Snoop Dogg is back in the web3 spotlight, this time partnering with Telegram to launch the messaging app’s first celebrity digital collectibles drop.
According to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the launch generated $12 million in sales, with nearly 1 million items sold out in just 30 minutes.
While the items aren’t minted yet, users purchased the collectibles internally on Telegram, with minting on The Open Network (TON) scheduled to go live later this month.
Telegram’s first celebrity drop goes big
On Wednesday, Durov took to his official Telegram channel to announce that the “Snoop Dogg Gifts” drop was an instant hit.
The nearly 1 million NFTs, ranging from digital swag bags and vintage cars to a cartoon dog and cannabis-themed artwork, sold out rapidly, marking what Durov described as a “record time” sale.
The NFTs will be officially minted on the TON blockchain in 21 days, at which point a secondary market will also go live.
Telegram and TON have had a complicated history.
Although TON was initially developed by Telegram, legal hurdles in 2020 led the company to abandon the project and hand it off to an open-source community.
Since then, TON has evolved into the blockchain backbone of Telegram’s crypto ecosystem, powering features like digital collectibles, wallet payments, and web3 usernames for the app’s estimated 1 billion users.
Snoop Dogg himself promoted the event on Telegram with a nod to his 2004 hit, “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” and even released a themed “Gifts” music video on YouTube to support the launch.
Snoop’s long game in crypto and NFTs
This isn’t Snoop’s first foray into the crypto world.
The rapper began accepting Bitcoin for album purchases as early as 2013 and has since become one of the more active celebrities in the NFT space.
Under the pseudonym “Cozomo de’ Medici,” he built a sizable NFT collection and was linked to purchases worth millions of dollars in digital art.
In addition, Snoop has previously collaborated with The Sandbox metaverse on a project dubbed the “Snoopverse,” and he performed as a Bored Ape avatar at the 2022 MTV VMAs alongside Eminem.
While NFT volumes have slowed industry-wide, his latest Telegram-backed drop appears to be an exception, showing that star power and platform reach can still drive significant results in crypto collectibles.
