Telegram CEO and founder Pavel Durov announced today that the company will launch an advertising platform next month that will allow channel owners to receive financial rewards. The company uses TON coins on the TON blockchain to pay out rewards. The channel owner will start receiving his 50% of all revenue that the company earns from displaying ads on the channel.
Telegram channels allow users to broadcast public messages to large audiences. According to Durov, Telegram's broadcast channel generates 1 trillion views every month, but only 10% of that promotion is monetized with his tool, his Telegram Ads. . In March, the Telegram Ad Platform will be rolled out to channel owners in nearly 100 countries, marking a major shift towards content monetization.
The company did not provide specifics about qualifications, but TechCrunch reached out to learn more.
“To make ad payments and withdrawals fast and secure, we will exclusively use the TON blockchain,” Durov said in an announcement post on Telegram. “Similar to our approach for Telegram usernames with Fragment, we will sell ads and share the revenue with channel owners in Toncoin. This will allow content creators to redeem Toncoin or reinvest it in channel promotions and upgrades. This creates a virtuous cycle where you can do things like that.”
The TON token surged nearly 40% to over $2.92 following the immediate announcement of the news, and was trading at $2.65 at the time of writing.
With this latest announcement, Telegram joins the likes of YouTube and X (formerly Twitter), both of which offer ad revenue sharing with their users. YouTube offers creators in the YouTube Partner Program his 55% share of ad revenue, but X started offering revenue shares to users in July 2023. Meta is also testing a new payment model for its Ads on Reels monetization program.
Telegram has over 800 million monthly active users worldwide, and Telegram users generate over 500 billion views on broadcast channels every month.