Telegram channels eligible for 50% ad revenue, but there's a catch

Instant messaging platform Telegram Messenger will share half of its advertisement revenue with owners of public channels globally if they meet a specific condition.

On March 31, Telegram introduced a reward system that would allow channel owners with substantial subscribers to earn 50% of the revenue from ads shown in their channels in Toncoin (TON), the project's native currenc.

The catch? Public channels must have at least 1,000 subscribers to be eligible.

The plan was first revealed by Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, in February 2024, when he announced the launch of Telegram Ad Platform to open up revenue streams for channel owners.

Since the announcement, the price of TON has increased 111% — from $2.51 on Feb. 29 to $5.30 on April 1, according to Cointelegraph markets Pro and TradingView.

According to the company, Telegram channels generate over 1 trillion views every month, and its owners will be able to withdraw their share of the ad revenue with no fees.

It is also the third-biggest messenger app in terms of monthly downloads, after WhatsApp Messenger and Snapchat, according to Statista.

To support the initiative, Telegram added Toncoin as one of the payment methods for purchasing ads on the platform. However, Telegram shows ads exclusively on Telegram channels, depending on the type of content the channel shares.

Prior to the official revenue stream launching, Telegram channel owners monetized their following by selling paid posts, charging fees to join private channels and selling products, among others.

Related: TON blockchain launches $115M community incentive program

In an exclusive Cointelegraph interview on March 29, Justin Hyun, the director of investments at TON Foundation, said that the blockchain-based mini-decentralized applications (DApps) on Telegram, also known as Mini Apps, could be a “Trojan horse” for mass blockchain adoption .

“That’s our thesis for bringing in more users onto the blockchain without even needing to educate them about the blockchain. It’s a Trojan horse way to say: look, you’re letting in all these user-friendly DApps, and we won’t even necessarily call them DApps [...] It’s just Telegram Mini Apps that they’re using whether that’s inside their channels.”

Hyun plans to bring 500 million people on-chain by 2028 using simple initial use cases where users aren’t necessarily aware of the underlying blockchain interaction

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