Owners of Telegram channels in Russia may not get access to monetization
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After the March expansion of the advertising platform, Telegram promises to transfer half of the revenue from it to channel owners. The issue has been postponed since 2021: the messenger explained that advertising must first cover the costs of the platform itself. Payments are planned to be made in the Toncoin cryptocurrency, the price of which soared by 30% after this news. But lawyers doubt that the program will work in the Russian Federation, where cryptocurrencies are not recognized as a means of payment.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov February 28 announced, which in March will allow advertisers from “about a hundred new countries” to connect to the platform built into the messenger. Owners of Telegram channels in these countries will have access to monetization using the revenue sharing model – 50% of advertising revenue will be transferred to them.
Payments will be made in the Toncoin cryptocurrency (transactions take place on the TON blockchain, which was originally created to finance the work of Telegram).
Pavel Durov’s post does not state the terms of the program; Kommersant did not find any legal documents related to it on the Kommersant messenger website. Telegram did not respond to Kommersant.
Official advertising on Telegram appeared in November 2021. The question of whether the platform will share income with channel owners was raised even before the launch of the platform. In October, a clarification appeared on the Telegram website that revenue sharing will begin after the “full” launch of the platform, when ads “will allow Telegram to cover basic costs.” So far, authors receive income from advertising on Telegram only privately: by direct agreement with the advertiser or through exchanges (Telega.in, BrandKarma) and agencies.
The Telegram platform has been operating in the Russian Federation for more than a year, says Epicstars CEO Denis Volkov. But the country may not be affected by monetization, notes Dmitry Gorbunov, partner at Rustam Kurmaev and Partners, since cryptocurrencies are not recognized as a means of payment in the Russian Federation.
“Any mutual settlements between residents in cryptocurrencies for services provided in Russia are not allowed. Even if we assume that the payer will be a non-resident, for example a Telegram legal entity registered abroad, transactions are still subject to a direct ban,” explains Mr. Gorbunov. “And even if resellers, through whom most of the market works with the site, implement Toncoin, difficulties will arise with reporting amounts in the advertising labeling system,” adds Asya Shabalina, digital director of the iTrend communications agency.
A scenario in which bloggers from Russia will re-register accounts in the country where the monetization program is present, Mr. Volkov considers unlikely: “They will have to create new accounts, problems may arise with transferring the audience.” According to him, Russian-speaking bloggers from other countries will also face the same difficulties.
The Telegram audience is not limited to Russia. The messenger, for example, is actively developing the Indian market, as evidenced by the data on the number of installations of the application, notes Nikolay Lobanov, marketing director of click.ru. According to him, the demand for Telegram with its “classic positioning as a secure messenger” will grow along with the intensity of the news agenda: “Revenue sharing will make it possible to make a breakthrough in attracting bloggers. But everything greatly depends on which world stars can be transferred to Telegram: if Pavel Durov is ready to invest additionally in this, we will see a sharp increase in installations.”
But the states in which cryptocurrencies are recognized as a means of payment still “can be counted on the fingers of one hand, especially if we are talking about countries with developed Internet infrastructure,” clarifies Dmitry Gorbunov.
The reaction of the Toncoin rate to the news, however, turned out to be positive – by 18:05 the increase was 23.6%, to $2.65, at the moment the price rose to 30%. The initiative to pay advertising revenues in Toncoin certainly contributes to the expansion of the use and popularity of TON, becoming a significant step in the development of the entire ecosystem, says former Binance vice president Gleb Kostarev. However, he said there is concern among members of the cryptocurrency community that massive payouts in Toncoin could put pressure on the currency due to potential massive sales.
In the ecosystem that has developed around the messenger, many projects have already been launched using Toncoin – trading platforms, games, exchangers, decentralized applications, notes CommEX regional director Anton Toroptsev: “Payments to owners of Telegram channels will be another trigger for the growth of coin turnover.” But this trend, according to him, creates additional risks: “Telegram’s connection with TON is unlikely to go unnoticed by US regulators.”
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