The popular messaging app Telegram now has 950 million monthly active users, and its founder Pavel Durov said the figure could cross the 1 billion mark this year on his channel on Monday.

This month, the founder announced the launch of an app store and in-app browser supporting web3 pages last week.

In March, Telegram passed the 900 million users benchmark. In an interview conducted by the Financial Times in March, Durov said the company will turn profitable next year.

Telegram seems to be regaining its momentum in on-boarding web3-related aspects on its platform. The firm supports cryptocurrency and blockchain work although its own attempts for venture into the space had remained still after its initial coin offer failed in 2018. In December, this year, the firm reportedly started auctioning some TON blockchain usernames.

The company has since focused on supporting developers in building mini-apps and games that utilize cryptocurrencies to settle transactions. It has, this year, started distributing ad revenue with the channel owners by providing the owners with Toncoin, a token on the TON blockchain. Telegram had recently allowed channel owners to exchange stars for Toncoin in order to purchase discounted ad or to trade in other cryptocurrencies.

Scams and grifts have haunted Telegram for some time now. Kaspersky has reported that from November 2023 on, the scammers became quite aggressive in promoting diverse schemes aimed at stealing Toncoins from users. Durov commented on this in the message last week, expressing the opinion that the company is fighting such scams.

Soon, Telegram will start showing the month of registration and main country of public accounts (like in Instagram). We will enable organizations to issue labels to channels via their mini-apps, creating a decentralized marketplace for third-party verification," he wrote in an update on his channel.