Telegram will launch username auction soon

An official Telegram channel announced the end of the development phase of the platform for buying and selling unique and recognizable usernames, which Pavel Durov spoke about earlier.

“Make sure you don't miss your chance to acquire the most valuable usernames and secure your ownership of them in the TON blockchain’s immutable ledger”, the Telegram team said.

Telegram announces Smart Contract Cracking Competition

The Task is to identify potential vulnerabilities and issues in the smart contract that would form the basis of the Telegram Auction Platform.

Evaluation Criteria and Prize Fund Distribution:
Bounties are dependent on the severity of the discovered issues and could potentially range from $200 for minor code adjustments to $50,000 for major flaws – like behavior that could bypass the smart contract's logic and conditions in order to reassign ownership of assets.

Prize fund: Up to $100,000
Deadline: 18:00 on October 25th (Dubai time)

Details: in this document and on the official channel.

#contest

Telegram usernames auction: details

Very soon Telegram will launch the Telegram Auction Platform, deployed in the TON blockchain, where users will be able to buy and sell short nicknames in the messenger.

Some details have become known:
• All usernames will be sold as TON-based NFTs.
• The usernames can be stored in cryptocurrencies and put up for sale both on marketplaces and on the official Telegram platform.
• The Telegram Auction Platform mechanism echoes the TON DNS auction mechanism: bidding for a nickname starts when the user makes the first bid. Each auction will be limited in time.
• No need to renew domains.

Recall that Telegram is holding a competition to crack the smart contract of the auction platform.

The release of the platform will take place in the very near future.

Telegram usernames auction launched

The fragment.com platform and the @fragment bot for bid notifications became available.

On the site, users can buy and sell usernames in the messenger, including short ones (e.g. @cars, @fifa, @dior).

Usernames starting from A to H are now available on the market. The rest (from I to Z) will appear within a year.

As we wrote on our channel @infotonen, usernames will be sold as NFTs based on TON. They can be stored in cryptocurrency wallets and put up for sale both on marketplaces and on the official Telegram platform.

Pavel Durov confirmed the launch of Fragment platform

In his Telegram channel, Pavel Durov announced the launch of Fragment, a platform for buying and selling Telegram usernames.

Previously, Durov stated that in a few days, Telegram will give users the ability to sell their existing usernames in the Fragment auction.

"For the first time in the history of social media, a fair, transparent market for usernames is established. Finally people will have ownership over their social media addresses, secured in the immutable ledger of a decentralized blockchain network.

This is just the beginning, and yet an important milestone – the power has started to shift into users' hands." — Durov said.

Selling usernames at the Fragment auction

It has become possible to sell any username in Telegram through an auction on the Fragment site.

To sell, you will need to log in using your Telegram account and link your TON wallet. Next, you place the first bid, from which the auction will start. The minimum bet is 10 TON.

On the Fragment website, there is a "My usernames" button in your account. The "Non-Collectible Usernames" section displays all your usernames - your account, your groups and channels.

When someone places a large bid, you will be refunded the amount of the original bid. However, if there are no more bets, you will get your bet back minus a commission of 5% and 5 TON.

In the event that someone outbids you, you will receive 95% of the highest bid plus your original bid.

It is forbidden to sell blocked usernames at the auction.

Fragment ads from Telegram

The messenger's official service notification account has sent out information to users about the possibility of buying and selling usernames through the Fragment platform.

Currently, the platform hosts 1,358 unique usernames, 315 of them have already been bought at auction.

Telegram continues to promote the username auction

In the recent update Telegram for iOS version 9.1.1 began offering to buy usernames on the Fragment auction. It happens when the user tries to assign a username that was revoked in the recent purge.

Currently only usernames starting from A to Q are available. If you try to assign a name that isn't on the auction yet, a default error is shown.

This is the first time the auction has been mentioned inside the app, apart from the mass messages coming from a service account.

#auction

Selling username without a starting bid

Fragment has changed the rules of usernames bidding. Now the user does not have to make the first bid to start bidding.

This is primarily useful for those who wanted to sell their usernames but could not put them on the site for fear of losing 5 TON + 5% of the sale. Also, it may also be of interest to those who want to buy an address, as there is no time limit of 1 week before the initial bid is set.

It is important that the first bid is still needed to get to the main page of the auction, without this action, the username is available only through the search, but can already be bought by anyone.

#auction

Fragment ads from Telegram

«The messenger's official service notification account has sent out information to users about the possibility of buying and selling usernames through the Fragment platform.

Telegram users can now list their usernames on Fragment for free without placing a starting bid:

• Once listed, the username will remain available for auction for an unlimited time – until the first bid is placed.
• A 7-day auction starts when anyone places the first bid.
• After the auction ends, the platform fee and a one-time conversion fee will be deducted from the proceeds.

Learn more: https://fragment.com/about#auctioning-basic-usernames

If you already own a collectible username, you can sell it or start a new auction at any time – without paying the conversion fee.»

Recall that only names starting with A and up to Q are still available at the auction.

#auction

Telegram discloses the names, phone numbers and IP addresses of the users administrating piracy channels to Indian authorities

According to a Delhi High Court order, Telegram has disclosed the details of the administrators of piracy channels that published training material of Campus Private Limited and its teacher Nitu Singh for various exams. The judge rejected the messenger's arguments that the servers where the information was stored were located in Singapore and did not fall under Indian jurisdiction.

Later, on August 30, the Delhi High Court demanded that the names, phone numbers and IP addresses of those local channel administrators accused of distributing pirated content be handed over to Indian authorities.

Telegram Info has several Indian channels:
— Hindi @tginfohi
— Malayalam @tginfoml
— Bengali @tginfobn
— Tamil @tginfota
— Kannada @tginfokn

We are looking for native speakers who can volunteer to work on these branches. If you're interested, write to us @infowritebot

#India

Pavel Durov spoke about the future of Telegram and decentralization

In his Telegram channel, Pavel Durov said about the blockchain industry, decentralization and the future of Telegram.

Here are brief theses:
• The blockchain industry was built on the promise of decentralization, but ended up being concentrated in the hands of a few who began to abuse their power. (He also mentioned FTX bankrupt, ed.)
• Cryptocurrency users should switch to trustless transactions and self-hosted wallets that don't rely on any single third party.
• It took only 5 weeks and 5 people including myself to put together Fragment — a fully decentralized auction platform.
• Fragment has been an amazing success, with 50 million USD worth of usernames sold there in less than a month and this week, Fragment will expand beyond usernames (Probably anonymous numbers, ed.)
• Telegram's next step is to build a set of decentralized tools, including non-custodial wallets and decentralized exchanges for millions of people to securely trade and store cryptocurrencies. This way we can fix the wrongs caused by the excessive centralization, which let down hundreds of thousands of cryptocurrency users.

New @wallet updates

Updated “Send” feature allows you to send TON not only to your Telegram contacts but also to any TON address, including short TON DNS names (.ton).

In addition, developers drastically simplified access to your wallet address. You can find it and your QR code in a few taps via the “Receive” button.

The price of anonymous numbers will increase and availability will be limited

Starting at 12:00 PM UTC on December 13th, the price of a number will increase by 1 TON every 3 hours until it reaches 99 TON. The price will continue to increase for 11 days.

After that, only previously sold numbers that are put up for sale again by buyers will be available. It's likely that Telegram is deliberately creating a shortage of numbers to drive up the price.

It's unknown whether new pools of numbers will be available and when the next wave of numbers will be released. Of the 10 million +888 format numbers currently available, almost 17,000 have been sold.

#auction #numbers

135,000 numbers have been sold on Fragment

Sales on the Fragment auction have seen a sharp decrease, with only about 40 new numbers being sold per hour compared to the 35,000 numbers sold over the previous 3 days.

Random numbers purchased before the price increase at 9 TON each can be bought not only through an auction, but also at a fixed rate. Some buyers may not be aware of this option: they can select the "For sale" tab and sort by "Price low to high".

Since yesterday, numbers in this section have been sold at 17 TON, and now numbers are starting to appear at 16 TON. However, the price of a random number has risen to 34 TON.

Therefore, it is no longer a good idea to buy a random number for 34 TON when you can buy a specific number for half the price, and instantly.

NFT gifts in Telegram

This week, TON Diamonds will launch the Ton Gifts service: it will help you exchange NFT gifts directly in Telegram.

In addition to generating gifts from the suggested options and sending TON in an NFT envelope, there is the option to package TON Diamonds NFT in an animated box. You can see what it looks like in the example.

By sending a gift through TON Gifts, you automatically participate in the TON distribution and can get the gift amount back. The selection of winners and distribution of funds will be random.

Make an offer for an occupied username on Fragment

On the Fragment auction platform, you can make an offer for an occupied username that was previously not placed on the platform.

To leave a request to purchase the address, the buyer must pay a commission to the platform of 1 TON or more, depending on the offer, and specify the desired amount for which they are ready to buy the username.

The owner of the public name will receive a notification about the request to purchase his username directly in the chat with the Telegram service account. The message will give instructions on how to correctly place the address up for auction.

#auction

Wallet bot tests acquiring

Some users have noticed the @wallet_pay_demo_store_bot, which is offering to test out payments with @wallet. This payment service from Wallet will allow external developers' bots to easily accept payments in TON. As an example, the bot is currently being used to purchase a subscription to a fictional VPN service. It's important to note that all the payments made through this bot are fake.

The team at @wallet confirmed that they are working on this feature and suggested keeping an eye on the @wallet_news channel for updates.

It's possible that the TON team is working on their own VPN, possibly even for access to TON Sites, but this is purely speculation at this point. It's possible that the VPN service is just being used as an example.

Improved interface, a QR code scanner, and support for t.me domains

Now you can use convenient “username.t.me” addresses to send Toncoin. You can read more about collectible usernames from Telegram Info English post.

The “Send” screen now has a QR code scanner and a “Paste” button. Copy-pasting TON addresses has become much simpler. The transaction history now includes the avatars of your contacts.

To use the wallet’s newest feature, you must update Telegram to version 9.3.

Freezing inactive addresses of early miners

The developers of TON are planning to do extensive work on tokenomics. Most of the TON issue (4.98 billion) was distributed through mining givers, but the real popularity of mining was only when there were less than 500 million coins left in them.

In early interviews, Anatoly Makosov suggested that most of these wallets were lost or forgotten. In December, a call was published asking early miners to make any transaction and show signs of life. The theory was confirmed in a forthcoming blockchain update, TF proposes introducing a list of addresses who will not be allowed to make transactions for a certain period of time.

The list will include addresses that have smeared coins and no longer perform any action on the blockchain, that is, have been forgotten or lost. The "freeze" functionality is already being tested. If validators accept the proposal, about 1 billion TON (20% of the issue) will be frozen for several years.