Frank's Adaptation On February 28, the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, announced on his personal channel on Telegram that channel owners will be able to start receiving financial rewards from their work starting next month. He stated that currently, Telegram broadcast channels generate 1 trillion views per month, but only 10% of the views are monetized through Telegram Ads, which is a privacy-centric advertising tool. In March, the Telegram advertising platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries. Channel owners in these countries will start receiving 50% of the revenue generated by displaying ads on their channels, which will be facilitated through the TON blockchain and shared with channel owners via Toncoin.摘要：或增20亿广告流水暂无分红利好或许正是长久以来的不温不火，使得Telegram创始人PavelDurov多次通过联姻的方式来为TON输血。为了应对人们担心Telegram因专门销售TON广告而持有过多Toncoin，可能对去中心化生态系统造成不利影响的问题。...
This news caused a surge in the price of the TON token, increasing by as much as 38% in a short period of time, reaching a high of $2.95. However, within 4 hours, the TON price experienced a significant drop of 25%, decreasing to a low of $2.2, almost returning to the pre-surge level. The specific implications of this change for the TON blockchain remain to be seen – whether it will bring positive outcomes or just another short-term market stimulation.
Perhaps it's the long-standing tepidity that has led Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, to repeatedly use partnerships to infuse blood into TON. So in relation to the new collaboration, how much impact will it actually have on TON?
In this crucial information, Pavel Durov mentioned that the Telegram broadcast channels generate 1 trillion views per month, but only 10% of the views are monetized through Telegram Ads. With the new ad program launching in March, channel owners will receive 50% of the ad revenue, which will be transacted using Toncoin.
According to information provided by Telegram's official advertising platform, the lowest CPM (cost per thousand impressions) for Telegram is 2 euros. Based on Pavel Durov's mention of 1 trillion monthly views and 10% of the ad views, the ad impressions amount to approximately 10 billion. By calculating using the lowest CPM, Telegram's minimum monthly ad revenue is approximately 200 million euros, with channel owners' total revenue being at least around 100 million euros per month.
Another report also substantiates this data, indicating that the Russian Telegram user base surpassed 50 million in 2021, generating ad revenues of $285 million in the Russian market alone. Extrapolating from Telegram's claim of 800 million global users, the global ad revenue for Telegram is estimated to be around $4.56 billion. Based on this data, the approximate volume of transactions that can be carried out on the Toncoin blockchain is around $22.8 billion per year.
However, it's noteworthy that this income does not directly benefit TON token holders but rather is transacted via Toncoin. Therefore, this development differs greatly from the dividend distribution proposed by Uniswap in the past. Nevertheless, even if only such a scale of transactions takes place on the blockchain, it will elevate the overall activity on the chain.
Currently, there are 4,351 channel owners in this market who are verified ad space providers, with approximately 70,000 active advertisers. Therefore, in terms of user growth, the potential impact might not be significant. Nevertheless, the accumulation of advertising fees onto Toncoin is a matter of concern for the community.
To address concerns about Telegram holding an excessive amount of Toncoin due to specializing in the sale of TON ads, Pavel Durov has proposed a solution. They plan to sell the excess TON holdings to long-term investors at a price lower than the market price, with lock-ins and vesting plans ranging from 1 to 4 years, limiting Telegram's Toncoin holdings to approximately 10% of the supply. This will secure free-flowing TON, stabilize the ecosystem, and reduce volatility. Additionally, Telegram has also established a new email address for investors with large sums of money ($1 million and above) to express their interest.
When it comes to TON, most people may think of Telegram's official encrypted project - TON Public Blockchain. However, the current TON is not essentially a blockchain directly controlled by Telegram.
Back in 2019, Telegram attempted to launch the "Telegram Open Network" (TON) blockchain network, which was intended to offer higher speed and scalability than Bitcoin or Ethereum to support global payments and decentralized applications. However, this project was terminated after a series of legal battles with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The original TON project was to be driven by Telegram, but after settling with the SEC, Telegram announced its withdrawal from the TON project. Subsequently, the community and other developer teams decided to continue the project, resulting in the emergence of several TON-based projects, such as Free TON (later renamed Everscale) and TONcoin. These projects inherited TON's technological vision to create a high-performance blockchain platform but no longer have direct ties to Telegram. The TON Public Blockchain known to us today is called The Open Network, which has grown to become the most mature public blockchain project after Telegram's official encrypted plan fell through. Although TON is not directly related to Telegram, the official support from Telegram and its founder Pavel Durov has been constant in recent years.
In December 2022, Telegram announced that users could purchase anonymous numbers on the Fragment blockchain using Toncoin. This led to a 30% increase in TON from $1.84 to $2.4, peaking at $2.8. However, despite Fragment's trading volume exceeding $5,000 in the following month, TON's market performance did not remain robust and instead declined to a low of $0.96, following the trend of the crypto bear market.
In its official introduction, TON blockchain is described as one of the few genuinely scalable blockchain projects as of 2022. It continues to be one of the most advanced blockchain projects, capable of executing several million real Turing-complete smart contract transactions per second, even reaching tens of millions as needed in the future.
In comparison to other public blockchains, TON seems to surpass Ethereum and Solana in various aspects.
In 2023, Steve Yun, the President of TON Foundation, revealed that their goal is to attract 30% of Telegram's users to join TON by 2028. They anticipate that TON will have 500 million active users by 2028.
Although the goal is ambitious and backed by the strong support of Telegram with its 800 million users, TON's progress seems to be less than ideal. As of March 1, 2024, the number of activated wallets on TON is approximately 1.56 million, with a peak of 32,439 daily active users. In comparison, Ethereum's figures are approximately 110 million.
Overall, Telegram, with its strong Web3.0 characteristics, has gained widespread recognition in the industry. Especially with the growing presence of Telegram bots and crypto tools. As one of the world's largest social platforms, Telegram has the potential to become a dominant force in the crypto industry. However, the current tenuous partnership with TON might be the best feedback from the market.
