Telegram Launches Username Auction Using TON Blockchain
by Arthur · October 27, 2022
Popular instant messaging service Telegram launched its marketplace for Telegram handles on Thursday.
“This will enable Telegram handles, which include both usernames and channels bought and sold with Toncoin,” Telegram explained in a press release.
Toncoin (TON) is the token of The Open Network, which is the spiritual successor to Telegram’s independent blockchain ambitions – thwarted by federal regulators two years ago.
The auction is hosted on Fragment.com, a dedicated “standalone site” for users who wish to participate. From here, users can search for and buy three- to four-character domains, auction their existing handles, and “bind pre-purchased handles to off-chain accounts.”
Telegram will initially put four-to-five character handles up for auction, the smallest of which can be purchased for a minimum of 126 Toncoin ($200). Some of the highest value auctions right now are for handles like “bank”, “casino” and “auto”, all with minimum bids over 30,000 TON.
In many cases, the starting price will decrease each day if no one bids higher than the minimum bid.
“For the first time, social media users will be able to transparently prove that they own their handles thanks to their tokenization on the TON blockchain,” said Andrew Rogozov, founding member of the TON Foundation.
The marketplace is built over The Open Network (TON), a blockchain that completed a similar auction for domain and wallet names in August. At the time, the sale generated 2,392,002 Toncoin in sales, cumulatively worth over $3 million.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was inspired by the success, which has culminated in the company’s latest endeavor. In his personal channel, the CEO teased “bringing a little bit of Web 3.0 to Telegram,” using NFT-like smart contracts.
Telegram listed several reasons for launching the auction via TON. Not only does it offer more scalable transactions than Ethereum, but it is also the spiritual successor to the Telegram Open Network. “The developers at Telegram are thoroughly familiar with [programming] language,” the company said.
For context, Telegram was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020 for allegedly conducting a $1.7 billion unregistered securities sale through its GRAM tokens. As part of a settlement agreement, the SEC forced the company to lose control of the blockchain to the community in 2020, thus creating “The Open Network” today.
