I know talking about Telegram as a "Digital Country" seems so bold. But, emerging some country-wide concepts like Phone Code (+888) and Domain (.ton) in Telegram, I think the time to talk about it is definitely now!
Country Definition
If we want to understand what I mean by digital country, first we should know what is a country.
Let's see what is a country according to Wikipedia:
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity (polity).
Country - Wikipedia
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A polity is an identifiable political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any other group of people organized for governance (such as a corporate board), the government of a country, or of a country subdivision.
Telegram as a Country
Due to the definition, a country is a distinct part of the world, and Telegram (or any social media) is a distinct part of the world, not geographically and physically, but logically.
Telegram can also be considered polity, as it meets all these requirements:
- Institutionalized Social Relations: It is a social network!
- Capacity to Mobilize Resources: The quality of mobility in Telegram is at its highest! Messages, pictures, videos, music, and all communications with other people are fully mobilized. Thanks to TON, many more new mobility opportunities are emerging as we know.
- Organized for Governance: TON, as a blockchain infrastructure is the key part that is adding more and more features to Telegram. New concepts for ownership, voting, and decision-making are being added to TON step by step to bring a decentralized governance experience to the world like DAOs.
- Currency: Telegram has its own currency called Toncoin which empowers its governance even it finances in a decentralized manner.
Additionally, in a traditional country, it has its own phone prefixes and domains. For example, Germany has the phone code "+49" and its dedicated domain is ".de".
Arising the First Digital Country
If you follow the Telegram news, you know that it recently provides Anonymous Number with phone code "+888", TON Domain with a top-level domain ".ton", dedicated usernames, and finally its currency, Toncoin for their users (citizens!). In my opinion, Telegram is acting like a country more and more and soon we will witness arising the first digital country in the world. And it can go farther away like the first digital nation in the world! And this is why we are heavily investing in it as developers.
