Telegram will start paying users in crypto

Telegram wants to catch up with the social media giants. To do that, it now wants to give users a share of ad revenue in crypto.

Telegram has been experimenting in the crypto space for years. Now the messenger service is taking the next step: it wants to give users a share of the platform's advertising revenue. The company announced this in a blog post. The Telegram-like blockchain Toncoin serves as the foundation of the project. But what exactly is it about?

The Telegram community had to wait a long time for it, but now it is here. The messenger service is going to share ad revenue with its users in the future. CEO Pavel Durov had already announced this move in late February announced.

Anyone who manages channels on the social network will be able to post ads in the future. All "channels" with at least 1,000 subscribers will be eligible. Channel owners can then place special ads through Toncoin, with 50 percent of the revenue flowing back to them.

Originally, the feature was to be activated in nearly 100 countries. The current announcement excludes some countries such as Russia, Ukraine and Israel. TON-based advertising is also not yet displayed in Germany.

Telegram wants to overtake social media giants

However, one thing is clear: Telegram is radically changing its revenue model. The company previously focused primarily on selling premium memberships. In 2023, it generated revenue of about $45 million - a fraction of what industry giant Meta earned from its platforms Facebook, Instagram and Co. In the same period, Mark Zuckerberg's corporate group earned nearly $135 billion.

Telegram is looking for growth opportunities with its new concept. Apparently, there is still a lot of room for improvement in terms of advertising. Pavel Durov also pointed out the problem in the statement. Broadcasters have access figures of a trillion views per month. But only ten percent are monetized.

Processing via the Toncoin blockchain

Blockchain technology is now ready to solve the problem. To be more precise, that of Toncoin (TON). Developed at the time by Telegram, the project emancipated itself from its creators because of difficulties with SEC regulations. However, they never lost sight of each other. Today, apps from the TON ecosystem can still be directly integrated as bots on Telegram.

The relationship is now further deepened by the ambitious new project. In fact, the entire payment clearing process will run through Toncoin. Channel operators participating in Telegram's participation program will be paid in TON, the crypto project's coin. As a result, the news caused an explosion in the price of TON. Since the beginning of the year, the coin has risen nearly 120 percent, peaked at $5.41 and was trading at $5.04 at the time of writing.

However, this move not only marks a "turning point" for Telegram, but could also be a major boost for the crypto sector as a whole. About 800 million people use the messenger service every month. Users who were previously unfamiliar with blockchain, crypto and the like are likely to be introduced to these topics through the participation program and perhaps see the benefits of the technology.