On February 28th, Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, announced on his personal Telegram channel that starting next month, Telegram channel owners will be able to receive financial rewards from their work. He stated that currently, Telegram broadcast channels generate 1 trillion views per month, but only 10% of those views are monetized through Telegram Ads, which is a promotion tool designed with privacy in mind. In March, the Telegram advertising platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly 100 new countries. Channel owners in these countries will start receiving 50% of the revenue generated by Telegram from displaying ads on their channels. To ensure fast and secure advertising payments and withdrawals, the TON blockchain will be specifically used, and advertising will be sold through Toncoin and shared with channel owners.
Once the news was announced, the TON token saw a surge in price, reaching a maximum increase of 38% to $2.95. However, after 4 hours, the TON price experienced a significant decline, with a maximum decrease of 25% to $2.2, almost returning to the pre-surge level. What positive impact will this change bring to the TON network? Or is it just another short-term market stimulus?
Telegram, with 800 million users, is eager to create the world’s largest public chain. Perhaps it is the lukewarm response it has received in the past that has led Telegram founder Pavel Durov to provide blood transfusions to TON through multiple partnerships. So, how much actual impact will this collaboration have on TON?
In this crucial information, Pavel Durov mentioned that Telegram broadcast channels generate 1 trillion views per month, but only 10% of those views are monetized through Telegram Ads. With the new advertising plan launching in March, channel owners will receive 50% of the ad revenue, which will be traded through Toncoin.
According to PANews, Telegram’s minimum cost per thousand impressions (CPM) is currently 2 euros. Based on the monthly view count of 1 trillion and the 10% of ad views mentioned by Pavel Durov, the play count for ads is approximately 1 billion. Calculated based on the minimum CPM value, Telegram’s minimum monthly ad revenue is about 200 million euros, and the total income for channel owners is estimated to be at least 100 million euros per month.
Another report also verifies this data. According to a report from Telega.io, the largest advertising trading market for the Russian-speaking community on Telegram, in 2021, the Russian Telegram user group exceeded 50 million, and the annual advertising revenue for the Russian market reached 285 million US dollars. Calculated based on the current claim of 800 million Telegram users globally, the current global advertising revenue for Telegram is approximately 4.56 billion US dollars. Based on this data, the data that can be traded on the Toncoin chain is about 2.28 billion US dollars per year.
However, it is worth noting that this income is not shared with TON token holders but is traded on the Toncoin blockchain. Therefore, this news is significantly different from the dividend distribution proposed by Uniswap. However, even with such a scale of transactions on the chain, the overall activity level of the entire chain will be elevated.
Currently, Telega.io shows that there are 4,351 channel owners who are verified ad slot providers, and there are only about 70,000 active advertisers. Therefore, in terms of user growth, the potential effects may not be significant. However, the issue of Telegram’s assets settled in Toncoin through ad fees has become a concern within the community.
To address concerns about Telegram holding too much Toncoin due to the sale of TON ads, which may have a negative impact on the decentralized ecosystem, Pavel Durov proposed a solution. They plan to limit the amount of TON held by Telegram to about 10% of the supply and sell the excess TON holdings to long-term investors at below-market prices, with lock-up and attribution plans ranging from 1 to 4 years. This approach can lock in freely circulating TON, stabilize the ecosystem, and reduce volatility. In addition, Telegram has also set up a new email address for high-net-worth investors (over $1 million) to express their interest.
When it comes to TON, most people may think of Telegram’s official encryption project, TON public chain. However, the current TON is not directly controlled by Telegram.
As early as 2019, Telegram tried to launch the “Telegram Open Network” (TON) blockchain network. TON is a multi-purpose blockchain platform designed to provide higher speed and scalability than Bitcoin or Ethereum, supporting global payments and decentralized applications. However, this project was canceled after a series of legal battles with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The TON project was originally promoted by Telegram, but after settling with the SEC, Telegram announced that it would no longer participate in the TON project. Subsequently, the community and other developer teams decided to continue the project and launched several branch projects based on TON, such as Free TON (later renamed Everscale) and TONcoin. These projects inherit the technical vision of TON and aim to create a high-performance blockchain platform but are no longer directly connected to Telegram. The TON public chain that we are familiar with is called “The Open Network” and is the most mature public chain project that has grown after Telegram’s official encryption project failed. Although TON is not directly related to Telegram, Telegram’s official and founder Pavel Durov have supported the project multiple times in recent years and emphasized the business connection between Telegram and TON.
In December 2022, Telegram announced that users can purchase anonymous numbers on the Fragment blockchain by paying with Toncoin. Stimulated by the news, TON rose 30% from $1.84 to $2.4, with prices reaching as high as $2.8. However, in the following month, TON’s market performance did not remain strong but instead fell to a low of $0.96, following the pace of the crypto bear market.
In the official introduction of TON, it is written that as of 2022, the TON blockchain remains one of the few truly scalable blockchain projects. Therefore, it is still the most advanced blockchain project capable of executing millions, and potentially tens of millions, of real Turing-complete smart contract transactions per second.
In comparison with other public chains, TON chain seems to outperform Ethereum and Solana in all aspects.
In 2023, Steve Yun, the President of the TON Foundation, revealed in a speech that their goal is to attract 30% of Telegram’s users to join TON by 2028. It is projected that by 2028, the active users of TON will reach 500 million.
Although the goal is ambitious and backed by Telegram’s 800 million users, TON’s current progress does not seem ideal. As of March 1, 2024, there are approximately 1.56 million wallets activated on the TON blockchain, with a peak daily active user count of 32,439. In comparison, Ethereum has approximately 110 million wallets.
Overall, Telegram, as a product with a strong Web3.0 gene, is highly recognized in the industry. Especially with the growth of more Telegram bots and crypto tools on the platform. As one of the world’s largest social platforms, Telegram has the potential to become the king of the crypto industry’s use cases. However, in terms of the current collaboration with TON, the market performance may be the best feedback.
This article is authorized for reprint by PANews.
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