You need to have a phone number to use Telegram, and (at least in the past) they rather aggressively banned "temporary phone number" based registrations. And th

You need to have a phone number to use Telegram, and (at least in the past) they rather aggressively banned "temporary phone number" based registrations. And the default settings expose your real identity to anyone who already has you in their phone book. So, no - Telegram never did appeal to those who prefer to remain anonymous - at least those of them who paid attention.