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In an era where most NFT projects are fighting for scraps of attention, Snoop Dogg just walked in, dropped nearly a million animated collectibles, and walked out with $12 million, all in under half an hour.
On July 9, 2025, Snoop launched a collection of animated “Telegram Gifts” on the TON blockchain, Telegram’s native Layer 1 network. Nearly 996,000 NFTs were made available, showcasing classic Snoop-style visuals: vintage cars, bags of swag, dogs in sunglasses, and cannabis-themed animations. Priced between a few dollars and over $100 for rarer versions, the entire drop sold out within 30 minutes, reigniting conversations around the relevance of NFTs in 2025.
This wasn’t just a flash-in-the-pan celebrity stunt. It was a calculated cultural moment, a blend of tech, music, and community.
📲 Why Telegram? Why TON?
TON, short for The Open Network, is a Layer 1 blockchain originally conceived by Telegram and later developed by an independent foundation after regulatory hurdles halted its first launch. In 2024 and 2025, TON saw massive adoption thanks to the explosion of Telegram mini-apps like Hamster Kombat, Notcoin, and various play-to-earn games that onboarded tens of millions of users.
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Telegram’s integration of blockchain-native features, like collectible “Gifts” that you can wear on your profile or send to friends, has turned it into a fertile ground for social collectibles. Unlike the more speculative art-based NFTs of yesteryear, Telegram’s gifts are designed with social utility: they act like digital badges or status items that can be traded, flexed, or even converted into Telegram’s in-app currency, Stars.
So when Snoop Dogg dropped his collection, it wasn’t just an NFT drop, it was a platform-native launch, designed to thrive within an ecosystem of over 900 million monthly users.
🐕 Snoop’s Strategy: Music Meets Web3
Snoop didn’t just drop a set of JPEGs. He timed the release of his new music video “Gifts” to coincide with the launch. It was a masterclass in cross-medium storytelling: fans were introduced to the concept of Telegram Gifts via a slick video, infused with Web3 aesthetics and humor, and were then directed to Telegram to mint and collect.
This kind of tightly integrated media push is rare in the Web3 space. Most NFT launches rely heavily on crypto-native channels like X (formerly Twitter) and Discord. Snoop went broader, leveraging music, visuals, and Telegram’s vast reach to introduce NFTs to users who may have never set up a MetaMask wallet.
The design of the NFTs themselves also broke with tradition. Rather than fixed supply and high floor prices, the collection included almost one million pieces, a move that made ownership accessible but still meaningful due to scarcity in the rarest tiers.
📉 The Broader NFT Market: Cold, But Not Dead
It’s worth noting that this launch happened during one of the coldest NFT markets on record. In Q1 2025, NFT sales were down over 60% from the previous year. Floor prices for once-dominant collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, and Doodles had crumbled, and mainstream media had more or less declared NFTs obsolete.
But this drop, along with a handful of experimental NFT integrations on Telegram, Avalanche, and even Solana, suggests that the NFT space isn’t dead. It’s just evolving.
The speculative phase of 2021-2022 NFTs centered on profile pictures and digital land. Today’s wave is about functionality, identity, and integration. Telegram Gifts aren’t speculative tokens sitting in wallets. They’re used in chats, featured on profiles, and potentially gamified in mini-apps. That utility, paired with a cultural icon like Snoop, is what made this drop so potent.
🧠 The Bigger Picture: Utility + Identity = Web3’s Next Big Bet
Let’s zoom out.
Web3’s biggest challenge has always been relevance. Outside of trading and speculation, crypto applications often lack real-world purpose. But Telegram, with its chat-first interface, open ecosystem, and deep integration with TON, has carved out a new niche: socially embedded digital assets.
This drop was a proof-of-concept for that model. An NFT doesn’t need to be expensive or exclusive to be valuable. If it adds personality to your profile, lets you stand out in chats, or supports your favorite artist, it has intrinsic value in a digital world.
Snoop Dogg, who has been experimenting with NFTs since 2021, including revealing himself as the pseudonymous collector “Cozomo de’ Medici”, isn’t new to this. But this time, he’s not playing to the whales. He’s playing to the masses, and the masses are on Telegram.
🔮 What Comes Next?
This successful launch opens up a floodgate of possibilities. If a celebrity can sell $12 million in NFTs in 30 minutes through a messaging app, what happens when:
- A sports team drops exclusive collectibles after a championship win?
- An indie artist mints fan badges with direct access to new releases?
- A game studio offers limited-edition skins that double as on-chain rewards?
Telegram is building a blueprint that combines scalability, simplicity, and social interaction, three things crypto has long struggled to integrate.
As for TON, the blockchain now has a compelling use case that goes beyond games and speculation. It’s becoming the backbone of a new kind of digital ownership, one where value flows not just through token prices, but through status, interaction, and creativity.
Final Thoughts
Snoop’s Telegram drop wasn’t just another celebrity cash grab. It was a watershed moment that showcased what NFTs can become in 2025: accessible, integrated, and meaningful in everyday digital life.
In just 30 minutes, a rapper on a messaging app reminded the world that NFTs are far from dead.
Feature image by Clayton Cardinalli
