Telegram CEO suggests auctioning usernames, links as NFTs

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has proposed bringing his platform usernames and channel links to market as NFTs.

In a Monday post to his personal Telegram channel, which has 651,000 subscribers, Durov suggested that millions of reserved Telegram addresses could be auctioned off as assets on the blockchain.

“This will create a new platform where username holders can transfer them to interested parties in protected agreements – with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart contracts,” he explained.

Durov wrote that he was inspired by The Open Network (TON)’s recent sale of over 2,000 .ton domain names. The sale amounted to 2,392,002 Toncoins, each of which trades for $1.29 at the time of writing, raising approximately $3 million.

The highest turnover name in the sale was wallet.ton, which alone sold for 215,250 Toncoin. The domain names in second place, casino.ton and bank.ton, sold for 200,000 and 157,500 Toncoin respectively.

“If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links up for auction,” argued the CEO. “In addition to millions of catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, any four-letter username can be made available for sale (@bank, @club, @game, @gift, etc.).”

“Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, may later become part of this marketplace as well.”

TON was originally designed by Telegram, but control of the blockchain was handed over to The Open Network community in June 2020. The firm was forced to divest its ownership as part of a settlement agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which filed a complaint against Telegram for allegedly conducting an unregistered securities sale for $1.7 billion in the form of GRAM tokens.

Nevertheless, Telegram is still closely involved in the TON blockchain. The app now allows users exchange Toncoin directly through bots that automate activities on the platform. Although Telegram allows these bots, it does not necessarily support them.

Durov says he believes using TON for his own auction plan would be best given its scalability and speed. He is also confident that the company can write “bulletproof” smart contracts for the network since they were the ones who invented the programming language.

“Let’s see if we can add some Web 3.0 to Telegram in the coming weeks,” he concluded.