Telegram's Revenue Rises 65% to $870M Due to Toncoin Surge, Amid $500M Bond Freeze

Telegram's financial landscape is increasingly intertwined with the cryptocurrency sector, even as it faces legal and geopolitical challenges.

Key Takeaways

Revenue Growth: Telegram's revenue reached $870 million in the first half of 2025, marking a 65% increase from $525 million in the same period last year.
Toncoin Contribution: Approximately $300 million of the total revenue came from exclusivity agreements related to Toncoin.
Net Loss: Despite revenue gains, Telegram reported a net loss of $222 million due to a significant decrease in Toncoin's value.
Frozen Bonds: About $500 million of Telegram's bonds were frozen due to sanctions, impacting its financial stability.
User Base Expansion: Telegram has grown to over 1 billion monthly users, with a rise in paid subscriptions from 4 million to 15 million.

Telegram Revenue Rises 65% to $870M Due to Toncoin Surge, Amid $500M Bond Freeze

Recent reports reveal that Telegram's operating revenue has seen a significant increase driven by its involvement with Toncoin. However, despite this revenue growth, the company reported a net loss due to depreciation in the value of its Toncoin holdings. Complicating matters further, Telegram faces a bond freeze in Russia as a result of international sanctions.

Financial Overview of Telegram

According to a report by the Financial Times, Telegram's operating revenue increased substantially in the first half of 2025. The platform generated a total of $870 million, which is a remarkable 65% rise from the previous year's figure of $525 million.

A significant portion of this amount, nearly $300 million, stemmed from exclusivity agreements closely linked to Toncoin, the cryptocurrency within the Telegram ecosystem. This demonstrates that revenue related to Toncoin is now competing with more traditional income streams like advertising and subscriptions.

Impact of Toncoin's Value on Telegram

Despite the impressive revenue growth, Telegram faced a net loss of around $222 million during this period. In contrast, the company had reported a net profit of $334 million in the same timeframe in 2024. This drastic shift was primarily due to a write-down of the company's Toncoin holdings, which lost about 69% of their value in 2025, according to data from CoinGecko.

Toncoin Market Performance

Nevertheless, Telegram achieved an operating profit of nearly $400 million, suggesting that its core business remained healthy before factoring in the crypto-related losses.

Over the past two years, Toncoin's significance in Telegram's finances has steadily increased. Premium subscriptions alone reached $223 million in revenue in the first half of 2025, along with various in-app purchases conducted via the Telegram Fragment marketplace, which also heavily utilizes Toncoin for transactions. Advertising revenue, while growing more modestly, was reported at $125 million for the same period. Telegram disclosed it sold over $450 million worth of Toncoin so far this year, which represented approximately 10% of Toncoin’s total market capitalization of about $4.6 billion.

At the end of June, the total digital asset holdings of the company decreased to $787 million, compared to $1.3 billion a year earlier, primarily attributed to the sale volumes and the decline in token prices. Currently, Toncoin trades at around $1.93, considerably lower than its all-time high of $8.25 but still marking a more than 60% increase over the last year.

Financial Pressures and Legal Challenges

Alongside its revenue progress, Telegram is also grappling with financial pressures related to its debt. Approximately $500 million worth of the company’s bonds are frozen in Russia’s central securities depository due to harsh Western sanctions enforced after the invasion of Ukraine.

In recent years, Telegram has initiated several bond offerings, including a significant $1.7 billion issuance in May, aimed partly at repurchasing existing debt. While Telegram has successfully bought back most of the bonds maturing in 2026, the frozen bonds indicate ongoing risks associated with Russian capital markets.

Telegram has informed bondholders of its intention to repay the affected bonds at maturity, placing the responsibility on intermediaries to ensure payments reach Russian investors. This disclosure arrives as founder Pavel Durov anticipates a potential initial public offering (IPO), a process currently hindered by legal challenges in France.

Since 2024, Durov has been under investigation regarding allegations that Telegram did not sufficiently address criminal content on its platform. Bondholders are closely monitoring this situation, as Telegram's recent debt offerings include options that allow for the conversion of bonds into equity at a discount if an IPO proceeds.

Telegram's Subscriber Growth

Telegram's revenue boost is notably bolstered by its expanding user base, which has surpassed 1 billion monthly users, including around 500 million daily active users. Additionally, the number of paid subscriptions has sharply increased from 4 million to 15 million since late 2023.