Telegram kick-starts TON-based ads as Toncoin trades close to all-time high

• Telegram to allow users to purchase ads with Toncoin.
• Channel owners will receive 50% of ad revenue. 
• TON could break past its previous all-time high as it begins its community rewards program.

Toncoin (TON) briefly surged over 6% following Sunday's announcement of Telegram's ad revenue-sharing program. Anticipation for the Toncoin community rewards initiative, which is set to go live on Monday, has also seen the Total Value Locked (TVL) on the Ton blockchain reach new highs.

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Telegram unveils ad revenue sharing using Toncoin

Telegram deepened the integration of Toncoin on its platform after announcing on Sunday that it would be sharing 50% of ad revenue with owners of public channels with at least 1,000 subscribers. The move will see the social media platform introduce a new kind of ad that users can purchase with Toncoin. As a result, “anyone can now promote their bot or channel—with as low as a handful of Toncoins," said Telegram on its website.

Many web3 users view ads as a compromise on privacy considering the user data that most ads are built upon. Telegram said in its announcement that "ads are not based on user data (...) and depend only on the channel in which you see them." Following the announcement, TON's price increased more than 6% before experiencing a correction.

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This comes after a positive March for TON, which saw an over 100% gain month-on-month, rising from $2.48 on March 1 to an all-time high of $5.69 on March 25 before retracing. This gain was partly fueled by earlier hints of the TON ad revenue program by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and the announcement of the Toncoin community reward initiative dubbed The Open League, according to analysts at CoinGecko.

The Open League also set to go live

The Open League, set to go live today, will see competing projects and users in the TON blockchain receive rewards of over 30 million Toncoin, valued at more than $115 million. According to the Toncoin Foundation's announcement, projects will receive $15 million, while users will have the opportunity to share $100 million for interacting with these projects.

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Since the announcement, Total Value Locked (TVL) on TON has risen from $59 million to $100 million amid a steady rise in daily active users, according to data from DeFiLlama

With TON used for ad purchases and the Open League rewards program going live today, projects on the TON blockchain may receive increased attention, fueling a rise for Toncoin.

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