Telegram may soon introduce a marketplace for auctioning off usernames and addresses, according to its founder, Pavel Durov. Durov shared this possibility on his personal Telegram channel, which boasts 651,000 subscribers. He floated the idea of auctioning millions of reserved Telegram addresses as blockchain assets, taking inspiration from The Open Network’s (TON) recent sale of over 2,000 ‘.ton’ domain names, generating about $3 million.
Durov mused, “Imagine how successful Telegram, with its 700 million users, could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links up for auction.” He proposed that Telegram could leverage similar technology to create a marketplace where users could buy and sell appealing t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, as well as all four-letter usernames.
In this envisioned marketplace, ownership of these assets would be secured through blockchain-based NFT-like smart contracts, enabling secure transfers between interested parties. Durov even hinted at the potential inclusion of other Telegram elements, such as channels, stickers, or emojis, into this marketplace in the future.
Although Telegram initially designed TON, control of the blockchain was transferred to The Open Network community in June 2020 as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC had filed a complaint against Telegram for conducting an unregistered securities sale worth $1.7 billion in the form of GRAM tokens. Nonetheless, Telegram maintains a close relationship with the TON blockchain and allows users to exchange Toncoin through bots on the platform, although it does not necessarily endorse these bots.
The inaugural auctions for TON DNS, akin to Ethereum Name Service (ENS) “.eth” domains, commenced on July 30. The “.ton” variant simplifies access to decentralized applications, eliminating the need for users to enter long strings of letters and numbers from their wallet addresses.