Written by: Stella L (stella@footprint.network)
In 2024, the mass adoption of blockchain games has an unexpected catalyst: Telegram. As major public chains compete to deploy this instant messaging platform with a massive user base, a core question emerges: Can this user acquisition strategy bring real sustainable growth, or just create a short-lived data bubble?
The rise of Telegram gaming
The Telegram gaming revolution began with Notcoin’s simple “tap-to-earn” mechanism, which quickly proved the platform’s great potential as an entry point to Web3. This success triggered a chain reaction throughout the blockchain ecosystem.
What started as a simple gaming experiment on TON has evolved into a full-blown competition. Aptos took the lead, with its Telegram game Tapos pushing the on-chain daily transaction volume past the 50 million mark in August. This breakthrough has triggered a chain reaction, with public chains such as Sui, Core, Starknet, and Matchain joining the fray, launching their own Telegram game-related projects.
This trend quickly attracted the attention of mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges. Binance took the lead in listing multiple Telegram-based game tokens, including Hamster Kombat and Catizen. Other exchanges followed closely, vying to get a piece of the pie in this emerging track.
Since the second half of 2024, institutional capital has also begun to enter the market in large numbers. It is worth noting that Binance Labs has made a strategic investment in Pluto Studio, the publisher of Catizen games. Animoca Brands' mobile game subsidiary GAMEE (WatBird developer) completed two consecutive rounds of financing in August and other financing events, highlighting the growing confidence of institutional investors in Telegram game-related projects.
The layout and effectiveness of major public chains
In 2024, multiple blockchain networks have launched Telegram games, achieving varying degrees of success in terms of user acquisition and retention. By analyzing the specific data of Core, Sui, and Matchain, we can understand the immediate effectiveness and long-term sustainability of this strategy.
Core: A new attempt in Bitcoin ecology
The Core blockchain is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 public chain powered by Bitcoin. At the end of September 2024, the social game TomTalk was launched on Core, allowing users to earn points through chat behavior within its Telegram applet.
According to Footprint Analytics, TomTalk has made a significant impact on Core. As of November 12, the platform has gained a total of 729,000 users (unique wallet addresses) and generated 757,000 on-chain transactions. During the peak period from October 28th to 31st, DAU (daily active users) reached 80,000, accounting for 14.3% of Core’s total DAU, and the average daily transactions during the same period accounted for 7.6% of the total transaction volume.
Data source: TomTalk daily and cumulative transaction counts
However, after the initial peak, TomTalk’s data showed a significant cooling. By November 12, the game’s daily active users stabilized at around 14,000, daily transaction volume remained at a similar level, and its Telegram mini program had 16,000 monthly active users. This cooling trend highlights the challenge of maintaining user activity.
Sui: The dark horse that continues to rise
Sui is a Move-based public chain known for its high-performance transaction processing. BIRDS was launched on Sui on September 25th, cleverly combining Memecoin elements and GameFi features in this game.
BIRDS has achieved impressive performance, attracting 751,000 unique wallet users and generating 17.7 million transactions on the platform as of November 12. Even more impressive is that BIRDS' influence in the Sui ecosystem continues to rise, with its daily active users increasing from 9.1% to 34.0% (November 12), and the number of transactions increasing from 4.3% to 13.5%.
Data source: BIRDS daily active users
The most striking thing is that, unlike the general downward trend of other Telegram games after their launch, BIRDS has maintained a steady upward trajectory so far. Its Telegram applet has 6.2 million monthly active users, while its average daily active users on Sui Chain in November were 243,000. This gap shows huge user conversion potential and provides ample room for imagination for future growth.
Matchain: A dramatic rise
Matchain, a decentralized AI blockchain focused on data and identity sovereignty, has seen its most dramatic effect with Telegram game integration since its mainnet launch in August 2024.
From a tiny starting point of only 78 daily active users in September, the Matchain gaming section surged to an average of 550,000 daily active users in October, driven by Telegram games such as LOL, Jumper, and Digiverse, and the daily transaction volume also soared from 127 to 565,000.
Matchain had its most glorious moment from October 9 to 13, when its gaming section’s daily active users exceeded 2 million, and hit a record high of 3.3 million users on October 12. Although the data subsequently fell back, it stabilized at 615,000 users at the end of October, and regained its growth momentum in November, reaching 769,000 daily active users. This growth trajectory shows the huge potential of blockchain games based on Telegram in terms of user acquisition.
Data source: Matchain game data
Matchain’s trajectory is perhaps the best example of the potential of Telegram games to drive blockchain adoption — it went from negligible activity to sustained daily active users in the hundreds of thousands in just two months. However, its rapid climb and subsequent stabilization also highlights the challenges of maintaining growth momentum after initial user acquisition.
Advantages and disadvantages of Telegram games
Telegram games have shown amazing efficiency as a blockchain user acquisition channel. Compared with the customer acquisition cost of more than $10 in traditional Web3 channels, and even the customer acquisition expenditure of up to $40-50 in centralized exchanges, Telegram games have reduced the customer acquisition cost to less than $0.1. More importantly, these users generally have a basic understanding of cryptocurrency, and the threshold for converting them into active Web3 participants is relatively low.
However, this seemingly perfect customer acquisition strategy still faces several key challenges. First, the current user composition is highly concentrated in Telegram's advantageous markets, such as Eastern Europe, Africa, South Asia and other emerging market regions. Second, all projects generally face the problem of a sharp decline in user retention rate after the initial launch period. In addition, the large-scale presence of studios and robot activities also requires project parties to invest a lot of energy to ensure the healthy and sustainable development of the ecosystem.
Future Outlook
As the early dividend period comes to an end, blockchain networks need to deploy the Telegram ecosystem more strategically. The key to success lies in creating a combination of viral marketing tools, designing sustainable growth mechanisms, establishing a comprehensive user behavior analysis system, and continuously optimizing customer acquisition funnels and retention strategies.
The Telegram gaming phenomenon is not just a short-term trend, but a paradigm shift in the blockchain user acquisition model. Public chains or other types of Web3 projects that can effectively solve the retention problem while maintaining the advantage of efficient customer acquisition will have an advantage in the next stage of Web3 mass adoption.
Author's statement: The content of this article is only used for industry research and communication, and does not constitute any investment advice. The market is risky, and investment should be cautious.
