Crypto degens have found a new game to gamble on, causing a Solana meme coin to surge to a market cap of nearly $20 million as a result.
Noodle.gg is a crypto clone of popular free-to-play browser game Slither.io, where players control cartoonish snakes that grow larger with each enemy snake they consume.
Noodle’s blockchain twist is that players pay an entry fee in Solana, and then when a player eats another player's snake, they also get their money. If you die, then you lose everything.
“This should be fun. Eat other snake = take their money,” the game’s creator Alex Leiman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, followed by a Solana contract address. This post quickly went viral, hitting over a million views in less than a day.
The Noodle (NOODLE) token has no current utility, effectively making it a meme coin with no underlying functionality. Despite this, or maybe because of this, NOODLE skyrocketed to a peak market cap of $19.43 million within 14 hours of its launch, as the snake game went viral. It has since settled at $14.4 million, according to DEX Screener.
Leiman has hinted at the possibility of NOODLE becoming the token that is wagered in the game, rather than SOL itself.
The game attracted 1,000 active accounts within two hours of its launch, according to Leiman, despite it only being available in 75% of U.S. states due to “regulatory reasons.” Within its first day, the official Noodle X account said, the game had more than $75,000 worth of crypto flow through it.
Online reactions were mixed. Some appeared to enjoy the opportunity to potentially earn money while playing an addictive game that reminds them of their childhood. Others, however, slated Leiman for simply copying Slither.io, rather than creating a unique game.
“Most ‘innovating Web3’ products are just lazy Web2 clones with crypto slapped on,” pseudonymous X user Cremedupepe posted. “No originality, just copy-paste and buzzwords. Also, how the hell do you even cash out?”
To exit the game, players must hold down the Enter key for three seconds without dying. This takes you to a game over screen displaying your earnings for the game. It appears that players are then able to cash out by providing a Solana address and how much SOL they wish to withdraw.
It is worth noting however, according to the terms of use, the platform reserves the right to restrict cash-outs. This includes time-based limitations, minimum play time requirements, or temporary holds at Noodle’s discretion. Plus, if Noodle catches a user cheating, then their entire balance will be forfeited.
This isn’t the first crypto game to go viral due to its ability to generate money for its users.
Last month, Abstract-based crypto mining simulation game Bigcoin caught the attention of degens. In this game, players bought in-game miners that earned them BIG tokens—inspired by how real-world Bitcoin miners work—which could be used to upgrade their in-game rigs to earn more BIG.
It was a major, albeit short-lived success as its token grew to a $66 million market cap in three days—but then crashed 83%, according to DEX Screener. Industry observers labeled Bigcoin a “Ponzi game” that relied on new players flowing capital into the game.
Rather than taking this as a warning to stop or seeing the tag as a derisive one, some hungry degens continued their search to find the next Ponzi game to gamble on.
Tons of other non-Ponzi games have implemented crypto as a way to earn. Last year, the Telegram tap-to-earn wave amassed hundreds of millions of players that tapped away at their phone screens in the hopes of getting a valuable token airdrop.
Most of the time, however, users complained about the size of their airdrops, and the craze faded after a few frenzied months.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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