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Tap-to-earn took over crypto gaming this year, garnering hundreds of millions of players via Telegram mini apps. As a result, The Open Network (TON), the Telegram-aligned blockchain that most tap-to-earn games have launched their tokens on, has skyrocketed in popularity.

But the co-founder of TON Society, the organization focused on TON community operations, thinks that tap-to-earn should be seen less as merely a gaming mechanic—and more as an effective way to introduce products to users.

“What we’re going to see next is projects using the viral mechanic, tap-to-earn, as more of a launch strategy,” TON Society co-founder Jack Booth told Decrypt at London’s recent Zebu Live conference. “I never believed that it's going to be a whole sector of crypto. It's always a go-to-market strategy.”

Tap-to-earn games typically spend months in a “mining phase,” where in-game progression counts towards a slice of a future airdrop. This period is typically built around simple gameplay, but many of these games also incentivize players to interact with social media posts and videos, invite in other players, and try out partnered games and projects.

This “viral mechanic,” as Booth puts it, has resulted in tap-to-earn projects attracting users in the hundreds of millions. Hamster Kombat, for example, boasted over 300 million players months before its airdrop. And Notcoin, the game that started the whole craze, had the most successful crypto gaming token launch of the year, hitting a peak market cap just shy of $3 billion.

The TON Society booth at Zebu Live featured paper airplanes in a nod to Telegram's logo. Photo: Ryan S. Gladwin/Decrypt“It's what you do to build a massive community really, really fast, and distribute your tokens to as many users as possible,” Booth explained on the Zebu Live show floor, as a fleet of paper airplanes flew past, thrown from the TON Society conference booth. “But it's always been about: What do you do after that?”

Some tap-to-earn games have relaunched into a new mining phase using a similar gameplay loop, albeit with a smaller amount of tokens up for grabs. Meanwhile, others like Notcoin have been more creative, pivoting towards becoming hubs for launching other games and projects.

For some gamers, the concept of a new and less lucrative mining phase bores them, especially after receiving a middling airdrop, and other times projects just aren’t clear enough about what’s next. As a result, many tap-to-earn tokens plummet in price following the airdrop. Those have been growing pains in the rapid rise of Telegram crypto games and apps.

“This is where we’re going to have the innovation in TON. The projects are going to be way clearer about the roadmap after token launch,” Booth told Decrypt. “When we haven’t had clarity, we’ve seen what happens: The tokens get punished during the airdrop.”

Booth points to Blum as a prime example of this approach in action. Currently, the project has a Telegram mini app that uses many of the viral mechanics from other tap-to-earn games as the creators work to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX).

This tap-to-earn strategy has led to Blum having a Telegram channel with over 31 million subscribers, a YouTube channel with nearly 8.3 million subscribers, and a Twitter with 5.5 million followers. To put this into perspective, centralized exchange Binance has less than 200,000 Telegram subscribers and just over 1 million YouTube subscribers, while Coinbase has 6 million Twitter followers—the figures for decentralized exchanges are significantly lower.

“Now when they launch a product, day one, they’re going to be the biggest DEX on the planet,” Booth suggested

In his eyes, this is the future of tap-to-earn. Companies will utilize the viral mechanic to gather a large community prior to launching, via a user acquisition model that’s less costly than traditional methods. Tap-to-earn is a way to grab users and build momentum before launching a more robust product.

Booth said he met people during Zebu’s TON Hackers League that were building Telegram-based projects, and will be implementing tap-to-earn during their respective launch phases. This included an AI trading bot and a gig marketplace like Fiverr.

“These guys are implementing tap-to-earn mechanics in their launch phase, because that's what's going to get them users,” Booth explained. “That’s the next step. Now we have a viral mechanic to use in every app that comes to TON. So every app has a million users to start with, and then it's up to the app to actually do the conversion on-chain.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to clarify TON Society's role in the ecosystem.

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Recently, in a pilot program, Swift, along with UBS Asset Management and Chainlink , showed a new way to settle tokenized fund transactions, aiming for greater market efficiency and liquidity.

Through the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Guardian, a global group uniting industry leaders and policymakers, the pilot tested Swift’s infrastructure to allow off-chain cash settlements for tokenized funds with their fiat payment systems across its network of over 11,500 financial institutions in more than 200 countries.

Chainlink, SWIFT, UBS, Streamline Fund Transactions with Blockchain Under Project Guardian, driven by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Swift, UBS Asset Management, and blockchain oracle network Chainlink has just announced a successful pilot focused on tokenized fund settlement.

The initiative leverages Swift’s extensive global financial messaging, reaching more than 11,500 institutions to integrate tokenized fund processes with existing fiat payment systems seamlessly.

The results showed how the amalgamation of blockchain with existing financial networks could reduce the redundancy around the fund subscription and redemption process that has traditionally included manual steps, delayed settlements, and a lack of transparency.

These pain points add to the operational expenses and decreased liquidity of mutual funds across the $63 trillion global mutual fund market.

MAS Unveils New Initiatives to Advance Tokenization The Monetary Authority of Singapore unveiled new initiatives to advance the commercialization of asset tokenization, tapping into experience from over 40 institutions based on insights garnered from more than 15 trials.

At the inaugural MAS Layer One Summit, MAS Deputy Managing Director Leong Sing Chiong highlighted the success of key financial institutions participating in Project Guardian in demonstrating the use of tokenization for foreign exchange and funds.

Sing Chiong also addressed the limitations of these trials, citing that while promising use cases were available, the much-wanted industry-wide traction still eludes them. He added, “No one has really succeeded in achieving scale,” and emphasized the need for supporting infrastructure that will permit the successful use cases to grow beyond isolated networks.

The pilot set up an automated processing framework that enabled seamless transactions of funds without fully migrating to on-chain payments. Chainlink’s platform helped the different parties coordinate and automate basic stipulations of the transactions, such as the issuance and burning of tokens of the funds. It is now up to see how all these events will ipact Chainlink price.

Swift was also collaborating with UBS Asset Management and SBI Digital Markets to develop a mechanism for digital subscription and redemption in tokenized funds. This trial demonstrated how Swift can securely connect financial institutions to multiple blockchains while leveraging its infrastructure and knowledge base.

Chainlink Powers TRON’s $6.5B DeFi Ecosystem Recently, TRON founder Justin Sun announced that his company has joined Chainlink SCALE, with an immediate declaration of Chainlink Data Feeds as the official oracle for the TRON Foundation.

The strategic partnership is designed to secure more than $ 6.5 billion of DeFi’s Total Value Locked on TRON through the use of Chainlink’s robust infrastructure. It further allows new opportunities to emerge for TRON’s $60 billion ecosystem comprising stablecoins and real-world assets, while solidifying TRON’s position in the DeFi space.

Recently, Chainlink’s price crashed below a pivotal support level on the weekly chart, which opens up possibilities for a 45% crash. This comes after LINK reached a 50-month low against Bitcoin, making investors increasingly wary of another bottom. Although its fundamental analysis has been going great, Chainlink price has failed to hold its position, with a slight uptick of 1% in the last 24 hours, trading at $10.65.

RabBitcoin $60,761 (RBTC) is a mobile game that combines the excitement of tap-to-earn gameplay with the rewards of a cryptocurrency-based system. In a tap-to-earn game, players typically touch the screen to perform actions that help them progress through the game. RabBitcoin takes this familiar concept and adds an innovative touch by integrating a cryptocurrency system that allows players to earn real digital rewards.

What is RabBitcoin?In RabBitcoin, players train and develop their digital rabbits to accumulate points. These points are not just scores; they translate into cryptocurrency rewards and in-game advantages. The goal is to collect as many points as possible, enabling players to level up their rabbits and unlock new features and rewards.

RabBitcoin claims to combine various game mechanics and features to create an engaging experience. The core mechanic of RabBitcoin is point collection, where players earn points by tapping the screen. Each tap helps gather points that can be used to enhance their rabbits’ abilities and progress in the game.

How Does RabBitcoin Work?RabBitcoin regularly introduces new features and challenges to keep the game fresh and engaging:

Wallet Connection: This allows players to link their cryptocurrency wallets directly within the game, simplifying reward management and tracking earnings.SuperSet: A daily challenge where players find mystery cards to earn rewards. The first player to find the cards wins a TON token and millions of tokens in-game.Enigma: A password challenge that requires players to arrange words correctly to earn TON tokens and points. This feature tests players’ quick thinking and problem-solving skills.Streak Days: A feature that rewards players for daily gameplay. The longer the streak, the higher the rewards, making daily play more rewarding.Content Creator Challenge: Encourages players to create and share content related to RabBitcoin, with high-quality content earning significant rewards and fostering community creativity.RBTC is the native cryptocurrency of the RabBitcoin game. As of the time of writing, RBTC is trading at $0.000004142, according to CoinMarketCap data, with a market capitalization of $30.8 million, ranking RBTC at 708 among cryptocurrencies.

Like any cryptocurrency, RBTC can be purchased through exchanges. Notable exchanges featuring this cryptocurrency include Bitget, Kucoin, Gate, and MEXC.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

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SonicX, a tap-to-earn game launched on TikTok, has passed the milestone of 1 million players just a month after its debut, developer Sonic SVM told Decrypt on Monday. Now, the team is eyeing up its token launch date.

Previously, the tap-to-earn genre was siloed on Telegram due to the messaging platform's seamless ability to launch mini apps, along with native wallet integration via The Open Network (TON). However, Solana-based project Sonic SVM figured out a way to create this type of game on TikTok, as previously covered on Decrypt's GG, opening up the genre to a whole new audience.

SonicX, the first such game, sees players tap away at their smartphone screens to earn in-game points via a mini app that launches within the TikTok app. It features artwork that is very similar to classic video game Sonic The Hedgehog, but has no official affiliation with Sega. 

Over the month since it has launched, the game has expanded its player base by pushing out advertising to potential new users—a major factor in hitting this recent milestone.

The team shared internal documents and figures with Decrypt that show that SonicX has reached millions of views across numerous TikTok advertising efforts—a portion of which has converted to active users. Decrypt also viewed SonicX’s Google Analytics and internal analytics data, both of which align with the player numbers reported by the developers.

The team has yet to officially state that an airdrop is tied to in-game progress. That said, Sonic SVM confirmed that a token generation event (TGE) is on the way.

“SonicX will continue to be in the mining phase until our TGE—aimed for Q4 2024, or Q1 2025 latest,” Chris Zhu, the co-founder and CEO of Sonic SVM, told Decrypt. “That said, the mining will continue with a differentiated reward mechanism post-TGE.”

The “mining phase” is typically used to describe the period where tap-to-earn games track player progress and account for it in the upcoming airdrop. When the mining phase ends, this usually means that player data is being recorded via a snapshot, and that eligible players will be rewarded with tokens via an airdrop. 

While 1 million players is nothing to scoff at, it still pales in comparison to the 300 million players that Hamster Kombat reportedly gained on Telegram earlier this year. But Zhu believes that SonicX’s users could be of a “higher quality” due to know your customer (KYC) requirements.

“TikTok users require phone numbers and identity verification for KYC, while products on Telegram don’t,” Zhu explained. “[This is] effectively bringing higher quality registration into Solana and Sonic.”

Interest in Hamster Kombat has started to wane following the game’s airdrop, and it’s not the only Telegram game to struggle with retaining users after handing out rewards.

SonicX aims to avoid this by using the TikTok app as an “app layer” for other projects to integrate into. Telegram tap-to-earn project Notcoin has employed a similar strategy, partnering with other projects (like Flappy Bird) to expand its offerings. 

“Hamster Kombat is a single game that garnered a lot of traction in a short period of time,” Zhu told Decrypt. “We are building SonicX as an ‘app layer,’ meaning we're not only having users play our game, but also enable other games to use SonicX as a distribution platform.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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Telegram tap-to-earn game MemeFi is gearing up to launch its token after multiple delays and a shift to the Sui network. With two days left before the game takes a snapshot of player activity to determine token allocations, the developers have announced a last-chance opportunity for players to juice their share of the drop.

Ahead of the snapshot on Friday, November 15, MemeFi players can earn triple the rewards from partnered earning campaigns within the game. That includes tasks like playing games from other Telegram developers, signing up for an account at crypto exchange OKX, or following specific crypto-centric community channels on the messaging app.

None of these tasks tie into MemeFi’s core tap-to-earn fighting gameplay, which sees you pummeling various meme-inspired enemies on your smartphone or tablet. However, they have been a big part of the overall MemeFi experience for months now.

In fact, the promotions have increasingly taken up more and more of the game interface in recent weeks as MemeFi’s developers apparently pack the game with connections to other companies and projects. But right now, at least, the partner promos could give players a late boost ahead of the airdrop.

MemeFi plans to launch its token on Sui on November 22, following this week’s snapshot. Originally, the game was building on Ethereum layer-2 network Linea, but said in late October that it would shift to Sui instead and work closely with network creator Mysten Labs to onboard players to the layer-1 ecosystem.

Linea, interestingly, is now gearing up to launch its own token. On Wednesday, a new nonprofit Linea Foundation was established, with plans to debut a token and hold an airdrop for early users sometime in Q1 2025.

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Telegram-based tap-to-earn games have emerged as a significant trend in the cryptocurrency world. These games offer entertaining platforms where users earn rewards through simple tasks. For instance, Hamster Kombat has reached millions of players and executed billions in transaction volume. A new player in this field, Major, stands out with its focus on social interaction.

Major’s Innovative StrategyUnlike other games, Major does not rely on repetitive taps. Instead, it presents players with social tasks such as inviting friends, completing surveys, and engaging in community events. Users who complete these tasks earn “Stars,” providing a more diverse and interactive experience.

Major’s own cryptocurrency, MAJOR token, will be distributed during a community-exclusive airdrop event on November 28. This marks a significant milestone for a community boasting over 30 million members. The tokens are set to be listed on the OKX exchange immediately after the event to ensure liquidity.

Tap-to-earn games attract millions of new users to the Web3 world, thanks to Telegram’s simple interface. Games like Hamster Kombat, Notcoin, and Catizen have achieved success in the sector. Major aims to differentiate itself with mini-games and daily puzzles that emphasize social interaction, allowing users to enjoy while becoming active community members.

The listing of MAJOR token on OKX will create new opportunities for the community. This development is a crucial step for the game’s long-term sustainability. This social interaction-driven structure may set a new trend in the cryptocurrency gaming sector.

Cryptocurrency-based games continue to grow, focusing on social interaction and community involvement. Major aims to carve out its niche in the sector by emphasizing user engagement. This innovative approach could serve as a crucial model for the future of cryptocurrency games.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

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