Highlights:
- In a blog post, Durov praised The Open Network’s most recent auction.
- TON was first developed by Telegram.
- The TON blockchain is still a project that Telegram is very active with.
According to founder Pavel Durov, Telegram may soon provide a marketplace where addresses may be auctioned. Durov proposed that millions of reserved Telegram addresses may be auctioned off as assets on the blockchain in a post on his own Telegram channel, which has 651,000 subscribers. Durov claimed that The Open Network (TONrecent)’s sale of more than 2,000 “.ton” domain names — a sale that totaled 2,392,002 Toncoin, each of which trades for $1.33 (about Rs. 100 at the time of writing), netting around $3 million — had inspired him (roughly Rs. 24 crore).
“Imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction,” he said.
Durov recommended that Telegram make use of similar technology to launch a new market where users could buy and sell “catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, and all four-letter user names:”
“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. Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace,” he added.
Although Telegram originally created TON, control of the blockchain was passed on to The Open Network community in June 2020. As part of a settlement deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which filed a complaint against Telegram for allegedly executing an unregistered securities sale for $1.7 billion in the form of GRAM tokens, the company was forced to give up the ownership.
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Despite this, Telegram continues to be associated with the TON blockchain in a significant way. Users can now directly exchange Toncoin on the messaging platform thanks to bots that simplify platform operations. Although Telegram permits these bots, it does not always support them.
On July 30, the first TON DNS auctions went live. Similar to the “.eth” domains offered by the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), users may now access decentralised applications without having to type a large number of characters from their wallet addresses.
