---
title: "Recycled Telegram Handles"
url: "https://radix.wiki/contents/resources/recycled-telegram-handles"
version: "1.1.0"
updated: 2026-08-20
last_verified: 2026-08-18
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Recycled Telegram Handles

| Recycled Telegram Handles |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Type** | Reader advisory |
| **Affects** | Telegram handles previously used by Radix ecosystem projects |
| **Handles observed** | 9, all cited on this wiki before 1 August 2026 |
| **Signature** | 1 subscriber, no description, a single Collab.Land-branded token-gate post |
| **Lure** | "Click below to verify your wallet and gain access" |
| **Legitimate Collab.Land bot** | [@collablandbot](https://t.me/collablandbot) – and [only that handle](https://docs.collab.land/help-docs/FAQ/join-tg-group/) |
| **Observed** | 1 August 2026 |

A **recycled Telegram handle** is a username that once belonged to a project's own channel and has since been re-registered by someone else. The handle survives the project; every link that ever pointed at it – wiki entries, old tweets, exchange listings, documentation, search results – now points at whoever holds it today. For a Radix ecosystem that has accumulated several years of wound-down projects, that makes abandoned handles a standing supply of pre-trusted traffic.

On 1 August 2026 a sweep of every Telegram handle cited under [this wiki's ecosystem directory](/ecosystem) found nine that no longer belong to the projects named beside them. All nine share one signature: a channel with a single subscriber, no description, and exactly two posts – the automatic "Channel created" notice, and a message styled as a [Collab.Land](https://collab.land) token gate reading "This community is now protected by Collab.Land … Click below to verify your wallet and gain access." The button beneath it leads to a bot whose name imitates Collab.Land's without matching it.

This page records what was observed, so that the citations elsewhere on the wiki can be read for what they are: dead handles, not project channels. It is not an allegation about any of the projects listed – in most cases the project simply ended, and the handle outlived it.

## The handles observed

Creation timestamps and subscriber counts below were read from each channel's public `t.me/s/` preview on 1 August 2026. Seven of the nine channels were created inside a thirty-second window on 29 June 2026 – the fingerprint of one batch registration rather than nine unrelated events.

| Handle | Project it is cited for | Channel created (UTC) | "Verify" button target |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `@RadLandNFT` | [VikingLand](/ecosystem/vikingland) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:08 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@phoenix_xrd` | [Phoenix](/ecosystem/phoenix) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:16 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@backeum_news` | [Backeum](/ecosystem/backeum) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:17 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@hardmoneyproject` | [The Hard Money Project](/ecosystem/the-hard-money-project) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:17 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@juicystake` | [Juicy Stake](/ecosystem/juicy-stake) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:18 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@stabilislabs` | [Stabilis](/ecosystem/stabilis) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:26 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@Impahla` | [Impahla](/ecosystem/impahla) | 29 Jun 2026, 20:06:38 | `@CollabLandlBot` |
| `@fibonaccifi` | [Fibonacci Finance](/ecosystem/fibonacci-finance) | 19 Mar 2026, 10:26:06 | `@collab_land_accessbot` |
| `@Radixnode` | [RadixNode.io](/ecosystem/radixnodeio) | 30 Jul 2026, 03:13:02 | `@coIIab_Iands_bot` |

Every one of these projects is recorded on this wiki as closed, dormant, or long inactive, or was found in this sweep to be operating far below the scale its page implied. That is the population being farmed: handles whose owners are no longer around to reclaim them, attached to pages that readers still arrive at.

## A tenth handle, and a live one: 18 August 2026

The nine handles above were swept on 1 August 2026. The same sweep was re-run on **20 August 2026** across every Telegram handle cited on the 146 pages of the [ecosystem directory](/ecosystem) — 56 distinct handles, all of which resolved. The original nine had been corrected on their pages. One new handle matched the signature: `@FotonMarketplace`, cited for [Foton](/ecosystem/foton).

It fits the pattern exactly, and dates itself precisely. The channel was created on **18 August 2026 at 07:11:55 UTC**. Ten seconds later, at 07:12:05, it posted the Collab.Land token gate. It has one subscriber, no description, and no other posts. The verify button leads to `@Collabslands_bot` — a fourth spelling of the imitation, and the first that does not play on letterforms at all. It simply pluralises the brand, which reads as a typo rather than a substitution.

Two things separate this case from the other nine. The first is that Foton had not been written off: it was listed on this wiki as operational until this handle was found, and the finding is part of why [that page](/ecosystem/foton) now reads dormant. A recycled handle is evidence about a project as well as a hazard beside it — a team still answering for its work notices when its channel changes hands, and fixes the link. The second is that **the project's own website still links the handle**. foton.is has not been rebuilt since April 2023, and the Telegram link on it now delivers visitors straight to the gate. The other nine were reachable only through stale citations; this one is reachable through the front door.

The practical consequence for reading this wiki is that a handle checked clean is checked clean _on a date_. Three weeks separated the two sweeps, and one handle turned over inside them.

## Telling the real Collab.Land bot from a fake

Collab.Land is a real and widely used token-gating service, which is exactly why it is worth imitating. Its documentation is unambiguous about the only handle that is genuinely theirs: ["The true Collab.Land bot is named @collablandbot … Make sure you are interacting with the correct bot @collablandbot. There are many imposters with similar names."](https://docs.collab.land/help-docs/FAQ/join-tg-group/)

The three imitations found in this sweep each work by substituting a character that is hard to see in a sans-serif font:

- `@CollabLandlBot` – an extra `l` before "Bot" (seven of the nine channels).
- `@collab_land_accessbot` – a plausible-sounding suffix that Collab.Land does not use.
- `@coIIab_Iands_bot` – capital `I` standing in for lowercase `l`, three times over.

The last is the classic form of the attack: in most interface fonts a capital _I_ and a lowercase _l_ are the same vertical stroke. Collab.Land [publishes security guidance](https://collab.land/security) on this and [accepts reports of impersonating bots](https://dev.collab.land/help-docs/FAQ/report-scams/).

## What a reader should do

- **Never connect or "verify" a wallet from an unsolicited token gate.** A verification prompt is only meaningful if you went looking for the community first – a gate that greets you in an empty channel is the whole attack, not a step in it.
- **Read the channel, not the handle.** One subscriber, no description, a creation date measured in weeks, and a single pinned prompt are all visible before you click anything. A real project channel has history.
- **Get handles from the project's own site**, or from a source you can date. A Telegram link in an article from 2023 says only where the project was in 2023.
- **Compare the bot handle character by character** against [@collablandbot](https://t.me/collablandbot). Copy it into a monospaced field if the letters look alike.
- **Nothing legitimate needs your seed phrase, and very little needs a signature** to prove you hold a token. Treat any signing request from a verification flow as the point to stop.
- **Check whether the project is still running at all.** A handle is most worth doubting when it belongs to a project that has stopped, and the [ecosystem operational status index](/contents/resources/radix-ecosystem-operational-status) lists which Radix projects are operating, dormant or closed.

The same reasoning applies to domains as well as handles. A wound-down project's website can be re-registered exactly as its Telegram handle can – the [Instabridge](/ecosystem/instabridge) domain now redirects to rotating gambling pages, and this wiki's [guide to buying XRD](/contents/resources/how-to-buy-xrd) was itself routing readers through it until 1 August 2026. An old link is a claim about the past, not the present.

## External Links

- [Collab.Land – Joining a Telegram Token Permission Group](https://docs.collab.land/help-docs/FAQ/join-tg-group/) (names @collablandbot as the only legitimate bot)
- [Collab.Land – Security](https://collab.land/security)
- [Collab.Land – Report Scams](https://dev.collab.land/help-docs/FAQ/report-scams/)
- [@collablandbot on Telegram](https://t.me/collablandbot)
- [Radix ecosystem directory](/ecosystem) – where the affected citations were found