Pavel Durov, the head of Telegram, has received one of the most expensive NFT gifts within the messenger’s ecosystem — Plush Pepe #1 from the Plush Pepes collection.
According to the Telegram channel “Durov’s Code”, the sender is the founder of the OTC marketplace for gifts in the messenger, Mr FreeMan. The token purchase on the secondary market cost him 14,850 TON (4 million rubles or $47,000).
The first NFT gifts on the TON blockchain appeared in Telegram at the end of 2022. The TON Gifts service was launched by a team of independent developers.
On October 5, 2024, the messenger added a feature for sending gifts using its internal currency.
Earlier, in April 2025, Durov earned 95.8 million rubles from NFT bricks.