Author: Weilin, PANews
The "Tap to earn" type of click-to-earn games is undoubtedly one of the hottest trends in the crypto market this year, driving the surge in popularity of the Telegram and TON blockchain network. For example, Hamster Kombat claimed to have attracted over 300 million players before its airdrop in September. Tracing back to the source of this craze, the tap to earn game Notcoin, which launched on January 1 this year, is undoubtedly the progenitor of tap to earn games on Telegram. Its token NOT, launched in May, once had a market capitalization of nearly $3 billion in June.
On November 1, PANews interviewed Notcoin's founder Sasha Plotvinov during the TON ecosystem conference The Gateway in Dubai, discussing Notcoin's startup concept, token price fluctuations, the current state of the TON ecosystem, and how Notcoin maintains sustained growth in the highly competitive market.
Sasha said that simply copying others' game play is actually very difficult to succeed. Notcoin is now also playing the role of a game publisher. He believes that by focusing on the community, Notcoin has enough depth to become a "cult". The key to achieving mass adoption of Web3 is first to eliminate all entry barriers, then a viral mechanism, and finally, to maintain a genuine, personalized product experience.
The Challenge of a Product Manager: Unexpected Notcoin Launch Crash on the Second Day
Sasha's career began as a product manager, where he learned many valuable lessons. He mentioned that as a product manager, the biggest challenge he faced early on was that not everything he could think of would work as expected after launch. Many assumptions actually don't work. But that's okay, this "uncertainty" is an inevitable part of the development process.
He recalled that on January 2, the second day after Notcoin's launch, the app was down almost all day due to the surge in traffic. The team worked from 8 am to 11 pm trying to solve this problem, but failed. The next day, the app still couldn't run normally. "'What should we do?' we were thinking, but we also learned a lot. So you could say we did anticipate this goal, but we didn't anticipate it would happen in this way," Sasha said. "Honestly, before Notcoin, we didn't have experience with high-traffic applications, so we had to learn and cope on the fly as everything crashed."
Tracing back the history of Notcoin, it was first launched for closed beta testing within Telegram in November 2023. Initially, the game was marketed as a meme coin with no clear purpose, just to become a viral phenomenon for the moment. At that time, Notcoin attracted over 650,000 users within a few weeks. On January 1 this year, after the official launch, Notcoin had over 5 million players join in the first week.
In the first quarter of this year, Notcoin has driven the surge in Telegram and TON, with Telegram now having hundreds of millions of monthly active users, and TON currently having millions of users. In fact, when creating Notcoin, Sasha and his team spent a long time thinking about how to build some kind of connection, how to guide some users to another platform.
They tried many different methods, but at some point they realized that they just needed to remove all entry barriers. For Telegram users, entering Web3 doesn't require going through complex processes like wallets and gas fees, they can just start playing. When they start earning, they will be more motivated to explore the overall crypto and Web3 ecosystem. Sasha believes this is a kind of innovation, because at the time many Web3 games were too complex for newcomers.
Sasha and his team decided to simplify the process as much as possible. "We understand that people like to mine or earn tokens, so I don't think tapping is the key here, the key is more like a mechanism suitable for mining. Mining can have many forms. We found that people like to see their balances grow, so why not let them see it? At some point, we'll tell them, 'If you want to mint your balance now, you can do it anytime.'" Sasha believes this is the turning point.
Seizing Telegram's Strong Social Properties, Believing TON Ecosystem is Still a Blue Ocean
Notcoin has become a powerful Web3 technology application scenario on the TON network. When asked why they chose to develop on the TON network, Sasha said the decision was based on Telegram's own strong social properties and openness. Telegram provides a unique ecosystem that allows crypto applications and mini-games to be embedded directly on the platform.
"The opportunity is very clear. There's no 'secret sauce' or anything like that. We just spent enough time researching the fundamentals, understanding the opportunities here."
Three years ago, when there were almost no projects on TON, no smart contracts, Tokens or Non-Fungible Tokens, Sasha saw the opportunity on TON. "You can imagine it was like a bare chain with no activity. It's because we started from then, of course we've built close relationships with the Foundation and other projects. All the teams building on TON are our friends, obviously we all started small. We all started in an environment that was never favored, until everyone now realizes its potential."
In his view, if you want to develop a game now, say publish it on the App Store or Google Play Store, you will face a lot of competitors, everyone is vying for user attention. This makes it very difficult to stand out there. But on Telegram, it's now easy to launch something that can find a product-market fit, users will like it, use it, and even be willing to pay for what they like. "It's really a blue ocean, there's almost no competition here yet. Being one of the first movers is very advantageous," he said.
About the NOT Token: Highly Decentralized Issuance, Whales Difficult to Manipulate
In May this year, NOT was listed on Binance, attracting widespread market attention and significantly boosting trading volume. But recently, the price of NOT has seen a pullback. Also, regarding the price fluctuations, are there any known supporters or "whales" intervening to stabilize the price?
In response to this question, Sasha said that whales are basically very difficult to manipulate the price of Notcoin, because the issuance of Notcoin is highly decentralized and dispersed, meaning there are a large number of users, with 11.5 million people having claimed the tokens. This means that many users hold a very small portion of the tokens, to manipulate the price, it would have to be a super whale, like someone holding over $100 million, and they would have to be crazy enough to buy the tokens without fully understanding it.
"Whales usually prefer VC coins, because there they can control a lot of things, understand all the distribution, including lock-up periods and so on. But Notcoin has no lock-up period, all the tokens were fully distributed from the start," Sasha explained.
Sasha introduced that "at the peak of trading volume, there was about 4.5 billion 24-hour trading volume. How much capital would it take to manipulate the price of such a high-risk asset? It's almost unbelievable."
Sasha explained that in the summer, the market response to NOT was not particularly active, nor was it particularly cold. He believes this is because many people are still hesitant. "Recently, France decided to arrest Pavel Durov for some strange reason. I think for some investors, they see it as a risk. Once he is released, the TON ecosystem is expected to grow, as this will reduce the risk for investors and businesses."
Notcoin's development has not always been smooth sailing. Previously, there were reports that Sasha's team had announced in an AMA that the community allocation of NOT was 95%, but later project announcements showed the community allocation was 78%. Sasha clarified this. "First, when people play the game, they earn some Notcoin. On the first day of the TGE, we basically distributed 78% of the tokens to these players. The remaining portion was distributed through channels like Binance Launchpool, OKX Launchpool, Bybit Launchpool, roughly 4% for Binance, 1.5% for OKX, 1.5% for Bybit. Additionally, we also launched initiatives through some wallets like the Telegram wallet, around 1% to 2%. Adding up all these incentive competitions, this is part of the listing process."
"You always need to help traders on the exchange explore your product in some way. So, basically, Launchpool is the most efficient way. This is how we distribute most of our tokens. We also burned some tokens, and in the end, we kept about 5% of the tokens for the development of the project in the coming years. This allows us to continue building, ensuring that it still makes sense to build the project for the next few years, even if we enter a bear market tomorrow."
Sasha introduced Not Pixel at The Gateway 2024, the TON ecosystem conference.
The Future of Notcoin: Becoming a Culture
The decline in the popularity of some play-to-earn games and the difficulty in retaining users is another topic that the market has been focusing on recently.
On this, Sasha shared his views. "I think games that try to copy other methods usually fail because people are smart enough not to play 'another tap to earn' game. People want fun, they want emotional experiences, but they also want some real experiences. If you just copy something, people might think: I've seen it, I don't like it, I don't want it."
Specifically, Notcoin does not have a specific roadmap. Currently, Notcoin has launched Phase 3, with the introduction of more mini-games, such as the pixel-earning game Not Pixel, which has attracted over 20 million users within a few weeks.
Sasha emphasized that Notcoin is no longer just a gaming application, it has become a community with depth. Through collaborations with multiple gaming projects, Notcoin is able to give back more value to its core community members. "What we're doing now is basically putting Notcoin holders and the Notcoin community at the center. This means that every game that now collaborates with Notcoin is contributing to the core Notcoin community."
Sasha mentioned that, for example, 20% of the tokens of Not Pixel will be distributed to Notcoin holders and the Notcoin community. "We want to make it more attractive from a product perspective, more like a personal gaming profile, where you have your own avatar, customized background, and can play different games. For example, if you play Not Pixel and complete your first 100 pixel artworks, we will give you some achievement rewards, ultimately making you more a part of the core community."
In addition to building around the community, Notcoin has gradually taken on the role of a game publisher. "We help other games, currently only two games, to build the right content and successfully launch. We will make sure to introduce them to our community, and also provide assistance from a development perspective, whether it's the code or many other things. But in return, each game launch will contribute to the Notcoin community."
Sasha believes that Notcoin was initially an application, but now Notcoin is no longer just an application, it is a community. "You can think of it like something like 'BAYC'. It can be very broad, even including restaurants, burgers, and so on. Sometimes the entire ecosystem can be very broad. Notcoin has enough depth to become a culture, actually becoming a 'cult' for some of us. In a good way, when people feel that the values in Notcoin resonate with them."
The Key to Large-Scale Adoption: Eliminating Barriers, Adopting Viral Mechanisms
Although Notcoin is currently mainly based on the TON ecosystem, Sasha said the team does not rule out the possibility of expanding the project to other blockchains in the future. Regarding the development on TON, Sasha said that users need more time to adapt and trust cryptocurrencies, such as investing funds in cryptocurrencies. "What we're seeing now is actually just the beginning of real impact, because these numbers are just numbers for now. But in two or three years, we'll see those who truly enter Web3, whose onboarding process started with Telegram and TON."
Sasha believes that the key elements to achieve large-scale Web3 adoption are: first, eliminating all barriers; second, ensuring the mechanism is viral. "I don't believe you can build a big app by just buying a lot of traffic. Basically, all truly big apps are naturally, organically grown. You need to build an app that people want to play or use, and they will have enough motivation to share, invite others, and so on. This is about network effects. So, eliminate barriers, and make sure your internal mechanism can drive this network effect."
In his view, it is also necessary to maintain a genuine experience. "Many apps are just trying to copy other apps. That's fine, but I think if you can really do something unique, it will work better. Also, I think in general, people like something fun, like memes. When people experience some emotions, similar to feeling a sense of belonging or some emotion related to a particular meme or a particular game, thing, that's really great. So, if you can make a game that gives users a personalized experience, that's a great way to grow." He mentioned, "True community is built when people have shared emotional experiences."
At the end of the interview, Sasha expressed very positive expectations for the development of the TON ecosystem. He said, "I expect TON to become the largest blockchain, which is not hard to understand. I thought it would happen next year, maybe even this year. You know, TON now has over 100 million wallets, and TON is growing very fast here. And the growth curve is still exponential."
"Let's wait and see, I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next," Sasha said at the end of the interview.
