Prevents bots from getting access, you need to verify by phone number!

The use of a phone as a password is clever.. but it's based on your phone number, which is something you don't own. If you lose access to the number, unless you do it just right, you can be left without access to your account.

The thing that's missing from Telegram is a backup access method.

They could, for example, issue you a private PKI token that's used only for one purpose: emergency identification, that's keyed to your IMEI (which IS unique to your phone and can't be changed) and is stored by the Telegraph app on the phone. Then all you'd need is the actual phone even if it's not connected to the cell network as long as it's on a WiFi network.

BTW, this isn't hypothetical. A friend of mine used a phone card phone number for his Telegram account because he only used it when at cons in the US (he's not from the US). He didn't use a cellphone when at home and so didn't have a phone number. Then he did get an actual cell account and of course, couldn't transfer his Telegram account until the next time he was in the US. Worse, then Telegram decided that his phone number wasn't connected to a cellphone. He ported his old landline number to his cell and the database hadn't been updated yet. But since he was only in the US for a day, he had to get it done quickly.

We tried all sorts of things to make this work and couldn't.

Two days later he got a note from Telegraph that his number was ok now, so we had to drive all the way back to the US and far enough into the country that our cell tower wouldn't be picked up and do the swap.

If he'd waited any longer before doing this, the cell card would have expired and he would have lost the number entirely.

discord doesnt have that issue, its just password and email (or username i forget)