Pavel Durov announced financial rewards for Telegram channel owners for displaying advertisements.
Starting in March, the Telegram Ads platform will be available to advertisers in nearly 100 new countries. Local users will receive 50% of the revenue that the messenger earns from displaying ads on their channels.
Payments will be made in the cryptocurrency TON.
Durov noted that Telegram channels generate 1 trillion views monthly. However, only 10% of these views are monetized through the Telegram Ads tool.
“To ensure the speed and security of payments and withdrawals for ads, we will exclusively use the TON blockchain. We will sell ads and share revenue with channel owners in Toncoin,” wrote the founder of Telegram.
The coins received can be cashed out or invested in the promotion and modernization of their channels.
The monetization program will not operate in Russia and other CIS countries, reported The Bell citing two informed sources. According to them, the company is focusing on markets where Telegram’s advertising model, launched in 2021, has not yet been implemented.
“It makes sense to open new markets and countries. Building agency networks worldwide and so on is somewhat tedious. And in Russia, advertising on Telegram is already selling well,” stated one of the publication’s interlocutors.
Following the news, the price of TON jumped by 29.7% and at the time of writing stands at $2.8, according to CoinGecko.
Back in October 2023, media reported on Telegram Group Inc.’s plans to conduct an IPO in the second to third quarter of 2025.