What is Tap-to-Earn (Tap-to-Earn) games?
“Tap-to-Earn” is a recently popular type of crypto game that has sparked a trend on the messaging app Telegram. The concept of these games is simple – players can launch the game directly on Telegram and then tap on coins or icons in the center of the screen to earn points or in-game currency.
Notcoin is one of the early Tap-to-Earn games and conducted a large-scale token airdrop in May 2024. Another highly popular click game is Hamster Kombat, which officially surpassed 200 million users in June.
Core Elements and Gameplay of Tap-to-Earn Games
Of course, this is just the core concept of Tap-to-Earn, and many similar games have developed other interesting gameplay features. In addition to tapping, most games also include missions and upgrades. Missions refer to actions specified by the game developer that allow players to earn a large number of points or coins at once, such as joining the game’s Telegram group or following the game developer on Twitter.
Upgrades involve increasing the level of certain skills or items to earn additional points. Some Tap-to-Earn games, such as Hamster Kombat or Musk Empire, also use upgrades to increase passive income numbers.
What Tap-to-Earn projects are there?
Notcoin
Notcoin is easy to play – simply tap on the coins on the screen to start mining coins, and completing missions can increase rewards. It can be said that there is no threshold to start “Tap-to-Earn”.
Click here to see detailed information about Notcoin
Hamster Kombat
In Hamster Kombat, players play as a hamster CEO managing their own exchange. Besides earning game points by clicking on the hamsters on the screen, players can also earn more rewards through daily missions, unlocking skills, and more.
Click here to see detailed information about Hamster Kombat
Musk Empire
In Musk Empire, players can earn game money by clicking and can also increase passive income by upgrading the skills or traits of the virtual Musk, thereby increasing the accumulation speed of money. The skills and traits in Musk Empire are very humanized, such as sleep, nutrition, exercise, mental power can be upgraded, and even personal and social skills have many detailed options, including critical thinking ability, empathy, charity, etc.
Click here to see detailed information about Musk Empire
What makes these games attractive?
The gameplay of Tap-to-Earn games is very simple, and for Telegram users, there is no need to download another app. These games are popular in the crypto community mainly because the game points accumulated by players make them eligible for future crypto airdrops, which can be exchanged for real cash – meaning earning money by tapping.
A common feature of these Telegram Tap-to-Earn games is that they have already launched or are expected to launch tokens on The Open Network (TON) chain.
What is the TON chain?
TON is a blockchain network integrated with Telegram.
Initially, Telegram was the driving force behind TON, and in 2018, Telegram decided to issue its own token, Gram, and develop the blockchain network “Telegram Open Network (TON)” to support the token. Telegram initiated two rounds of private placements at the time, raising $1.7 billion, which then sparked a buying frenzy.
However, due to the enthusiastic response from the public, regulatory authorities became concerned. In October 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) considered the private placements as securities issuances, requiring compliance with SEC regulations. After the SEC filed a lawsuit, Telegram struggled for several months and eventually abandoned the project to avoid regulatory uncertainties.
In 2021, community members decided to take over the project and established the TON Foundation to continue development, allowing users to transfer cryptocurrencies directly through Telegram.
Why are games eyeing the TON ecosystem?
By launching tokens on TON, these games can reach Telegram’s massive user base of over 900 million. Compared to most crypto games or apps, the user experience is much simpler, as these games typically airdrop tokens in the later stages, so users do not need to set up a crypto wallet before playing. As long as you have Telegram, you can start tapping and earning in the games.
How do operators and KOLs view the Tap-to-Earn trend?
Sébastien Borget, co-founder of the metaverse platform The Sandbox, stated in an interview with the media outlet “Cointelegraph” that games like Hamster Kombat on the Telegram platform are growing rapidly, demonstrating the speed of innovation and how these games are changing the way players earn income. This also shows how Web3 is rapidly expanding industries to an incredible scale.
Senior cryptocurrency trader “Mr. Wang” shared that the ecology on the TON chain relies heavily on Telegram users, as it has the advantage of having the largest global user base for a messaging app. The game mode of Tap-to-Earn is very easy to get started for both traditional users and players in the crypto space, with almost no entry barriers – the only barrier is knowing that these games exist.
He added that in the previous bull market, the battle royale game Thetan Arena and the Tap-to-Earn game STEPN successfully gained popularity. Currently, mini-apps on Telegram seem to be taking the lead and have successfully driven the heat of the TON ecosystem.
Alvin, founder of the self-media brand “Daily Coin Research,” analyzed that some large Tap-to-Earn games like Notcoin and Pixelverse have received funding. However, apart from these funded projects, competition is more intense for other similar small game teams, and most of the earnings may not meet expectations. Moreover, many players use bots to operate Tap-to-Earn games, making it difficult for ordinary players to surpass or achieve high profits. Nevertheless, even without the need to invest money to play, these games still attract users to participate enthusiastically.
Sources:
Decrypt, Transak, CoinGecko