Just days after Hamster Kombat launched its HMSTR token, another prominent Telegram game called X Empire has also completed its gameplay phase before launching its token and airdropping it to players.

X Empire, a game inspired by Elon Musk, allows players to earn in-game currency through a tap-to-earn mechanic and then invest it in various upgrades for Musk and his businesses. The game officially ended its “mining phase” on Monday, as planned, and will be paused until the token is released.

At the end of its first phase, the developers of X Empire – formerly known as Musk Empire – said the game had attracted nearly 48 million players and users had minted about 570,000 NFTs, allowing them to withdraw a portion of the airdrop rewards for pre-market trading.

Tap-to-earn games on Telegram are becoming a major phenomenon in the crypto space in 2024. Hamster Kombat attracted up to 300 million players before its recent airdrop, while Notcoin has launched a token with a market capitalization of nearly $3 billion, ranking among the world's 100 largest coins. The tap-to-earn model, with its ever-increasing variations, is raising questions about its sustainability.

The timing of the airdrop and launch of the game’s X token on The Open Network (TON) remains unclear. A Telegram community announcement said the next move would happen “very soon,” while Telegram’s mini app said “token distribution” was “in progress,” without providing further details.

This is an important shift for tap-to-earn games on Telegram, as some of the big apps in the space stop issuing tokens and switch to rewarding players, while trying to retain them for the next phase with more attractive rewards.

A new era for Telegram crypto games is beginning. Following the launch and token airdrop of Hamster Kombat, the game is currently on a short “pause” before expanding its future plans. Players are now looking for the next hot game to join, even if it doesn’t have its own token yet.

Catizen kicked off the recent boom on September 20, followed by Rocky Rabbit on September 23, and Hamster Kombat on September 26. Now, X Empire is looking to continue this positive trend as a new wave of games is emerging on Telegram.