Portals is the largest-volume marketplace for upgraded Telegram Gifts at the start of 2026. If you open the gift market for the first time, you’ll most likely land here: deepest liquidity on top collections, simplest UX, fastest execution. This piece is a detailed look at mechanics, fees, limits, and risks.
TL;DR
- Portals is a Telegram-native marketplace for upgraded gifts, distributed as a Mini App.
- Fees: approximately 5% on the seller side; buyer pays only listing price plus TON gas.
- Strength: deepest liquidity on top collections, minimum clicks to trade.
- Weakness: basic filters (no granular attribute filtering), fee higher than Tonnel.
- From Russia: accessible without blocks at time of writing.
- When to choose: quick entry to the market, trading top collections, situations where speed matters more than a 1-2% fee differential.
Below — detail, for those who want the inside view.
What Portals is and where it came from
Portals (Portals Market) launched in 2024, right after upgraded gifts went live in Telegram. Before Portals appeared, the secondary gift market existed in private channels and DM trades — a semi-closed OTC form with high counterparty risk.
Portals closed that gap first. The marketplace is built as a Telegram Mini App — it runs inside the messenger, no browser tab, no extension install, no client download. Wallet connection runs through TON Connect, settlement is in TON, execution is on-chain.
By 2026, Portals leads the gift-native marketplace segment by trading volume. The team doesn’t publish exact figures, but aggregated signals from tracker channels (GiftChanges and similar) suggest Portals captures roughly 40-60% of daily secondary gift volume.
Architecture: how a trade works
The buy-sell cycle on Portals:
- Wallet connect. Mini-app prompts TON Connect. Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, Wallet in Telegram, Tonhub and other compatible wallets all work.
- Browse catalogue. Home screen shows top collections with live floor.
- Open collection. All listings sorted by price (asc by default).
- Lot card. Shows all attributes — model, backdrop, symbol, mint number — plus trade history and current collection floor.
- Buy. “Buy” button opens TON Connect with a detailed transaction proposal.
- Sign. Confirm in wallet. TON debits, gift transfers to buyer.
- Receive. Gift appears in the Telegram gifts inventory (Profile → Gifts tab) within 5-15 seconds after on-chain confirmation.
Seller side:
- Open the gift card in Telegram inventory, click “Sell on Portals”.
- Set price in TON. Portals shows a recommended range based on current floor and recent trades.
- Sign the listing — on-chain transaction transferring the gift to a Portals escrow contract until sold or cancelled.
- Wait for buyer. Listing is now in the catalogue. Cancel any time (another on-chain tx, ~0.05 TON gas).
- On sale — Portals deducts ~5% fee, balance routes to the seller’s address.
iListing gas is non-refundable
Every smart-contract action on Portals (list, cancel, buy) costs TON network gas (~0.05 TON). This is not a marketplace fee — it’s payment to TON validators. Even if you list and immediately cancel, ~0.10 TON is already spent. Price your lot so you don’t have to re-list three times.
Fees: exact numbers and what they pay for
The exact fee schedule shifts occasionally; baseline model for late-2025 to early-2026:
| Party | What is paid | Recipient |
|---|---|---|
| Seller | ~5% of sale price | Portals marketplace |
| Seller | ~0.05 TON listing gas | TON network (validators) |
| Seller | ~0.05 TON cancel gas | TON network (validators) |
| Buyer | Lot price | Seller (net of marketplace fee) |
| Buyer | ~0.05 TON gas | TON network (validators) |
In practice, selling at 100 TON, the seller nets ~94.9 TON (100 minus 5% marketplace, minus listing gas, minus minor cancel-attempt gas). On trades of 50-100 TON, Portals’ effective fee sits at ~5%; on 5-10 TON trades, gas becomes a non-trivial slice of proceeds.
Comparison with alternatives:
| Marketplace | Seller fee (approx) |
|---|---|
| Portals | ~5% |
| Tonnel | ~3-4% (historically lowest) |
| MRKT | ~5% (close to Portals) |
| Getgems | ~5% (general NFT float) |
On large trades the 5% vs 4% gap is 1 TON per 100 TON of revenue. Negligible for a one-off sale; meaningful for an arbitrageur running dozens of trades a day.
What gifts trade here
Portals lists all upgraded Telegram Gifts available in the ecosystem. By early 2026 that’s dozens of collections — from early exclusives like Plush Pepe and Heart Locket to mass releases like Loot Bag, Crystal Ball, Lucky Charm.
What does not trade on Portals:
- Non-upgraded gifts — bound to recipient, not transferable.
- Third-party TON NFTs — Portals is narrowly specialized on gifts. General NFT trading lives on Getgems and similar.
- Jettons (TON tokens) — different asset class, traded on DEXes.
When Telegram drops a new gift collection, it appears on Portals within the first hours — the platform has an indexer that monitors new gift contracts on TON. This is why primary listings of new collections almost always happen on Portals, and a chunk of grail-hunting strategy revolves around speed at drop moment.
UX: where Portals shines and where it doesn’t
What Portals does well
- Minimum clicks. From opening the mini-app to signing a purchase — typically 3-4 clicks.
- Floor charts. Embedded 24h/7d/30d on each collection page. Covers 80% of base analytics needs.
- Quick price filters. Asc/desc sort, floor range — built into the catalogue.
- Clean visual design. UI feels closer to a commercial NFT marketplace than a Telegram bot.
What’s missing
- Granular attribute filtering. No one-liner for “model = Gold, backdrop ≤ 1%, sort by price”. Finding a specific grail requires manual scroll.
- Portfolio analytics. No built-in P&L view of “how much did I earn on gifts this month”. Solved by external trackers.
- Web version. portals.market works, but the mini-app remains primary — desktop users may find the UI minimalistic.
Availability from Russia
At time of writing (mid-2026), Portals is accessible from Russia without VPN. This works because:
- Mini-app loads through Telegram infrastructure (Telegram itself is unblocked in RU).
- The portals.market web domain hosts on neutral CDN infrastructure; Roskomnadzor has not targeted it specifically.
- Wallets (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet, Wallet in Telegram) all work from RU.
This is not a forward guarantee. Russia’s crypto regulatory environment in 2026 is shifting — the CFA law, 2026 tax amendments, P2P channel pressure could all lead to point blocks. If portals.market becomes unreachable tomorrow, the mini-app in Telegram will most likely keep working.
!Telegram is a centralized platform
The fact that “Portals works in RU” rests on Telegram infrastructure stability. If Russian regulators block Telegram (historically attempted in 2018-2020), the failure point becomes the messenger itself, not Portals. Gifts as NFTs stay in your wallet — but without the messenger storefront, liquidity drops sharply.
Tax position in Russia for 2026
This is not tax advice, just a description of current practice.
Income from selling Telegram gifts in Russia falls into one of:
- Digital financial asset income — if FNS classifies an upgraded gift as a CFA. As of early 2026 there is no such classification, because the gift is not issued by a Russian IS operator.
- Other property sale — general category for crypto and NFTs. Subject to personal income tax (13%, 15% above 5M RUB per year), with deduction of documented acquisition costs.
- Self-employed / freelance income — if volume is regular and looks like a trade.
Practical implications:
- Selling 1-2 gifts per year — formally “other property”, costs deductible.
- 50+ trades per month — high risk of reclassification as entrepreneurial activity.
- FNS has data-sharing agreements with several centralized exchanges starting 2024-2025; on-chain visibility is lower but not zero.
For meaningful volume, consult a crypto-experienced tax advisor.
Security
Main risks
- Fake mini-apps named “Portals”, “Portals Market Pro”, “Portals Bot”. They prompt TON Connect “approve all” — then drain the wallet of gifts and TON.
- Phishing links in channels and DMs from “Portals support”. Real Portals support does not message first and never asks for seed.
- Social engineering in comments under the official channel with fake “updated” Portals links.
Defence
-
Open Portals only via the ton.app directory or direct link from the official channel. Verify the mini-app is published by
@portalswith the verified checkmark. - Read every TON Connect transaction before signing. A legit trade is a transfer of a specific NFT for a specific TON amount. “Approve all” or unknown recipient address — stop.
- Two-factor auth in Telegram is mandatory. Account compromise without 2FA can drain gifts even without your wallet — through Telegram UI.
- Separate “trading” wallet. Don’t keep your main portfolio there. Active gifts on trading address; long-term hold on cold storage.
When to use Portals — decision matrix
| Scenario | Use Portals? |
|---|---|
| Buy top collection for quick flip | Yes — deep order book, fast execution |
| Find a rare grail by attribute filter | Better via MRKT, then price-check on Portals |
| Large volume (1000+ TON) | Portals + Tonnel in parallel — combine liquidity with lower fee |
| Floor dynamics analytics | Portals enough for basics, Tonnel for deeper |
| First gift trade | Yes — friendliest UX of the three |
| Arbitrage | Only as part of Portals + Tonnel + MRKT triangle |
| Long-term hold of a rare lot | Buy on Portals → withdraw to TON wallet → potentially collateralize on DAOLama |
Further reading
- Telegram Gifts 2026: how the market works — industry overview and base mechanics.
- Telegram Gift Marketplaces 2026: Portals vs Tonnel vs MRKT — short three-way comparison.
- Tonnel Network: gifts trading guide 2026 — deeper look at the lower-fee alternative.
- MRKT.online: marketplace review — granular filters and grail hunting.
Portals is the “starting venue” for the Telegram gifts market. Most traders enter here first, then add alternatives for specific tasks. That’s a reasonable path — but not the only one, and a year from now the volume leader may be different.
