Telegram founder proposes ‘NFT-like smart contracts’ to auction usernames

Pavel Durov, the founder of encrypted messaging app Telegram, has floated the idea of ​​a marketplace that could use “NFT-like smart contracts” to auction off highly sought-after usernames.

Durov made the proposal following the “success” of domain name auctions by The Open Network (TON), a layer-1 blockchain originally designed by the Telegram team. The blockchain project launched the TON DNS service that enables users to assign human-readable names to crypto wallets, smart contracts and websites in mid-July.

In a message to his personal Telegram group called “Durov’s channel” on August 23, he noted that he was “really impressed with the success of the auction TON recently conducted for their domain/wallet names.”

“Imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links up for auction,” he said.

Durov suggested that Telegram could use similar technology to roll out a new marketplace that could be used to buy and sell “catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, and any four-letter username.”

“This would 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.”

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

The first auctions on TON DNS went live on July 30, and much like the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) “.eth” domains, the “.ton” variant allows users to easily access decentralized applications without having to write a long string of letters and numbers from their wallet addresses.

The TON network uses the FunC programming language for the TON Virtual Machine and to launch specific smart contracts on the blockchain. If Telegram were to launch NFTs, they would most likely be based on this standard.

A similar integration would likely be fairly easy for Telegram, given that Durov and his team developed TON, formerly known as the Telegram Open Network, alongside the messaging app back in 2018.

“Our team can write bulletproof smart contracts for TON (since we invented the smart contract language), so we are inclined to try out TON as the underlying blockchain for our future marketplace,” he wrote.

TON was originally developed to act as a digital payment platform for Telegram, but it immediately ran into trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding an unregistered preliminary sale of Gram tokens worth $1.7 billion.

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After losing the court battle with the SEC in mid-2020, Durov stepped away from the project to focus on Telegram. Since then, open source developers have revived the project under the banner of The Open Network.

The TON network uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, and it supports various features such as staking, NFTs, and decentralized applications. According to data from CoinMarketCap, its native asset Toncoin (TON) has pumped 14.70% in the last 24 hours to stand at $1.33 at the time of writing.