Criminals sell Telegram username for $2.2M, TON blockchainers celebrate

An attempt by advocates of the Telegram-supported TON blockchain community to celebrate a multimillion-dollar transaction has ended awkwardly, as it appears the deal was orchestrated by criminals.

First, @ZenithTON, who identifies themselves as the "community team" for the TON (TON) blockchain, shared a screenshot showing that the danbao.t.me handle was sold for 1.9 million TON tokens, worth around $2.2 million at the time.

"Bear market who? Not on TON NFTs. This is the largest username sale to date," Zenith added, as other TON advocates started sharing the news as well.

However, the party didn't last long.

"Easy to spend millions when those millions are stolen and scammed from people," security expert and researcher Taylor Monahan from the most popular Ethereum (ETH) wallet, MetaMask, chimed in, after popular blockchain sleuth ZachXBT provided more details about the transaction.

"I hope you realize the seller of the ‘danbao’ username was Tudou Guarantee, an illicit marketplace which rebranded from Huione Guarantee," he replied to the @toncommunity account on X, which has more than 913,000 followers.

According to the analyst, in these Telegram channels, criminals advertised stolen personal data, money laundering services, and scam infrastructure for the so-called "pig butchering" crimes.

"Scam compounds (in South East Asia) relied on them to launder via human trafficking/ forced labor," ZachXBT added, also sharing a screenshot from an apparent buyer of the username, who claims they bought "the once-top user name across the entire network."

According to the buyer, it was done to prove one thing:

"Who says that bogus companies can only be trampled underfoot? Today, I'm determined to let it stand in the position of a phoenix instead."

Neither @toncommunity nor @ZenithTON responded to these updates.

As reported, Telegram is cracking down on illicit marketplaces. However, criminals are finding other ways to serve the market.

For example, blockchain analysts at TRM Labs have found that the guarantee marketplace Xinbi has even expanded its operations into late 2025, with inflows nearly doubling over that period to $8.9 billion, as it migrated from Telegram to the SafeW and XinbiPay platforms.

However, at the same time, activity at competitors Haowang Guarantee dropped almost 100%, while its successor, Tudou Guarantee, dropped more than 70%.

Guarantee services offer informal escrow, wallet services, and marketplaces with minimal due diligence, helping criminals to launder illicit funds.

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