About $3 million was made through the sale of 2,392,002 Toncoin.
Toncoin may now be traded straight inside the app.
It was suggested by Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, that the platform’s usernames and channel links be made available as NFTs. Durov proposed auctioning millions of reserved Telegram addresses on the blockchain as assets in a post he made on his own Telegram channel on Monday, which has 651,000 members.
The CEO stated:
“This would create a new platform where username holders could transfer them to interested parties in protected deals – with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart contracts.”
Banking on TON Blockchain
With the recent auction of over 2,000 .ton domain names by The Open Network (TON), Durov was apparently motivated. About $3 million was made through the sale of 2,392,002 Toncoin, at the current exchange rate of $1.29.
The CEO further added:
“Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace.”
While Telegram created TON, the community behind The Open Network now manages the blockchain. The company had to give up its GRAM tokens as part of a settlement with the SEC after the latter filed a lawsuit against Telegram for allegedly selling $1.7 billion in unregistered securities.
However, Telegram’s involvement in the TON blockchain persists. Toncoin may now be traded straight inside the app using automated bots and procedures. Telegram may facilitate these bots, but it is not necessarily endorsing them.
Durov has stated his opinion that TON’s scalability and speed make it the ideal choice for the project’s auction strategy. Since his business created the network’s programming language, he is also sure that it can create “bullet-proof” smart contracts for it.