Meet Catton, another standout team in the TON Giants series.

This feline-themed platform combines AI-powered gaming with decentralized finance (DeFi), turning traditional gameplay into a rewarding experience while making blockchain more accessible to wider audiences.

At The Open League Summer 2024 Hackathon, Catton stole the spotlight by prioritizing user growth and engagement. A key pillar of their strategy was simplifying the use of Web3 wallets, an approach that earned them a KuCoin prize.

They also worked closely with partners like Wcoin, Bitget, Genesisweb3, TonGifts, and SecondLive, and tapped into the TON developer community to grow their user base. These efforts led to impressive results: over 600,000 social media users, 454,000 players, and 192,000 on-chain transactions.

For anyone eyeing upcoming hackathons, Catton’s journey is one to watch.

Can you start by introducing your team and sharing how you came together for the Summer Hackathon?

Our team consists of 10 engineers who have been developing Web3 applications since 2020. We have completed multiple projects in the crypto industry, including liquidity platforms, crypto exchanges, NFT GameFi projects, and perpetual decentralized exchanges (Perp DEXs). We are also one of the top game studios in Southeast Asia with 100 million users and ~1M DAU, established in 2015. We have released various games, from casual and mid-core to hybrid casual, with dozens of games published on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

What initially motivated your team to participate in the TON Summer Hackathon, and what inspired the project that ultimately led to your win?

We see the potential for mass adoption of Telegram and TON. With Telegram's massive user base of almost 1 billion users, transitioning them to TON presents a huge opportunity. Based on that, we created Catton to attract users and strategized to get them to use Web3 wallets and sign transactions, generating good traction and growth.

For those of you who were new to the Summer Hackathon, how did your previous hackathon experiences influence your approach this time around?

We prioritized building strong traction; the numbers will prove the effectiveness of the project's strategy. Here are our current metrics:

• 600,000+ social users
• 454,000+ in-game users
• 192,000+ on-chain transactions

During the development process, what were some of the key challenges you faced while building on the TON blockchain, and how did you work through them?

The main challenge was attracting users. In the early stages, it's difficult for new projects to get users' attention among thousands of projects on TON. We contacted partners and did cross-task marketing to attract the initial 10,000 users, and from there, we sought similar partners to launch campaigns to increase users gradually.

Were there any particular tools or features on the TON blockchain that proved especially helpful in developing your project? What resources would you recommend future Hackers League entrants make the most of?

The most helpful was the developer support community—interacting with other builders in TON’s developer and hackathon groups and participating in TON Society events to gain insights and understand what TON Foundation is looking for from projects. Also, the SDK documentation helps add TON Blockchain into a game, showing users how they can interact with the blockchain.

Looking back, what was the most rewarding part of the Summer Hackathon for your team, and how do you think this experience has contributed to where your project is now?

The biggest reward we received after the Summer Hackathon was support from TON Nest: doing an AMA with TON Society, participating in pitches with TON Ventures, TON Foundation, TON Accelerator, TON Grants, The Open League, and receiving mentorship support. This helped us gain more user recognition and facilitated our fundraising process, such as being incubated by Forj, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands.

Finally, what advice would you give to those looking to participate in the upcoming Hackers League Hackathon?

1. You should find out what TON needs and focus on identifying which pieces are currently missing.
2. Participate in AMAs, Spaces, and events on TON Society to grasp insights from TON and thereby set the right direction for your product.
3. You should create traction metrics even when your project is still an MVP; this is an advantage as it demonstrates that your model works well.

This interview is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement, approval, or recommendation of the project. The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of TON Foundation. This is not investment advice.