On the 27th of October, Telegram, a famous instant messaging app, launched its marketplace for Telegram handles, including usernames and channels. In a press release, Telegram explained that this new marketplace would enable Telegram handles, comprising usernames and channels, to be bought and sold using Toncoin.
Toncoin, TON, which Telegram is using as a currency for their new marketplace, is the token of The Open Network. The Open Network is the spiritual successor to Telegram’s independent blockchain ambitions. This network is the one that was thwarted by federal regulators two years ago.
However, the auction will be hosted on Fragment.com, a dedicated detached website for users wanting to participate. Users can search and purchase three-to-four character domains on this platform and auction their existing handles. Moreover, the users can bind pre-bought handles to off-chain accounts here.
Initially, Telegram will post four-to-five-character handles for auction, which users can buy for a minimum of 126 Toncoin, worth around $200. There are also some of the highest-value auctions live right now on the platform, in which there are handles like the bank, casino, and auto, whose price could be above 30,000 TON. However, if no one places a bid higher than the minimum bid, the initial price will decrease daily.
Andrew Rogozov, the founding member of the TON Foundation, said that for the first time, social media users would be able to prove transparently that they own their handles due to their tokenization on the TON blockchain.
The auction marketplace is built on The Open Network, which previously made a similar successful auction for domain and wallet names in August. At the previous auction through TON, the sale generated 2,392,002 Toncoin in sales, whose worth was around $3 million at that time.
The reason for choosing TON as a Telegram auction marketplace is the success of TON as an auction marketplace, which Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov realized. Another reason for choosing it is it offers more scalable transactions than Ethereum.
