BlockBeats News, July 30th, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov stated in a post on Wednesday that an early user of Telegram and Toncoin
(TON) recently received a $25 million offer to purchase their "crypto" username on Telegram.
The username was originally purchased for $350,000 in 2023, and the username holder also recently stated: "If these cannot be taken away by others, then I want to own all rare usernames." — this is the quote Durov referenced in the post.
All usernames on Telegram are tokenized on the TON blockchain, meaning each username is unique and non-replicable. According to Statista data, the most expensive username in 2024 was @news, selling for as much as $5.8 million, while @auto also fetched a high price of $5.2 million.
In the post, Durov wrote: "Miracles happen when people can directly own their digital assets — just like this tokenized Telegram username, which has surged 70 times in value." "Telegram users are true sovereigns: no middlemen, no forced confiscation, all secured by TON smart contracts."