Original author: WolfDAO
Reprinted by: Daisy, Mars Finance
On August 7, 2024, TON coin was officially launched on Binance, which attracted strong attention from the market. As a rapidly expanding blockchain platform, the TON ecosystem has attracted the attention of a large number of investors and developers. Previously, Binance had launched the Not token, and the Not token performed strongly after the launch, and the price quickly doubled, which laid the foundation for the successful launch of TON. With the favorable stimulus of TON, where are the future investment opportunities? This article will be based on several airdrop activities that are just around the corner, and discuss with you these game projects that you can expect to be listed even if you miss the airdrop.
TON Ecosystem Game Track: Viral Spread and Practical “Explosive Potential”
In the vast universe of blockchain, if you want to find a field that is most likely to trigger a "viral outbreak", it must be the game track. Game projects in the TON ecosystem can instantly become the "breakthrough king" in the ecosystem with their magical appeal and super social communication power. Moreover, compared with other blockchain projects, because they have practical applications (no matter how boring the game is), games have certain advantages in dealing with supervision and designing economic models.
The "golden combination" of entertainment and social interaction: backed by the TG ecosystem, and with the setting that only by recruiting people can props or levels be unlocked, games + social interaction = extremely toxic.
Zero threshold, no pressure to get started: The design of games in the TON ecosystem is mainly based on clicking and sliding. The functions are simple and easy to operate, the tasks are easy to complete, and it is easy to form rapid user spread.
Reward mechanism: Most users don’t care whether the game is fun or not, but rather participate with the expectation of airdrops.
In the TON ecosystem, gaming projects are definitely an area worth focusing on due to their ease of dissemination, ease of implementation, and the "free play" of economic models. Next, let's take a look at which gaming projects in the TON ecosystem are worth paying attention to recently.
The king of TON ecosystem traffic: earn money by clicking?
1. Catizen
Catizen was developed by Pluto Studio (which announced Binance Labs’ investment in the team on July 23). The theme is cat cafe management. Players click to synthesize cats of the same level to upgrade. The higher the level, the higher the reward. Since its launch in January 2024, this game has performed quite well.
The game has become one of the fastest growing games on Telegram. It is reported that the in-game revenue exceeds $10 million. It has more than 15 million game users and more than 3.5 million daily active users (DAU), and the on-chain user conversion rate is stable at 10%.
The game's rapid popularity can be attributed to its early entry and the promotion of behind-the-scenes capital. The game's playability and sustainability are not strong, but based on the expectation of its airdrop, it still attracts a large number of long-term users. With nearly 1 billion users interacting with Telegram robots and applets every month, Catizen benefits from Telegram's broad user base and features that support secure, decentralized transactions. In addition, the explosive growth of other Telegram games such as Notcoin, TapSwap, and Hamster Kombat has also helped to increase interest in Catizen games.
The game was originally scheduled to airdrop in July 2024, distributing 43% of the total CATI tokens, but Catizen's airdrop plan has recently encountered delays because the development team is optimizing key elements of the token launch, including ensuring support from major exchanges, ensuring liquidity, and determining listing prices. In addition, market sentiment and compliance issues also led to this delay.
2. Hamster Kombat
Hamster Kombat is also a business game. The player acts as the CEO of a centralized exchange. He obtains gold coins by clicking and uses the gold coins to upgrade the exchange's team, compliance, products, activities, etc., in order to increase the exchange's hourly revenue.
Hamster Kombat’s Telegram channel has over 53.06 million subscribers, and the viral clicker game has attracted over 1 billion players since its launch in March 2024. Hamster Kombat also has some notable metrics, including reaching 100 million monthly users in just 73 days. According to Telegram’s founder, the Telegram mini app has 4-5 million new users joining every day, and has reached 50 million daily active users, making it a phenomenal game.
The game was originally scheduled to airdrop the token HMSTR in July, but due to technical problems and the risk of network overload, the airdrop was forced to be postponed. The official early disclosure would use hourly revenue as the standard for airdrop distribution. But according to the latest airdrop rules disclosed on August 8, all in-game activities will be accumulated into airdrop points: players can obtain airdrop points by completing money-making tasks, achievements, telegram subscriptions, friend recommendations, etc. At the same time, a Hamster Kombat spokesperson pointed out that airdrop qualifications are also related to the game cycle, community interaction, overall social activities and the quality of invited players. The more players there are, the greater the rewards, and he made a harsh statement: "The upcoming HMSTR airdrop will be the largest in the history of cryptocurrency. And we don't have any venture capitalists. The only way to get tokens is to play games."
3. PixelTap by Pixelverse
PixelTap is a Tap-to-Earn mini-game developed by Pixelverse.
On June 12, it received $5.5 million in financing, with major investors including Merit Circle, Mechanism Capital, Foresight Ventures and other well-known investment institutions. Players earn tokens by clicking on the screen and buy robots to increase daily income. The game also allows players to fight in real time, and the winner can get more PIXFI tokens.
As of August 9, 2024, PixelTap has 20.5 million users and 3.2 million followers on Twitter. As the first project to airdrop among the three popular games, the token was airdropped on July 18, and the token is expected to be officially launched on August 30. On August 9, the daily "Daily Combo" function was launched to help players accumulate a large number of tokens. This mechanism not only increases the stickiness of players to the game, but also paves the way for the successful launch of the token.
The team also has a certain strength in publicity and promotion:
Its first NFT series has a minting volume of over 170,000, making it the largest PFP NFT series on TON.
A recent partnership with Jambo plans to expand PixelTap games to 126 countries, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia.
TON Ecosystem Market Overview: The driving force of the market after the airdrop
In the TON ecological game, airdrops are a key factor in stimulating market interest, especially for different types of user groups. The main user portraits are:
Professional hair removal users:
Such users are often the main promoters of airdrop activities. They have high technical capabilities and organized strategies. After the airdrop is over, such users may quickly cash out, causing short-term token price fluctuations. However, their deep participation will also increase the user activity of the game and form a strong publicity effect in the community.
Web3 users and Telegram native users:
These users are more concerned about the gaming experience, and the fluctuations in the token value after the airdrop will affect their retention rate. If the token price is stable or rising, they may continue to participate and drive the secondary spread of the game. If the price falls, some users may churn, but since they are not completely dependent on the airdrop income, the impact is relatively small.
Outsiders who were passively invited by Pinduoduo:
These users usually have low interest in games, but due to their large number, airdrops may attract them to participate in the short term. However, after the airdrop ends, if there is no other attraction (such as continued income or entertainment), their churn rate may be high. Therefore, these users have a greater driving force on the market in the short term, but their long-term impact is limited.
Summarize
The click-based lightweight games on TON are popular due to their low barriers to entry and the introduction of the P2E model, especially the games built into Telegram, which have more dissemination advantages. Although the rules of these games are simple and the benefits are predictable, their long-term success still depends on user retention and continued community participation.
Airdrops can bring short-term user growth, but the actual playability and long-term profit potential of the game are the key to whether these projects can gain a foothold in the market. These traffic focuses that have already occupied the attention obviously understand this. Whether it is Hamster, PixelTap or Catizen, regardless of the current playability, they have drawn a relatively grand blueprint for users in the roadmap. If you need to continue to pay attention to the TON ecosystem, you might as well start with these projects.
