The steady growth of users and owners of NFT’s seems to have reached the CEO of one of the world’s largest messaging services, who wants to add some web 3.0 to the Telegram app.
Pavel Durov, founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, has proposed the idea of a marketplace that could use “NFT-like smart contracts” to auction off highly coveted usernames, which he suggested through his official Telegram channel. From what could be disclosed of the proposal, usernames, channels, groups, among others, could be sold.
“Implementing this concept would create a new platform where users can sell their usernames to interested parties, in a completely secure manner.”
He remarked that he is very interested in the auctions of items, and especially domains, that are conducted on blockchain.
“Imagine the success Telegram could achieve with its 700 million users by selling usernames, groups and channels in an auction,” he said.
Recently, through the TON Blockchain (originally developed by Telegram) domain auctions were held, with an estimated 2,000 “.ton” domains sold. Telegram’s founder has reportedly been impressed by the sales success of TON’s DNS domain auctions.
“This would create a new platform where holders of usernames could transfer them to interested parties in protected agreements, and ownership would be secured on the blockchain through smart contracts similar to NFT,” he argued.
“Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, such as stickers or emojis, could become part of the marketplace later.”
TON started as a digital payments platform. But after one of the largest ICOs in the world was carried out (and without registration), it unleashed the wrath of the SEC, so in short, it all ended with a lawsuit in which the SEC was victorious, and Durov decided to move away from “Telegram Open Network”, and focus on Telegram. Likewise, the TON Blockchain was taken over by “The Open Network”.
It is said that it was “originally” developed by Telegram, since after some legal conflicts, it has passed into the hands of “The Open Network” (from there we can see the origin of its initials, which coincide with the original name of the Telegram group, called “Telegram Open Network”).
Although the two companies have no ties or collaborations, Telegram approves the exchange of Toncoins through its messaging app.
Durov says he believes using TON for its own auction scheme would be best given its scalability and speed. The TON network uses the FunC programming language for the TON virtual machine and for launching specific smart contracts on the blockchain. In the event that Telegram launches NFT’s, it is very likely that they are going to rely on this standard.
The TON network uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and supports various functions, such as staking, NFTs and decentralized applications.
“We’ll see if we can add some Web 3.0 to Telegram in the coming weeks,” he concluded.
Written by Luciano Garriga (TW:@luchogarriga) for NFT Express.