Telegram to Enable NFT Conversion for “Gifts” by Year-End

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has hinted at a brand new non-fungible token (NFT) characteristic for its lately launched “Presents” platform, permitting customers to transform digital present photographs into NFTs. 

These “Presents” are artworks or animated photographs that customers can ship together with personalised messages for holidays or particular events. 

Recipients can show the pictures as profile footage or convert them into in-app foreign money known as “Stars,” which can be utilized to buy digital objects like e-books, on-line programs, or objects in Telegram video games by way of bots.

In a message shared on October 5, Durov revealed that by the tip of this yr, Telegram customers will have the ability to convert these present photographs into NFTs on the TON blockchain. 

As soon as transformed, customers may have the choice to public sale or commerce the tokenized photographs exterior of the Telegram platform. This could open new avenues for the way customers work together with the items they obtain, shifting past the app’s ecosystem.

Plans to tokenize Telegram stickers and emojis utilizing NFTs on the TON community had been pre-announced in April on the Token2049 occasion in Dubai, the place Durov described the transfer because the “subsequent step” for the platform.

Nonetheless, this isn’t Telegram’s first exploration of NFT-related options. 

Telegram has additionally beforehand ventured into the NFT area in 2022, when Durov hinted on the creation of a market that will use “NFT-like good contracts” to public sale fashionable usernames. The thought led to the launch of Fragment, the place customers can commerce Telegram usernames, similar to “@storm” or “@royal,” utilizing Toncoins because the foreign money.