In the past, the crypto and blockchain sphere has witnessed the emergence of interesting concepts like walk-to-earn, play-to-earn, and learn-to-earn among many others. These concepts to an extent have helped in the onboarding of new users to the virtual assets industry. However, a new genre; tap-to-earn has taken the crypto market and the world alike by storm, offering users a fascinating way of getting involved in the digital assets sphere.
Mostly rooted in Telegram, tap-to-earn projects are a new niche of games that operates on a simple system; tap on a coin to earn points that are redeemable for cryptocurrency. Also, some games come with a system that rewards players directly with free tokens. While most of these games come in a different variation, still, their core concept remains the same.
How Tap-to-earn Games Came Into Spotlight
It is worth mentioning that this new genre gained massive attention when NotCoin carried out an airdrop campaign for players of its tap-to-earn game. The project distributed more than 80 billion NOT tokens among its users. By distributing such massive amounts of tokens in the launching effort, many players earned free crypto through NotCoin.
The success of the NotCoin spurred the influx of games with the tap-to-earn concept, which eventually kick-started the trend. On the flip side, the sensation of the project also convinced more people to play these games with the focus of winning free tokens. According to Coinmarketcap, NotCoin as a result of its global acceptance has grown into a project worth more than $1.4 billion.
Following the success of NotCoin, projects like Hamster Kombat, TapSwap, PixelVerse, Catizen, and YesCoin, have all launched and recorded massive patronage. Recently, PixelVerse secured $5.5 million in funding from leading top venture capital companies like Delphi Ventures, Bitscale Labs, and Mechanism Capital.
Without a doubt, the funding reflects the growing confidence of investors in the project and the tap-to-earn genre. The fast-growing user base and increasing attention of investors on the concept have raised questions about why tap-to-earn games are trending.
Why Are Tap-to-earn Games Trending
One of the major reasons why these projects are enjoying explosive popularity is their simple gaming model. These games opted against exquisite gameplay, embracing a simple game style. Tap-to-earn games operate on a straightforward model that requires players to message a Telegram bot to start the game.
Consequently, the bot will respond by loading the game within the Telegram app, then players will have to tap a coin or a similar symbol to earn points or the in-game token. As a result of their direct gameplay, players often enjoy a good user experience as the games don’t require any expertise, skills, or rigorous setup process.
Don’t forget that most of these games don’t carry out their token distribution process until the later stages of their roadmap. Therefore, at inception, players are not required to set up a crypto wallet to play the game, allowing them to earn game points almost instantly.
Presenting itself as one of the easiest pathways to the crypto space, most tap-to-earn games don’t require players to make any financial commitment. Instead, the game concept rewards players for their commitment in regard to the number of their taps.
Similarly, these games enjoy the support of The Open Network (TON), one of the fastest-growing networks integrated with Telegram. Having Telegram as their base also helps some of these games and their in-game tokens enjoy the support of TON. By that, these projects mostly rely on the viral nature of Telegram which has more than 900 million users, and the growing adoption of TON.
As one of their core fundamentals, most tap-to-earn games often carry out airdrop campaigns which is an avenue for players to earn free crypto. Hence, as a result of people’s appetite for airdrops, players often jump on most tap-to-earn games to win free tokens.
Conclusion
With projects like Hamster Kombat and NotCoin boasting of having more than 140 million users combined, tap-to-earn is showing strong indications that it is here to stay. These projects keep welcoming new users on a daily basis due to their incentive-based model, smooth user experience, simple gameplay, and the support of Telegram.
Beyond any reasonable doubt, tap-to-earn games are swiftly establishing themselves as the next big thing in the crypto sector. The new niche is a testament to how crypto and most especially blockchain technology can help developers to combine earning and entertainment for their target users. Lastly, these games highlight how the capability of the blockchain extends beyond finance.