Social messaging platform Telegram has launched a new in-app token, “Telegram Stars,” for purchasing digital goods and services.
“With Telegram Stars, mini apps can now accept payments for digital services using the simplest payment method possible – in-app purchases on Android and iOS,” company CEO Pavel Durov said in a Telegram post dated March 6. June.
Developers can exchange Stars for Toncoin (TON), the native cryptocurrency behind Telegram’s “The Open Network,” through Fragment, a platform primarily used to buy and sell Telegram usernames.
“They can also use Stars to further promote their apps on Telegram,” Durov added.
Durov said Telegram will subsidize ads purchased on Stars from Apple and Google and take a 30% commission on sales of digital products.
Durov believes this will economically encourage developers to create digital products on Telegram:
“If developers reinvest Stars in promoting their app, the overall commission will be nearly 0%. As a result, launching apps on Telegram makes more economic sense than launching traditional mobile apps.”
“Future updates will bring extra features and functionality to Stars – like gifts for content creators and more,” Telegram said in a June 6 post.
Telegram has seen great success with Notcoin (NOT), one of the most popular apps on the platform, which gained 35 million users in the first five months since its launch.
Notcoin is a tap-to-earn token that allows users to earn NOT tokens by completing various social challenges.
More than 400 million of Telegram’s 900 million users engage with Telegram’s bots and mini-apps every month.
Telegram launched the Tether USDT ticker at a drop of $1.00 on the TON blockchain in April, as part of a partnership with stablecoin issuers to drive cryptocurrency adoption through the messaging platform.
“[Users] no longer need to jump through the barriers of having to acquire a different type of crypto or token,” Justin Hyun, investment director at the TON Foundation, told Cointelegraph at the time.
TON had hit an all-time high of $7.65 about 36 hours earlier, according to CoinGecko, but has since fallen to $7.50. But its market cap of $18.2 billion is still $7 billion below its April 12 peak of $25.2 billion.