Expectations weren’t high when Notcoin launched two months ago. It is a simple TON-based meme coin built inside a Telegram Mini App that allows players to mine Notcoin by tapping a coin icon.

At the start of 2024, Notcoin launched the live version of their game and reached a staggering 4.1M players within a week, surpassing the rest of the GameFi market combined.

In this article, we will look at Notcoin’s rise to virality and its mechanics, explore the gameplay, and discuss what’s next for TON’s biggest game.

Notcoin’s Rise to 4 Million Players

The Notcoin beta launched in mid-November 2023 as a simple clicker Telegram Mini App game developed by a little-known team with no major projects on record. It was launched as a meme coin based on zero expectations, no whitepaper, and little to no information on the game available. The team explained the premise of Notcoin in one sentence: “Notcoin is probably nothing.”

Within the first month, Notcoin reached almost 500K players and, during the beta version, reached over 650K players who mined more than 60 billion Notcoin. With the official version of Notcoin launched on January 1, 2024, the player base has already reached 4.1M players who mined almost 1.2 trillion Notcoin altogether.

Fun fact: Notcoin reached 1M users faster than ChatGPT

By gaining 500K players in less than a month, Notcoin surpassed legendary GameFi projects such as STEPN and Axie Infinity, which were two of the most anticipated and played projects in GameFi’s short history.

Even more incredibly, this was achieved without spending a single dollar on advertising, and it was all accomplished directly within Telegram, relying solely on the engagement and interactions of Telegram users.

Their virality trick is so simple yet amazing – remove all onboarding requirements, allow every Telegram user to play with no investment required, and reward users for referring their friends. This shows that removing as many onboarding obstacles as possible is the only way to reach mass adoption. Notcoin didn’t force their potential players to jump through hoops to play the game; they brought Notcoin to players and made it possible for them to start playing in seconds. This is an extremely rare and underrated aspect among GameFi projects and potentially Notcoin’s secret recipe for success.

Notcoin Gameplay

As mentioned above, Notcoin’s gameplay is as straightforward as it can get. All you need to do is open Telegram, search for Notcoin, and start mining.

Let’s look at the basic principles of Notcoin’s gameplay. Please note that you can only play Notcoin on a mobile device.

Tap-2-Earn

At the core of Notcoin’s gameplay is their tap-2-earn mechanism, where you simply mine new Notcoin to your player profile by tapping the Notcoin icon in the middle of the screen. Each tap rewards you with a specific amount of Notcoin, starting at 1 Notcoin per tap. The number of Notcoin you can mine per session is limited, starting at 1,000 Notcoin and refreshing based on your purchased boosts.

Boosts & Boosters

Boosts are upgrades that you can purchase with your Notcoin balance and apply to your player profile. With Boosts, you can increase the number of Notcoin per tap, decrease the recovery time, increase your maximum Notcoin energy, and more.

When you purchase a boost, the price will be deducted from your total Notcoin balance, and the upgrade will be immediately applied to your profile. Each purchase increases the price, requiring you to spend more on each boost.

• Multitap: Increase the number of Notcoin mined per tap
• Energy Limits: Increase the number of Notcoin you can mine per session, adding to your total energy limit
• Recharging Speed: Decrease the time it takes for your Notcoin energy limit to restore
• Auto Tap Bot 2.0: Automatically mines Notcoin, consuming your energy limit whenever you’re offline for over 60 minutes. Auto tap bot 2.0 requires you to be in a Silver League.

In addition to boosts, you can use temporary Boosters that increase your Notcoin per tap for a short period of time, immediately recharge your full energy limit, and more.

For example, the 3x Turbo Booster triples your number of Notcoin per tap, and you can activate it manually in the game’s interface. Occasionally, a booster will appear on your screen in the form of a rocket. If you tap the icon, you will receive a Trubo Booster without having to use your free daily boosters. Some boosters can only be activated if you meet the requirements, such as holding Toncoin in your wallet or using TON Inscriptions, while other boosters refresh on a daily basis.

Earn

In addition to mining Notcoin, there are ways to grow your Notcoin holdings with the Earn functionality.

Earn allows you to receive significant rewards for completing simple tasks such as inviting friends to join the game via your referral link, joining a squad, or reaching milestones such as entering the Silver League or activating Telegram Premium.

Earn tasks are split into three main categories:

• Onboarding: This category is based purely on the referral functionality, where you receive rewards by joining a squad or inviting your friends to play Notcoin.
• Specials: These one-off tasks reward you for reaching major achievements, holding specific NFTs, or interacting with affiliated projects. Specials are time-limited, so complete them as soon as you can before they disappear.
• Web3 World: You can also earn rewards by interacting with the Web3 ecosystem on TON.

Referrals

Referrals are at the core of Notcoin’s viral growth, allowing enthusiastic players on Telegram to share their referral links with their friends. By doing so, both the referrer and the referral receive a number of Notcoin as a reward, and each effectively becomes an ambassador for the game.

The simplicity and effectiveness of this mechanism cannot be overstated; it is seamlessly integrated into the gaming experience, feeling like a natural part of the gameplay rather than a separate promotional task.

Squads

Notcoin’s Squads feature represents an organic evolution within the game, largely spurred on by the viral referral system. This community-driven aspect of Notcoin plays a pivotal role in enhancing player engagement and collaboration. Each squad is linked to a specific Telegram channel or chat and has its own leaderboard showcasing the top players daily and weekly.

Friends introduced to the game through personal referrals naturally form squads who band together and pool resources with a dual purpose: to maximize Notcoin earnings and to represent their favorite Telegram channels or groups. Squads add another viral layer to Notcoin’s gameplay by introducing competitiveness, encouraging players to compete against each other and against other squads.

Is Notcoin minted yet?

This famous phrase is quite common among the Notcoin community, eagerly awaiting the minting of Notcoin on TON Blockchain. At the moment of publishing, Notcoin isn’t minted yet and still exists only as an in-game asset with no real value. However, both CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko already list Notcoin, possibly indicating the upcoming mint and launch of the token.

Conclusion

Overall, Notcoin’s rapid rise to fame with over 4.1 million players within just a week of the official launch is a testament to the power of simplicity, accessibility, and community engagement in GameFi.

Notcoin’s unique tap-2-earn mechanism, coupled with features like boosts, boosters, referrals, and squads, has created a highly addictive and viral gaming experience entirely based on the Telegram Mini Apps platform.

Many players await with bated breath the expected minting of Notcoin, and at this point, all that remains to be said is: Notcoin is probably nothing.