Author: Wu Tianyi
Produced by: DeThings

On July 14th, the Telegram game project Notcoin announced on Twitter that it will conduct a $7 million airdrop, with $5 million allocated to stakers and holders of different levels, and $2 million to be distributed to participating users over the next three months. As a game based on the Ton blockchain, the core gameplay of the game is "Tap to earn". Benefiting from the advantages of the TON ecosystem, it has attracted the attention of millions of players in the past few months.

This is just a microcosm of the TON ecosystem at present. As a recent hot ecosystem, TON's recent revenue has exceeded $10 million, with over 1 million on-chain users and a total user base of 17 million, with daily active users exceeding 3.5 million. TON ecosystem MEME project DOGS also stated that the number of DOGS points purchased using Telegram Stars has exceeded 10 million.

According to the latest analysis by CryptoQuant, TON has become one of the best-performing Layer 1 blockchains in 2024. Since the beginning of this year, TON's performance has outperformed Bitcoin by 118%, contrasting sharply with other popular Layer 1 chains that are struggling to gain momentum.

cmDeFi Founder Chen Mo told DeThings that TON has filled the gap in the application layer of this bull market and has leveraged the advantages of mobile phones to provide many possibilities for going global.

Successful Experimentation of Social Media with Web3

In September 2023, Telegram recognized TON, stating that the blockchain and related tokens would become its "official Web3 infrastructure". Earlier this month, TON announced that Tether tokens can also be issued on its blockchain, allowing Telegram users to send stablecoins to each other within the application.

fastcompany stated that the prospect of integrating payments and shopping with social media or messaging services, known as "super apps" or "universal apps", has long been a dream of investors, drawing inspiration from China's WeChat. IGD DAO Founder KVC told DeThings that Telegram, as a global application and international tool, has few counterparts similar to the TON ecosystem, presenting a historic opportunity. Currently, it has begun to resemble a "web3 WeChat".

Efforts to introduce encrypted payments into social media have not yet achieved widespread success. Facebook (now Meta) ended its "Libra" cryptocurrency project under strong opposition from global regulatory agencies, fearing that the project could undermine financial stability and weaken control over monetary policy.

PitchBook senior analyst Robert Le stated, "Telegram's recent foray into encrypted payments has introduced new use cases for the application, but its acceptance and adoption are still in the early stages." He noted that venture capital interest in SocialFi has increased.

"The main challenge is changing the user perception in non-Asian markets, where messaging applications are primarily seen as pure communication tools rather than multifunctional platforms."

Ram Gopal, a professor at Warwick Business School, stated that this integration brings "regulatory, technological, and security challenges".

Has "Tap to earn" Surpassed "Play to earn"?

CoinDesk stated that while traditional P2E models typically require complex gameplay and a significant time investment, so-called "click to earn" games provide a more accessible and attractive way to earn money. By leveraging social layers existing in consumers' hands, such as Telegram, and utilizing places where people already spend time, intentionally or unintentionally, a window for mass adoption has been opened.

The secret to the viral Telegram game is the simple gameplay (e.g., clicking and completing simple tasks) and the engaging game process (e.g., finding new daily card combinations or passwords in Hamster Kombat). The main reason for the astonishing growth of Tap-to-Earn in such a short time.

The commitment of community airdrops is another successful point for these types of games. Unlike DeFi protocols or Ethereum L2, clicker apps do not require any complex on-chain operations, as evidenced by Notcoin. According to the Notcoin team, approximately 90% of the token supply has flowed into the community, with an average reward of $200 per wallet. Catizen promises to airdrop 42% of future $CATI, while the token economics of the other aforementioned applications have not been disclosed.

Another important factor for success is leveraging social layers and encouraging players to invite friends and team up to compete for higher rewards. All of these viral applications have chosen the TON blockchain, which can be explained by the convenience of joining Telegram, its 950 million global user base, the technical advantages of the chain, and Notcoin's recent success on top centralized exchanges.

Many have raised reasonable doubts about the sustainability of the Tap-to-Earn trend and the quality of the attracted traffic. How the teams manage to educate and retain users and provide long-term value remains an unresolved issue. Notcoin's anonymous founder Sasha admitted in an interview with The Block, "I don't think Notcoin will last forever, I don't think it will have any sustainability. From my perspective, only games with sustainable models can survive." Therefore, regarding Notcoin itself, Sasha expressed his hope to move away from the Tap-to-Earn narrative and plans to make the project independent of the team by building sustainable and efficient subsystems over the next four years.

What are the Potential Projects After Notcoin?

E2M Researcher Steve told DeThings that TON's own infrastructure is gradually improving, and the ecosystem has been completed. It has also taken an independent market path amid the volatility of mainstream assets.

In addition to Notcoin, Hamster Kombat is also worth paying attention to. As a Tap to earn game with a hamster theme, it went live on Telegram on March 25, 2024, allowing users to collect coins by simply tapping the screen. Each tap can earn virtual coins, which can be claimed in the native token HMSTR of the game plan. The development team expects the token release date to be at some point in June 2024. Additionally, they plan to conduct a Hamster Kombat airdrop on the TON network. Its market value is currently $45,700, with a 24-hour trading volume of $1.9 million.

The founder of Hamster Kombat is anonymous, but they claim to have over 200 million users; they have 11 million followers on Twitter/X and 31 million subscribers on their YouTube account. According to The Block, the anonymous founder of the TON ecosystem game Hamster Kombat revealed that after the first airdrop this month, they are planning a second airdrop. He stated, "The game will continue, and there will be a second season and a second airdrop within the next two years. We believe that these tokens will belong to millions of users worldwide, and they themselves have tremendous value."

Another game worthy of mention is tapswap, a popular Telegram mini-program where you can earn its native token TAPS by participating in various in-game activities. As of early July 2024, the game has over 60 million players and 4 million YouTube subscribers.

Additionally, Catizen is worth paying attention to. Catizen is a TON-based idle cat-raising game created by the Pluto Studio team, the first game on its GameFi platform. At the intersection of casual gaming and breakthrough innovation, Catizen has launched a "PLAY-TO-AIRDROP" mode. In just 2 months, the registration volume has reached nearly 20 million, with 1.25 million active users.

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