Billionaire Pavel Durov, the founder of popular messaging app Telegram, has received a generous donation from over half a million players of the viral game Notcoin. These players donated a portion of their in-game coins as a gesture of gratitude for the app that hosts the game. The donated tokens have now increased in value to millions of dollars, and Durov has announced that he intends to hold onto them until their value increases 100-fold.
In February, more than 552,000 players of Notcoin contributed a portion of their in-game coins to Durov, resulting in him acquiring over 1.03 billion NOT tokens. This accounts for slightly over 1% of the total Notcoin supply on The Open Network (TON). As of the time of writing, the value of these tokens is approximately $7.3 million, although it was slightly lower at $6.8 million when Durov made the announcement.
Durov, with an estimated fortune of $15.5 billion, has no immediate need for the cash and has stated that he has no plans to sell the tokens. However, he has mentioned that if the value of the NOT token reaches $680 million, he will sell them in order to acquire additional servers for Telegram and support the messaging app’s infrastructure.
Notcoin, the largest gaming token launched this year, had a market capitalization of nearly $1.5 billion. However, like many new cryptocurrencies, the value of NOT has experienced volatility since its launch, currently standing slightly above $0.007, according to CoinMarketCap. Despite the decline, NOT is currently ranked as the 101st most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, totaling $746 million. Impressively, it amassed trading volume worth over $1 billion within the first 24 hours of its launch.
Notcoin temporarily paused its coin-tapping gameplay in April to prepare for the token rollout, but it is set to relaunch its crypto-earning game. The ultimate goal is for Notcoin to become a platform for additional games, aiming to be the “Netflix of social, viral games,” according to co-creator Sasha Plotvinov.
Starting in November, TON Space, a self-custodial wallet, will be available to Telegram’s global user base without requiring any wallet registration. This service will be an extension of the existing custodial version of the Telegram wallet, which already has three million registered users. However, certain jurisdictions, such as the United States, are currently excluded from the self-custodial wallet due to increased regulatory scrutiny and the geofencing of numerous crypto apps from the market.
In addition to the new wallet launch, Telegram’s TON Blockchain has introduced a feature that allows users to transfer Tether (USDT). Furthermore, the team overseeing TON Blockchain has completed its transition into a Swiss non-profit organization.
