TON Rockets Nearly 40% After Telegram Says Will Share Ad Revenue Via Ton Blockchain

• Telegram to share ad revenue with users starting March, founder Pavel Durov said on his official broadcast channel.
• Channel owners will receive 50% of ad revenue, with payments settled on TON blockchain.

Privacy-focused messaging giant Telegram will start sharing advertisement revenue with channel owners starting in March, founder Pavel Durov said in a broadcast message on his official channel, viewed by CoinDesk, on Wednesday.

All payments and withdrawals will be settled on The Open Network (TON) blockchain, a network previously created by the same company that built Telegram but maintained fully by independent developers since 2020. Telegram previously reported having 800 million monthly users in July 2023.

TON Network's native TON token rocketed nearly 40% to over $2.92 after the announcement came out. Meanwhile, the broader CoinDesk 20 index (CD20) jumped 2.5%.

A message sent to Telegram’s official media requests channel did not immediately confirm Durov’s post. Telegram had previously said it had plans to share revenue with certain channel owners, its website shows. Channels are one-way feeds where the channel creator can post content that an unlimited number of users can subscribe to.

“Broadcast channels on Telegram generate 1 trillion views monthly. Currently, only 10% of these views are monetized with Telegram Ads — a promotion tool designed with privacy in mind,” Durov wrote on his channel.

“In March, the Telegram Ad Platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries. Channel owners in these countries will start receiving 50% of any revenue that Telegram makes from displaying ads in their channels.”

Telegram did not respond to CoinDesk's request for comment on its official media channel. Telegram had previously said it had plans to share revenue with certain channel owners, its website shows.

UPDATE (Feb. 28, 13:15 UTC): Adds additional details, updated headline and story.