Pavel Durov of The Open Network pledged to employ blockchain technology to power Telegram’s messaging software in the future. He revealed ambitious plans to tokenize features, give users a cut of ad revenue, and integrate Tether’s stablecoin at Token2049.Speaking to a crowded audience in Dubai, Durov extolled the virtues of blockchain technology’s capacity to uphold privacy and freedom before laying out ambitious ambitions to expand The Open Network’s (TON) functionality.
“The reason we love blockchain. It’s a technology of freedom. We care about freedom. Even our logo, the paper airplane symbolizes freedom to move in three dimensions,” Durov said.
The startup aims to enable its users to create tools, apps, and businesses on Telegram, according to the app’s founder. The app is believed to have over 900 million monthly users.
According to Durov, unlike other significant messaging and social media companies that sell user data to advertising, Telegram has taken a different tack when it comes to monetizing its user populations.Recently, Telegram revealed plans to use its Ad Network to split platform revenue with content creators.According to Durov, the change represents one of the most advantageous revenue-sharing schemes in social media history.He added that channel owners and content producers using TON’s network would get 50% of Telegram’s revenue from broadcast channels and ad displays.
“All these transactions, the payments for ads, withdrawals of ads are powered by blockchain. We will use the TON blockchain exclusively for that.”
According to Durov, the blockchain-based advertising business has the potential to generate tens of billions of dollars. Users, including those who run large group chats and content creators, stand to earn a substantial portion of this revenue.
Telegram will be able to lessen the restrictions on in-app purchases imposed by Apple and Google with relation to payment processing by utilizing a blockchain system. Despite this, by integrating 40 payment providers—including Stripe—Telegram has made it possible for merchants and app developers to offer tangible products and services.
According to Durov, Telegram is the first social media platform to tokenize its user namespace; it has already conducted tokenization experiments.The founder claimed that $350 million was made in sales through this in-platform market, and he mentioned that tokenizing further platform components was in the works.
“The next step that we are going to undertake is tokenizing Telegram stickers.”
According to Durov, Telegram need the scalability that TON’s network offers, as it has the potential to handle transactions worth tens or perhaps hundreds of millions in the future.
Stablecoin operator Tether declared the debut of the USDT token, a U.S. dollar-pegged token on the TON network, after Durov’s speech at the conference. The debut of the gold-pegged Tether Gold (XAUT) stablecoin was also revealed by Tether on TON.Although Telegram had originally created TON, the messaging app withdrew from development in May 2020 because to a legal dispute with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. After thereafter, a small group of open-source developers took over the project, which resulted in the May 2021 founding of the TON Foundation.