diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index f514f8896d6b..46dabfd75cc9 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ Ref: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/
 
 ### Improvements
 
+* [#12981](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12981) Return proper error when parsing telemetry configuration.
 * [#12886](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12886) Amortize cost of processing cache KV store.
 * [#12970](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12970) Bump Tendermint to `v0.34.21` and IAVL to `v0.19.1`.
 * [#12693](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12693) Make sure the order of each node is consistent when emitting proto events.
diff --git a/server/config/config.go b/server/config/config.go
index f17e70f11832..56751552ea85 100644
--- a/server/config/config.go
+++ b/server/config/config.go
@@ -249,11 +249,18 @@ func DefaultConfig() *Config {
 }
 
 // GetConfig returns a fully parsed Config object.
-func GetConfig(v *viper.Viper) Config {
-	globalLabelsRaw := v.Get("telemetry.global-labels").([]interface{})
+func GetConfig(v *viper.Viper) (Config, error) {
+	globalLabelsRaw, ok := v.Get("telemetry.global-labels").([]interface{})
+	if !ok {
+		return Config{}, fmt.Errorf("failed to parse global-labels config")
+	}
+
 	globalLabels := make([][]string, 0, len(globalLabelsRaw))
-	for _, glr := range globalLabelsRaw {
-		labelsRaw := glr.([]interface{})
+	for idx, glr := range globalLabelsRaw {
+		labelsRaw, ok := glr.([]interface{})
+		if !ok {
+			return Config{}, fmt.Errorf("failed to parse global label number %d from config", idx)
+		}
 		if len(labelsRaw) == 2 {
 			globalLabels = append(globalLabels, []string{labelsRaw[0].(string), labelsRaw[1].(string)})
 		}
@@ -313,7 +320,7 @@ func GetConfig(v *viper.Viper) Config {
 			SnapshotInterval:   v.GetUint64("state-sync.snapshot-interval"),
 			SnapshotKeepRecent: v.GetUint32("state-sync.snapshot-keep-recent"),
 		},
-	}
+	}, nil
 }
 
 // ValidateBasic returns an error if min-gas-prices field is empty in BaseConfig. Otherwise, it returns nil.
diff --git a/server/start.go b/server/start.go
index ff5922e07051..a20f73f32978 100644
--- a/server/start.go
+++ b/server/start.go
@@ -242,7 +242,11 @@ func startInProcess(ctx *Context, clientCtx client.Context, appCreator types.App
 		return err
 	}
 
-	config := config.GetConfig(ctx.Viper)
+	config, err := config.GetConfig(ctx.Viper)
+	if err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
+
 	if err := config.ValidateBasic(); err != nil {
 		ctx.Logger.Error("WARNING: The minimum-gas-prices config in app.toml is set to the empty string. " +
 			"This defaults to 0 in the current version, but will error in the next version " +