Telegram’s ad system puts channel owners in a bind

Telegram’s advertising system is facing renewed scrutiny after the operator of a prominent crypto investigations channel said subscribers were being exposed to suspected scam promotions that the channel could neither approve nor individually block.

“Investigations by ZachXBT,” a public channel followed by about 104,000 users, asked Telegram Premium subscribers to assign boosts to the channel so it could eventually reach the level required to switch off sponsored messages.

The request followed the appearance of an advertisement for a channel called “Arthur Hayes Signals.” The sponsored message offered “carefully selected trade setups” and urged users to join before free access ended.

The ad’s use of Arthur Hayes’ name was particularly sensitive. Hayes is a prominent crypto trader and a co-founder and former chief executive of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, making his identity valuable to promoters seeking immediate credibility.

The sponsored message did not visibly establish that the advertised channel was operated by, endorsed by or otherwise connected to Hayes.

That absence does not prove the promotion was fraudulent. However, the combination of a famous investor’s name, trading signals and artificial urgency follows a familiar pattern in crypto impersonation schemes. Users may initially be directed to a public channel before being encouraged to pay fees, transfer cryptocurrency, connect a wallet or communicate privately with someone claiming to represent the trader.

Telegram’s advertising structure makes the placement particularly uncomfortable for channel owners. Its official advertising platform allows sponsored messages to appear in public, one-way channels with at least 1,000 subscribers. Advertisers can select the exact channels in which they want their promotions displayed, while the initial ad must direct users to a Telegram channel or bot rather than an external website.

Channel administrators, however, are not given equivalent campaign-level controls to approve or reject individual advertisers.

The result is an endorsement problem. A suspicious trading promotion can appear beneath posts from a fraud investigator, regulator, media outlet or consumer-protection organization even though the administrator played no role in accepting it.

Less experienced users may not understand that separation and may interpret the ad’s placement as evidence that the host channel reviewed or approved the offer.

Telegram’s written policies appear designed to prevent this type of abuse. The rules prohibit impersonating public figures or brands, misleading advertising, phishing, manipulated destinations and get-rich-quick promotions. They specifically identify guaranteed returns and purported insider investment tips as examples of prohibited financial advertising.

The policies apply not only to the short sponsored message but also to the channel, bot or service being promoted.

Enforcement is the more difficult issue. A carefully worded advertisement can avoid making an explicit promise and instead send users to a destination where stronger claims appear later.

A June 2026 investigation by Spanish fact-checking organization Maldita.es found potentially noncompliant investment or betting advertisements in 63% of more than 40 public-interest Telegram channels it monitored. The investigation documented 13 campaigns that reached more than 280,000 subscribers.

Some of the advertisements directed users through Telegram bots or channels before sending them to unauthorized external investment services. Telegram told the organization that advertisements were reviewed before being displayed.

Channel owners can disable sponsored messages, but only after reaching Telegram’s required boost level. Official technical documentation confirms that the option is locked behind a minimum channel level, while the current threshold for removing ads is Level 50.

For a channel the size of Investigations by ZachXBT, the estimated requirement is roughly 20,750 boosts.

Premium subscribers receive four boosts that they can distribute among different channels. Even if each supporting user assigned all four boosts to the investigations channel, it would still require more than 5,000 Premium subscribers to participate.

The arrangement creates an obvious paradox. Telegram Premium subscribers can already hide advertisements for themselves. The users needed to remove ads from a channel are therefore not the users who normally see those ads.

Telegram also shares 50% of eligible advertising revenue with owners of public channels that have at least 1,000 subscribers. However, revenue sharing does not give administrators control over the advertisements associated with their work.

A channel can earn a small amount from an advertisement while simultaneously suffering reputational damage from its placement.

Telegram is monetizing trust without sharing control

The uncomfortable truth is that Telegram has assigned responsibility to channel owners without giving them enough authority.

A trusted channel can spend years building credibility, but an advertiser can borrow that credibility in seconds simply by paying to appear beneath it.

Telegram may clearly label the message as sponsored, but placement still carries meaning. An investment promotion displayed inside a fraud investigator’s channel appears safer than the same promotion displayed in an unknown community, even when the investigator strongly objects to it.

That is a form of context laundering. The advertiser gains legitimacy from surroundings it did not earn.

The Level 50 solution makes the problem worse because it treats basic brand safety as a feature that communities must collectively unlock. Removing a suspected impersonation advertisement should not depend on convincing thousands of paying subscribers to surrender their limited boosts.

A channel owner should not need to win a popularity contest to prevent an outside advertiser from using the channel’s audience and reputation.

The Premium paradox is equally difficult to defend. Paying users normally do not see sponsored messages, but only paying users possess the boosts required to protect everyone else.

Non-Premium subscribers carry most of the risk while lacking the tool that could reduce it. The arrangement may encourage Premium subscriptions, but it does not create a credible safety system.

Telegram’s policies are not the main weakness. On paper, they already prohibit impersonation, phishing, deceptive promotions and harmful financial schemes.

The real gap is between those rules and the platform’s controls. Reviewing an advertisement before publication is not enough when a promoter can use restrained wording in the sponsored message and introduce the deception after the user clicks.

The practical fixes are not complicated.

Channel owners should be able to block individual advertisers, exclude sensitive categories such as trading signals and financial services, and appeal advertisements that misuse their channel’s context. Telegram should also require stronger identity verification whenever an advertisement uses the name of a public figure.

Every sponsored message should carry a clear and consistently available reporting option. Repeated reports involving the same destination should trigger a review of the entire channel or bot, not merely the wording of one advertisement.

Revenue sharing should also remain separate from advertising control. Accepting a share of platform revenue should not be interpreted as accepting every campaign Telegram chooses to display.

For users, the immediate lesson is simple: an advertisement inside a reputable Telegram channel is not necessarily an endorsement.

Famous names, private trading groups, expiring free access and promises of selected opportunities should trigger verification rather than urgency.

But the larger burden belongs to Telegram. It decides who can advertise, where advertisements appear and whether channel owners can remove them.

When a fraud investigations channel cannot stop a suspected scam promotion from appearing beneath its own work, the system is not merely inconvenient. It is undermining the trust that makes Telegram’s advertising inventory valuable in the first place.