Buy Toncoin in Saudi Arabia, plus Notcoin and Hamster

The short answer: a Saudi resident can buy TON with a Saudi Visa, Mastercard or Apple Pay on CEX.IO, which lists TON against USD, USDT and USDC, and the same account sells Notcoin (NOT) and Hamster Kombat (HMSTR). If you want to pay in riyals, buy USDT on a SAR P2PP2PPeer-to-peer: you buy from another person on the exchange and the platform holds the coins in escrow until the seller confirms your bank, stc pay or urpay payment. market and swap it for TON. None of these platforms is licensed in Saudi Arabia; no crypto platform is.

What TON is, and why Telegram matters

TON, The Open Network, is a blockchain originally designed by the team behind Telegram. Telegram stepped away from the project in 2020 after a dispute with US regulators, an independent community kept it running, and in later years Telegram embraced it again: TON is now the network behind in-app crypto features, mini-app games and paid services inside the messenger. Its coin, long known as Toncoin, pays transaction fees and is used for stakingStakingLocking coins to help run a proof-of-stake network in exchange for variable rewards. On TON it is offered by wallets and by some exchanges..

For a user the appeal is reach. Telegram is one of the most used messaging apps in the Gulf, and a TON wallet can live inside the chat app you already open twenty times a day. Transfers settle in seconds for a small fee. That convenience is the whole story of TON, and also the source of most of its risks, because the same chat window carries every airdrop scam in the region.

TON or GRAM? Check the ticker before you pay

Here is something most guides have not caught up with. When we checked, CoinGecko listed the TON network's coin as "Gram (prev. Toncoin)" with the symbol GRAM. CEX.IO still trades it under TON pairs (TON/USD, TON/USDT, TON/USDC), and our earlier research also found a separate set of GRAM pairs on CEX.IO. Whether those GRAM pairs are the same asset as TON, a successor, or something else was not confirmed on any official page we could read.

Why TON matters to someone in Saudi Arabia

The angle that matters in the Kingdom is not speculation; it is USDT on TON. Tether issues USDT natively on TON as a JettonJettonThe token standard on TON, the equivalent of ERC-20 on Ethereum or TRC-20 on Tron. USDT on TON is an official Tether Jetton., and Tether's own list of supported networks names TON alongside Ethereum, Tron and Solana. For a Saudi user that means a dollar stablecoinStablecoinA token designed to stay worth one US dollar. Because the riyal is pegged at 3.75 per dollar, a stablecoin behaves like a digital riyal-equivalent. that can move inside Telegram for a fraction of a riyal, to anyone with a TON wallet. The USDT guide explains why TRC-20 remains the default for SAR P2P; TON is the rail that comes up when the person on the other side lives in Telegram rather than in an exchange app.

To use it you need a small amount of TON for network fees, exactly as Tron users need TRX. That is why many people who never wanted Toncoin end up holding a few riyals' worth. The second reason Saudis meet TON is the games, covered next.

Notcoin, Hamster Kombat and the tap-to-earn wave

In 2024 Telegram mini-app games turned TON into a household name. Notcoin asked players to tap a coin; Hamster Kombat asked them to tap a hamster that ran a fictional crypto exchange. Both rewarded taps with points that were later converted into tokens by airdropAirdropFree tokens distributed to users, often as marketing or as a reward for using an app. Real airdrops never ask you to pay a fee or share your seed phrase.: NOT and HMSTR. The games spread through family groups and offices across the Arab world, with Arabic-language YouTube and TikTok channels posting daily "combo" codes, although no reliable figure for Saudi or Arab players has been published.

The tokens are now ordinary listed assets. CEX.IO lists NOT/USD and NOT/USDT, plus HMSTR/USD and HMSTR/USDT, and the large global exchanges (Binance, OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Bitget, Gate) list both against USDT. Their market values are small; on the day we checked NOT ranked in the 500s and HMSTR beyond 1,200 on CoinGecko. If your phone still holds a few thousand HMSTR from the airdrop, selling or holding them is a personal choice, but buying more is a bet on a game's attention span.

On the Sharia side, game-airdrop tokens are usually discussed alongside meme coins. Mufti Faraz Adam of Islamic Finance Guru has described meme coins as highly problematic for lacking utility and trading like a game of chance, while stopping short of declaring them haram. Other scholars are stricter. Our halal guide sets out the conditions scholars commonly cite.

Where to buy TON, NOT and HMSTR from Saudi Arabia

Walt, Keeper and the memo rule

Walt is the new name of Wallet in Telegram (wallet.tg became walt.io). It is custodialCustodialA service that holds the keys for you, like an exchange. Convenient, but the company can freeze or lose access to your funds.: the company holds the keys. Its site says it is not available in the US, the UK and other restricted jurisdictions, and the full list is behind its help centre. Saudi Arabia is not named in anything official we found, either as supported or as excluded, so check inside Telegram before relying on it. Keeper, formerly Tonkeeper and published by TON APPS UK LTD, is a self-custody TON wallet listed on the Saudi App Store; its metadata does not list Arabic.

1. Buy TON on the exchange

   Use Instant Buy with a Saudi card, or swap USDT bought on SAR P2P. Confirm the coin name and network on the screen, given the GRAM question above.

2. Set up Keeper and write down the words

   Install Keeper from the App Store, create a wallet and copy the 24-word recovery phrase onto paper. Never photograph it or paste it into a chat.

3. Withdraw on the TON network

   Paste the Keeper address, choose TON as the network, leave the memo empty for a personal wallet, and send a small test first.

4. Sending to an exchange? Add the memo

   Many exchanges use one shared TON address plus a memo (comment) per customer. Copy both from the deposit screen every time.

5. Keep a little TON for fees

   Moving USDT, NOT or HMSTR on TON needs a small amount of TON in the same wallet.

The memoMemo / commentAn extra code that some networks, including TON and XRP, use so that an exchange can credit a deposit to the right customer. rule is the TON equivalent of the XRP destination tag described on our XRP page: skip it when depositing to an exchange and your coins land unassigned.

Airdrop scams and the honest risk sentence

Telegram is where crypto scams in the region are most concentrated, and TON users are the first target. Patterns to recognise:

• "Claim your airdrop" bots. A bot or channel promises an unclaimed NOT, HMSTR or new-game allocation and asks you to connect your wallet and sign. The signature hands over your balance. Real airdrops arrive without a "claim fee".
• Fake Walt or Keeper support. Accounts with official-looking names message you first and ask for your recovery phrase "to verify". No support team ever needs it.
• Lookalike tokens. Wallets receive unsolicited Jettons named "USDT", "TON" or "GRAM". Check the issuer address before trusting any balance.
• "Saudi" or "Vision 2030" mini-apps. There is no official Saudi crypto; see our Saudi coin page and the scams guide.

The legal frame is the same for every coin on this site: crypto is not prohibited for individuals in Saudi Arabia, but it is unregulated, no exchange holds a Saudi licence, and SAMA-supervised banks and apps offer no crypto services. CEX.IO's US and UK group companies hold FinCEN MSB registration (NMLS 1804170) and an FCA cryptoasset registration (1007192); the entity that serves Saudi residents, CEX OVRS LLC in Nevis, names no regulator. Keep on any platform only what you trade, and move the rest to a wallet you control.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and references

1. TON — official site (ton.org)
2. Walt (formerly Wallet in Telegram) — official site and availability note
3. Keeper (ex-Tonkeeper) — Saudi App Store listing
4. Tether — supported protocols (USDT on TON as a Jetton)
5. CEX.IO — public currency_limits endpoint (TON, NOT, HMSTR pairs)
6. CoinGecko API — TON network coin listed as Gram (prev. Toncoin), plus Notcoin and Hamster Kombat
7. Decrypt — the year of Telegram tap-to-earn gaming (2024)
8. Islamic Finance Guru — are memecoins halal? (Mufti Faraz Adam)

Related pages

• Top coinsThe 15 most available and popular coins in the Kingdom
• Tether (USDT)The P2P settlement coin and its networks
• Best walletsMobile and cold wallets that work in Saudi
• CEX.IO reviewCard and Apple Pay purchases since 2013
• ScamsCommon fraud patterns and how to stay safe