Popular instant messaging program Telegram is responsible for the creation of a new market that does not involve the use of nonfungible coins (NFTs). The social messaging platform said that its market for the auctioning of one-of-a-kind identities for social networks, which was an idea that was first introduced in August, would soon become operational.
The company posted this information on its Telegram channel and said that the development phase of the market is coming to an end. All of the transactions on the marketplace are supported by the in-house blockchain known as the Open Network (TON).
Pavel Durov, the creator of the company, first dropped hints about the idea in late August, suggesting a marketplace that might utilize “NFT-like smart contracts” to auction off prized usernames. Durov came up with the idea after domain name auctions on The Open Network (TON), which is a layer-1 blockchain set up by the Telegram team, seemed to go well.
Durov thought that a new marketplace where people with usernames could sell them to people who wanted them in safe transactions would be a popular service in Web3 because ownership would be protected on the blockchain using smart contracts that were like NFTs. Additionally, he said that it is possible for channels, stickers, and emojis from the Telegram ecosystem to be ported over to this market in the near future.
Before turning its attention to Web3 and cryptocurrencies, the business’s first goal was to build a network for digital payments. However, similar to a large number of other platforms around the time of the initial coin offering (ICO), Telegram ran into trouble with the authorities in the United States because it sold its Gram currency without first registering.
After Durov’s legal battle with the SEC in 2020 was unsuccessful, he decided to shelve the project in favor of Telegram instead. Since then, however, developers of open-source software have brought it back to life as The Open Network.
