Behavior: You can customize notification settings for individual contacts (e.g., mute specific conversations, set custom sounds) or manage general notifications from your contacts. This includes options for "Contact joined Telegram" notifications.
8. People Nearby Feature
Access: Contacts > People Nearby
Behavior: This feature (which must be explicitly enabled) allows you to discover other Telegram users in your immediate vicinity. When active, it also makes your profile visible to others nearby. If you're concerned about privacy, ensure you disable this feature after use or avoid activating it.
By utilizing these various settings, you can finely tune your Telegram experience to match your desired level of privacy and interaction with your contacts and the wider Telegram community.
User-Owned Identities: The rise of decentralized identity telegram number database (DID) frameworks and Web3 technologies (like blockchain) could fundamentally change how users identify themselves in messaging apps. Instead of a phone number managed by a telecom carrier, users might use self-sovereign digital identities (SSID) linked to cryptographic keys or blockchain addresses.
Wallet-to-Wallet Messaging: Protocols like XMTP (used in the Web3 space) enable direct messaging between crypto wallet addresses, decoupling communication from traditional phone numbers entirely.
Increased Interoperability: As DID standards mature, it could lead to more interoperable messaging, where users can communicate across different apps using a single, portable, user-owned digital identity.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Communication: For critical B2C interactions (e.g., banking alerts, government notifications, shipping updates), SMS (and its successor RCS) and phone number-based communication are likely to remain relevant due to their ubiquity and high reach, especially for transactional messages and 2FA backups.
User Trust and "Known" Contacts: For many users, a phone number is still the most intuitive way to connect with "known" contacts (family, close friends). This social graph aspect might keep phone numbers relevant for certain types of connections.