Telegram: The Perfect Platform To Nurture Web3 Gaming
The global market for GameFi games, or games built on the blockchain, is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27.3% from 2022 to 2028, reaching $4.8 billion by the end of that year. Surprisingly, the Telegram messaging app is expected to be at the center of that growth.
Telegram started its life as a simple messaging service to rival the likes of WhatsApp, Line and Viber, with a strong focus on encryption and user privacy, but quickly evolved to become a major social media platform. Its novel “Channels” feature allows anyone, including individuals and businesses, to start a channel that can be either public or private, hosting massive group chats where almost anything can be shared and debated.
More recently, Telegram evolved again, integrating with the Ton blockchain and creating a fast-growing hub of mini-games that have driven a rapid expansion in user growth. At the last count, Telegram reported having over 950 million users globally.
The Rise Of Telegram Mini-Games
GameFi is thought to be one of the major factors behind Telegram’s growth. GameFi refers to video games that are hosted on blockchains – in the case of Telegram, that blockchain is Ton – so that users can earn real money in the form of cryptocurrency. In addition, in-game items such as characters, weapons, power-ups and so on, can be represented by NFTs, allowing gamers to own these assets.
The concept of in-game asset ownership and rewards exploded during the COVID-21 pandemic throughout 2021, with hit games like Axie Infinity taking the world by storm. It was especially popular in Southeast Asia, becoming a big hit in countries like the Philippines, where some players were reportedly earning hundreds, even thousands of dollars per month from playing every day.
Play-to-earn games, as they’re also known, are still relatively niche due to the complexities of crypto and blockchain. However, that is rapidly changing thanks to the efforts of Telegram, which is closely integrated with the Ton blockchain and helps to streamline the onboarding process by abstracting that complexity away.
Ton’s integration with Telegram means that developers have a ready-made blockchain on which they can build their games, and more importantly mint their digital assets. Moreover, anyone who signs up to Telegram automatically gets a Ton-based crypto wallet, which they can use to store their in-game tokens.
Tokenization is critical to the popularity of Telegram games as it means players have an incentive to encourage them to keep on playing. Players can earn daily rewards in crypto, and the better they perform, the more rewards they get. These rewards can then be spent on various in-game items and accessories that help to boost their reward-earning potential. Because players own their in-game assets, they can upgrade them with their rewards. This helps to create value for the in-game tokens.
Players can invest in the game, but unlike traditional video games, where the “bits” they buy always belong to the game developer, they can sell their items when they no longer want to play the game. This ensures they can always recoup their investment.
Ton makes the process simple. Because players get access to a ready-made wallet in the Telegram app, there’s no need to learn about the process of wallet management, store seed phrases or work out how to buy and sell crypto on an exchange. Everything is done within Telegram’s streamlined, Web2-style interface.
Tap-to-Earn: Simple Yet Highly Addictive
Besides enabling in-game asset ownership and rewards, Telegram games are known to be simple and extremely addictive. One of the top game genres on Telegram is the “tap-to-earn” game, which is easy to learn and enables players to earn big rewards through simple, repetitive tapping.
With tap-to-earn games, players simply tap on the screen repeatedly in order to complete various tasks and challenges and take part in battles. The major appeal lies in the simplicity of the game’s mechanics, which requires minimal cognitive effort. Players simply pick up and play during idle moments, earning crypto as they go.
One of the most famous tap-to-earn games is Hamster Kombat, which launched in March 2024 and quickly grew its user base to more than 200 million. It’s a casual game that sees the player take the role of a hamster, who’s the CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange, but the gameplay itself simply involves tapping to succeed. The more you tap, the more HAMSTER tokens you can earn.
Looking to expand on this concept is the new tap-to-earn game Lucky Fanatic, launched by the GameFi platform company Funtico. The game revolves around the concept of energy and tries to build on the addictiveness of simply tapping with more enticing rewards. Each players begins with 500 units of energy, which is required to tap and earn the game’s FUNZ tokens. One tap earns 3 FUNZ, and as the player ranks up and rises to a higher level, they’ll earn even more FUNZ per tap.
Once the player’s energy has expired, they’ll no longer be able to earn FUNZ when they tap, but fortunately their energy level constantly replenishes itself at a rate of 500 units every five minutes. This encourages the player to keep returning to the game throughout the day, and they can increase their total energy beyond the 500 units cap by leveling up. The more they play, the more energy they get and the more rewards they can earn.
The other aspect of the game is Cards, which are earned by tapping and can generate FUNZ passively even when the player is offline. Cards can be upgraded by spending FUNZ, with the goal being to acquire Jokers that represent the pinnacle of the game, promising rich future rewards.
It’s a great example of how Telegram games can tap into the “reward feedback loop”, which encourages players to keep on playing by providing them with a flow of incentives. This stimulates the brain’s pleasure center, releasing dopamine that fuels their addictiveness and keeps them coming back for more.
Mini-Games For Every Gamer
Tap-to-earn is far from being the only kind of game available on Telegram. In fact, the app’s mini-games ecosystem caters to gamers of every type, with various kinds of genres available in its growing catalog of games.
For instance, Drift Zone’s flagship game, Drift Zone: Origins, is a highly addictive collectible card-based battle game based on Gacha mechanics and combining Web3 mechanics. Players are encouraged to collect a variety of cards that represent characters, known as “Drifters”. They do this by opening Dimension Cubes, which can only be unlocked by spending Drift Tokens or DT, the in-game currency.
These Drifters represent characters that can be used to battle other human opponents, with the winner of each battle earning DT rewards. Those rewards can then be spent to upgrade each Drifter, increasing the player’s chances of winning so they can accumulate more DT and unlock more Dimension Cubes.
Telegram Makes Web3 Games Accessible
Telegram is encouraging a new generation of players to explore the world of blockchain gaming for the first time. It makes GameFi accessible to players who have no knowledge of blockchain at all.
The Ton blockchain also caters to Web2 developers that want an easy way to enhance their games with Web3 mechanics. By using platforms like Funtico, developers can focus on what they know, with the more confusing aspects such as token and NFT creation being handled by the underlying platform.
Moreover, Telegram’s massive user base, which is fast approaching one billion, provides an enormous, ready-made audience that has shown it’s eager to engage with blockchain games.
Unlike other hype cycles in the crypto industry, the rise of Telegram gaming looks to be different. By making it simple to create and manage a crypto wallet, earn and spend crypto, and take control of valuable in-game assets, Telegram dramatically simplifies the onboarding experience.
As a mainstream application with close to a billion users worldwide, Telegram is proving to be a game-changer for Web3 gaming.
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About The Author
Gregory, a digital nomad hailing from Poland, is not only a financial analyst but also a valuable contributor to various online magazines. With a wealth of experience in the financial industry, his insights and expertise have earned him recognition in numerous publications. Utilising his spare time effectively, Gregory is currently dedicated to writing a book about cryptocurrency and blockchain.
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Gregory, a digital nomad hailing from Poland, is not only a financial analyst but also a valuable contributor to various online magazines. With a wealth of experience in the financial industry, his insights and expertise have earned him recognition in numerous publications. Utilising his spare time effectively, Gregory is currently dedicated to writing a book about cryptocurrency and blockchain.
