays inside Telegram, no public transfer history exists. Only once it is moved to TON do wallet addresses appear, and with them a traceable chain of previous owners and sales. The upside in the Telegram-internal case: the owner is named directly as an account - the laborious wallet-to-person step falls away.
Putting it in context
The collectibles market is interesting for investigative work chiefly because it links accounts to economic behaviour and to permanent identifiers - and because listings, prices and ownership can be documented with a timestamp. It does not replace conventional attribution, but it offers footholds that were not public before.
What remains essential is a clean separation: what was collected, what is estimated, and what is simply not visible. A negative finding - “no collectibles visible” - does not mean none exist; users can hide them. That distinction belongs in every report.
All figures come from our own collection via the official Telegram interface, read-only, with no interaction with the accounts concerned. Market data are snapshots and change continuously.