Telegram founder suggests 'NFT-like smart contracts' to auction usernames
Pavel Durov, the founder of encrypted messaging app Telegram, has floated the idea of a marketplace that could utilize “NFT-like smart contracts” to auction highly-sought after usernames.
Durov made the suggestion after the “success” of domain name auctions by The Open Network (TON), a layer-1 blockchain originally designed by the Telegram team. The blockchain project launched the TON DNS service enabling users to assign human-readable names to crypto wallets, smart contracts, and websites in mid-July.
In a message to his personal Telegram group named “Durov’s Channel” on Aug. 23, he noted that he was “really impressed by the success of the auction TON recently conducted for their domain/wallet names.”
“Imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction,” he said.
Durov suggested that Telegram could tap into similar technology to roll out a new marketplace that could be used to buy and sell “catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, and all four-letter user names.”
“Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace,” he added.
The first auctions on TON DNS went live on July 30, and much like the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) “.eth” domains, the “.ton” variant allows users to access decentralized applications in a simple way without needing to type a long string of letters and numbers from their wallet addresses.
The TON network utilizes the FunC programming language for the TON Virtual Machine and to launch specific smart contracts on the blockchain. If Telegram were to launch NFTs, they would most likely be based on this standard.
A similar integration would
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