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Following our previous announcement, plenty of popular bots and mini apps implemented Telegram Stars⭐️ – allowing them to sell digital products to millions of users in compliance with Apple's and Google's Terms. Unfortunately, to comply with store terms, we had to suspend a small number of bots that were accepting payments for digital products without using Telegram Stars despite our warnings. ⭐️ Bots and Mini Apps that implemented Stars will soon be able to place subsidized Ads and might be featured in our upcoming Mini App Store.

Developers from various regions showed interest in the purchase cost of Telegram Stars for users around the world. To address them, here is a table with a detailed breakdown of how much users pay to acquire Stars – along with commissions and net proceeds for bot developers.

Telegram Stars⭐️ are now live – allowing all developers to sell digital goods and services in their bots and mini-apps. The new payment documentation has everything you need to get started – including answers to the most frequently asked questions. For more details about these changes, see the updated Payments Section in our Terms of Service for Bot Developers. ⚠️ Payments for physical goods and services are unaffected by this change and can continue operating as usual.

Introducing Payments for Digital Goods and Services With the upcoming Telegram update, your bots and mini apps will be able to sell digital goods and services. To allow for this change in compliance with third-party store terms, we are rolling out a new in-app currency, Telegram Stars. Users will soon be able to acquire Stars from Telegram using standard Apple and Google in-app purchases and then use them to buy digital goods and services from you. All payments for digital goods and services have to be carried out exclusively in Telegram Stars. If digital goods and services can be purchased for your bot or mini app on other platforms, like your external website, the same goods and services must also be available for purchase with Telegram Stars, in compliance with Apple Review Guideline 3.1.3(b). To accept payments for digital goods and services, starting with Bot API 7.4, you can use the sendInvoice or createInvoiceLink methods with the currency field set to "XTR" and the provider_token field left empty. To refund payments, you can use the refundStarPayment method. 💎 Developers will be able to withdraw Telegram Stars using the TON blockchain. ⚠️ Payments for physical goods and services are unaffected by this change and can continue operating as usual. Along with these changes, Bot API 7.4 adds even more improvements for all bots, like: • Support for visual effects, which bots can attach to messages via the new message_effect_id parameter. • Support for expandable blockquote text entities. • Captions that can be shown above the respective media via the new show_caption_above_media parameter. • And more, see the full changelog for details.

Bot API 7.3 Telegram Business • Messages sent on behalf of a business account now support url, login_url, and callback_gameinline buttons. Live Locations • Added support for live locations that can be edited indefinitely. • Bots can now edit live periods via the new live_period parameter. General • Added support for custom emoji in Polls. • Added the field via_join_request to ChatMemberUpdated, for users whose join request was approved. • Bots can now detect service messages about background changes in chats via the new chat_background_set field in Message. • And more, see the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#may-6-2024 Note: The method getChat now returns the new ChatFullInfo class, which has been split out from Chat.

Bot API 7.2 Telegram Business • Bots can now manage private chats of Telegram Business subscribers who connect them to their account – check out BusinessConnection. • Connected bots will receive updates about new messages, message edits and deletions in business chats they manage. • Added the parameter business_connection_id to most send methods – to send messages on behalf of business users. • Bots can now see business account details, such as their intro, opening hours and location. Request Names, Usernames and Photos • Bots can now request names, usernames and photos via new fields in the KeyboardButtonRequestUsers class. • Likewise, bots can now use KeyboardButtonRequestChat to request chats' titles, usernames and photos. Stickers • Introduced support for mixed-format sticker packs. • Regular sticker sets now support up to 120 stickers. • Bots can now upload WEBM stickers using sendSticker. • Simplified sticker replacement via the new replaceStickerInSet method. General • Mini Apps now support biometric authentication. • The Chat class may now contain the user's birthday and personal channel. • And more, see the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#march-31-2024 Note: We have updated our Terms of Service for Telegram Bot Developers, kindly check out the latest version here.

Bot API 7.1 Custom Emoji • Bots can now get the custom emoji sticker set chosen by a group and use any custom emoji from it. Boosts • Added support for boost_added service messages, about new boosts added to the chat. • Added the field sender_boost_count to the class Message, counting boosts added by the sender that are active on the message send date. Stories • Bots can now check if admins have the rights to post, edit and delete stories in supergroups. • Added the field reply_to_story to the class Message. • And more, see the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#february-16-2024

Bot API 7.0 Announcing our biggest Bot API update yet! Reactions • Introducing full reaction support for bots. • Bots can now react to messages with setMessageReaction. • Message reactions now generate updates for bots. • Added the available_reactions field to the class Chat. Replies 2.0 • Bots can now reply to messages in other chats or topics. • Added the ExternalReplyInfo class, to track replies across chats. • The new class ReplyParameters replaces individual reply options in all relevant methods and lets bots quote parts of any message. • The new field quote of the class Message lets bots detect incoming quoted text. Link Preview Customization • Bots can now set a custom URL to generate link previews in outgoing messages. • Added support for custom size and position of link previews. • Added the class LinkPreviewOptions to support these new options. Batch Actions • Bots can now delete multiple messages in a single request via deleteMessages. • Bots can now forward or copy multiple messages in a single request via the respective forwardMessages and copyMessages methods. Boosts & Giveaways • Added support for Giveaway messages, allowing bots to detect their creation and completion. • Added updates about chat boost changes via the new classes ChatBoostUpdated and ChatBoostRemoved. • Bots can now see if a boost came from a premium sub, a gift code, or a giveaway, as well as check all active user boosts via getUserChatBoosts. General •Blockquotes are now supported in MarkdownV2 and HTML parse modes. • Web Apps won't close when calling openTelegramLink. • Web Apps can now toggle the visibility and on-click behavior of the Settings Button. • Bots can now request multiple users, see KeyboardButtonRequestUsers. • The class Chat has new fields holding profile and background colors, custom emoji, and more. • And a great deal more. See the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#december-29-2023 Happy Holidays from the Telegram Team 🎆

Bot API 6.9 Mini Apps • Added support for free Cloud Storage, hosted by Telegram. • Mini Apps can now set any header color with setHeaderColor. • Added the requestContact method, to ask the user's phone number. • Added the requestWriteAccess method, to obtain permission to text the user. Stories • Bots can now assign the can_post_stories, can_edit_stories and can_delete_stories privileges to other admins. • Added the respective fields to ChatMemberAdministrator, ChatAdministratorRights and parameters promoteChatMember. • And more, see the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#september-22-2023

Bot API 6.8 • Bots can now detect forwarded stories via an empty Story object in the new story field of the Message class. • Added support for chat voters in non-anonymous Polls via the new field voter_chat in PollAnswer. • Added the field emoji_status_expiration_date to the Chat class. • And more, see the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#august-18-2023

New payment provider added: • Chapa🇪🇹 More about bot payments: https://core.telegram.org/bots/payments

Bot API 6.7 Unlimited Web Apps •Web Apps can now be launched from any chat – to play multiplayer games, work together in groups or create content on the fly. • Launch Web Apps with inline query results or direct links. Collectible Usernames & Custom Emoji • Collectible usernames can be upgraded and assigned to bots – including usernames that don't end in -bot. • Bots that are using collectible usernames can now send Custom Emoji via HTML and MarkdownV2. Bot Profile • Users can now edit bots directly from their Telegram profile, including setting a new name, description or animated profile photos. • Introduced support for localized bot names that are shown based on the user's language. General •InlineKeyboardButton can now be used to switch to inline mode in any chosen chat for a given type. • The ChatMemberUpdated class now distinguishes joins coming from Shared Folder invite links. • And more, see the full changelog for details: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api-changelog#april-21-2023