Written by Zen, PANews
On July 14, the Telegram game project Notcoin announced that it would launch a $7 million airdrop, of which $5 million would be allocated to stakers and level holders, and the remaining $2 million would be distributed to participating users in the next three months. After becoming a phenomenal application by pioneering the Tap-to-Earn mechanism, Notcoin is now focusing on providing activities, such as continuing to gain user attention by interacting with other newer Telegram games.
As a "model" of the Ton ecological project, Notcoin quickly attracted imitations from game studios of all sizes after it became popular. "Notcoin like" games also occupy half of the Ton ecological games, and imitators are still in an endless stream. For example, at the end of June, the well-known blockchain game platform Gala Games launched two Telegram click games "Treasure Tapper" and "Flower Frenzy"; the Web3 version of LinkedIn Bondex, which raised tens of millions of dollars in funds, also launched the point-to-earn game Bunny Blitz and launched a $1 million reward event.
In the "imitation show" of Notcoin, several games such as Hamster Kombat have become star projects with tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of users. When the airdrop will occur has become the most concerning issue for "tens of millions of users" and is also a "difficult" problem that these project owners need to face.
Hamster Kombat: Traffic leader, expected to conduct first airdrop this month
Telegram CEO Patel Du Rove called Hamster Kombat the latest Internet phenomenon, which has 239 million registered users in just three months. The rapid growth of users also enabled the team to apply for the Guinness World Record for becoming the first YouTube channel to exceed 10 million subscribers in a week.
In terms of user scale and popularity, Hamster Kombat is the most likely project to achieve "one wave stronger than the last wave" among all subsequent games that adopt the Tap-to-Earn mechanism. Its popularity has even attracted the attention and criticism of Iranian politicians and scholars. In the game, players play the role of CEO of an emerging cryptocurrency exchange. Their main task is to click on the image of a cartoon hamster to earn coins, and then use these coins to buy upgrades for the exchange. Each upgrade will increase the player's passive income, that is, more coins.
Hamster Kombat plans to issue its tokens on the TON blockchain, and its first airdrop is expected to take place this month. Hamster Kombat previously said that the distribution of airdrops to users will depend on hourly profits and some other activity parameters that the team will release in the future, rather than the number of token balances. When asked by The Block about the chances of the game surviving after the first airdrop, the founder of Hamster Kombat expressed optimism and said that the game will continue, with a second season and a second airdrop in the next two years.
TapSwap: Token issuance has been postponed twice, and TGE may be held in the third quarter
TapSwap is a point-to-earn game that was once liked by Telegram founder Pavel Durov. He said in his personal Telegram channel that the TapSwap team wisely relied on Telegram for distribution and used TON to issue upcoming tokens, and said that this is inspiring for all developers building applications on Telegram and TON. As of early July 2024, the game has more than 60 million players and 4 million YouTube subscribers. TapSwap was launched in late 2023 and was originally released on the Solana network and later moved to the TON ecosystem. In TapSwap, players can earn TAPS coins by clicking on icons in the Telegram interface. The game also provides bonuses, tasks, referral systems, etc.
In early May, the TapSwap team announced that TapSwap Pools would be released on May 30. The day before the original release date, TapSwap’s Official Twitter released an announcement stating that they found a large number of robots earning airdrop points. In order to maintain the fairness of token distribution, they were taking measures to stop and ban these robots, and the release would be postponed to July 1. However, by that time, it was not launched. On the same day, TapSwap issued a Twitter threads explaining that due to the widespread attention of TapSwap, more detailed research on token economics and the correct release strategy was needed, so the token issuance date would be postponed again. This time, no specific new date was provided, only mentioning that it would ensure a release in the third quarter.
The community's comments on the project's two delays are polarized. Some people think that the project lacks planning and should not choose a time without preparation; supporters believe that good things take time, a high-quality project takes a lot of time, and cryptocurrency should not be a plan to get rich quickly. TapSwap also assured its users that the delay will eventually "really benefit" them.
Pixelverse: Receives $7.5 million in funding, plans to build a cyberpunk gaming ecosystem
Pixelverse is a cyberpunk gaming ecosystem with the vision of eventually covering multiple blockchain games across multiple platforms, currently centered around the Telegram game PixelTap. The PixelTap game itself draws on the ideas of Notcoin and Hamster Kombat, promising that in the future, wealth can be gained simply by clicking on the screen, and currently has over 50 million players. In the game, players can frantically click on various parts of the screen to attack the opponent's robot, as well as launch special attacks and try to defend themselves. In addition, players can also fight with them in PVP and PVE modes with upgradeable pets.
As the player base continues to grow, Pixelverse is getting closer to launching its native token, PIXFI. The total supply of PIXFI is 5 billion, which will be used for trading, crafting, and combat in Pixelverse. According to official documents, PIXFI was originally planned to be issued on the TON chain, but according to the recently updated token economics, PIXFIE is an RC20 token. The token TGE and airdrop time have not yet been determined. Pixelverse has completed a total of US$7.5 million in financing in the past two months, with investors including Delphi Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Crit Ventures, etc.
It is worth mentioning that Kirill Volgin, the founder of Pixelverse, once founded the popular Move-to-Earn platform Step.App. Step App has created a metaverse for the fitness economy. Built on Avalanche, users can socialize, play, and make money by walking, jogging, and running. The famous sprinter Bolt has also served as its brand spokesperson.
MemeFi: Built on Linea, 90% of tokens may be used for community airdrops
MemeFi Club is a Tap-to-Earn game developed by the MemeFi project. Unlike other similar games, the concept of MemeFi is to let players defeat opponents by clicking and get rewards from it. Other click-to-win games usually display a coin on the main screen, while in Memefi, players face Boss monster enemies inspired by memes such as Doge and Pepe. Each click by the player will reduce the enemy's health and gain tokens of equal value. Each defeat of an enemy will also receive a specific reward. MemeFi also has a variety of ways to increase player rewards, including completing daily tasks, inviting friends to participate, and using enhancers such as "turbo" to increase damage or "charge" to replenish energy, thereby improving game efficiency.
MemeFi has 8.6 million subscribers on Telegram and 2.3 million followers on X, and the official claims that it has more than 20 million game users. Most click-to-earn games tend to be associated with the TON blockchain, but MemeFi chose to build on Ethereum's Layer 2 solution Linea. Its $MEMEFI is a Linea token based on the Layer Zero OFT format, with functions covering governance, rewards, revenue sharing and yield farming, and can be used as a currency for in-game purchases. The total supply is 10 billion, and 100% will be unlocked immediately at the TGE, of which 90% is planned to be used for the community. The TGE time for this token has not yet been determined.
dotcoin: Delayed for half a month, DTC mining is not yet stable
Dotcoin has 5.5 million subscribers on Telegram and 1.4 million followers on X. Officials say it has more than 17 million game users. Dotcoin's game interface is relatively simple, with a yellow dot in the center. As players click quickly, the dot will expand, and the reward for each click will increase accordingly, up to x4 times, with a limited number of attempts per day. In the "Boosts" section, players can consume their accumulated Dotcoins to increase the number of attempts they have available per day, or purchase "Multitap" to increase the number of Dotcoins they get per click. Players can also view ads to increase the number of clicks they have available per day.
DTC is the main token of the Dotcoin ecosystem. According to the project design, it will be directly available through mining DTC tokens in "Boosts". Simply put, after players use the collected Dotcoins to purchase DTC miners, their portfolio wallets will receive a certain number of DTC tokens every day, depending on the level of the DTC miner, such as level 1 will receive 2 DTC tokens per day. After listing, players will be able to buy and sell the token.
The project initially announced that the DTC mining function would be launched in the first week of July, but the function still does not seem to be running stably. Dotcoin first claimed on July 8 that it was making final preparations and testing for the DTC mining function, and then on July 13 that it was making final edits to the update, which was slightly delayed due to the setting of the security system. On July 15, Dotcoin launched the DTC mining test, but many users were unable to use it normally. The project said that the system was overloaded due to requests from 8 million users. Dotcoin then announced in the TG channel that it was still working on enabling the DTC mining function, and the mining button would be available soon.
More than Web3: Point-to-earn game “Banana” is selling like crazy on Steam
As many small games on the Ton ecosystem are growing rapidly, a game called "Banana" has suddenly become popular on the Steam platform, which explicitly excludes Web3 games. According to SteamDB data, since mid-June, the number of concurrent online players of "Banana" has been at least 300,000 per day, and the highest has been close to 920,000, second only to the evergreen "CS2". This small game with a size of only 60.8MB and extremely simple gameplay has surpassed the popularity of a number of 3A game masterpieces. The core reason is that it is also a free game that can "make money". In essence, "Banana" is a "Tap to earn" game that does not require the integration of Web3.
The first sentence of the introduction of "Banana" in the Steam store: "Banana is a clicker game" is the whole gameplay of the game. In the game, all the player can do is keep clicking on the banana in the middle of the screen, and the white number above the banana will increase. In addition, every 3 hours, the game will drop a banana of ordinary rarity into the player's Steam account, and every 18 hours, a banana of higher rarity will be produced.
These bananas can be traded by players, and the trading of "cyber bananas" of different rarities is the real core gameplay of this game. As more and more players flock in, the price of high-rarity bananas has also risen, and the highest selling price has even reached thousands of dollars. The money earned from buying and selling bananas is recorded in the form of Steam balance. Although it cannot be withdrawn directly, players can complete the settlement in legal currency on third-party platforms by buying and selling other game skin accessories such as CS2.
Robots are both an enabler and a hindrance in project development
The outside world has always questioned the explosive data released by various projects in the Ton ecosystem when they showed their prosperity. Especially with the Notcoin airdrop and the subsequent rise in token prices, many Telegram games have seen a large increase in the number of robots. On the one hand, these robots provide a large number of "users" for the project parties, creating a phenomenon of project prosperity, thereby attracting more attention and funds, and driving the rapid growth of its various data; on the other hand, the existence of robot accounts dilutes the airdrop share of real users. Project parties must deal with the problem of robots when conducting airdrops to protect the rights and interests of real users.
The cautiousness and procrastination of the Web3 projects mentioned above in issuing coins and airdrops are also largely related to the thorny issue of dealing with robots. Sasha, the anonymous founder of Notcoin, said that one of the biggest challenges he faced when conducting airdrops was dealing with robots using the platform. "Notcoin prioritizes human behavior in airdrops and provides rewards for people with normal on-chain activities in their wallets."
The dilemma of simple game mechanics: easy to acquire customers but difficult to retain them
Sasha, the anonymous founder of Notcoin, once admitted in an interview with The Block: "I don't think Notcoin will exist forever, and I don't think it will have any sustainability. From my point of view, only games with sustainable models can survive." Therefore, regarding Notcoin itself, Sasha said that he hopes to get rid of the Tap-to-Earn narrative and plans to make the project independent of the team in the next four years by building a sustainable and efficient subsystem.
The simple game mechanism of Tap-to-Earn is usually easy for new users to understand and accept. Based on the expected benefits, it can quickly attract a large number of users to participate, which is conducive to the promotion and acquisition of customers in the early stage of the project. However, due to the limited content and gameplay, developers need to continuously launch new content and gameplay to maintain user interest, but this is a huge challenge for the development team. Recently, Tap-to-Earn games have also shown relative weakness compared to the previous period, and users seem to have begun to focus on new projects such as TON ecological MEME project DOGS.
In addition, this model relies more on continuous user growth and external funding support, but growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. For such small games with almost no gameplay, the only thing that can attract users is making money. Once user growth stagnates or external funding decreases, when players find it unprofitable or even lose money, the death knell of these games will sound.
