Notcoin Was the Warm-Up. The Real Telegram Gaming Wave Is Just Getting Started.
The tap-to-earn era taught us one thing: Telegram is a huge crypto distribution channel. Hundreds of millions of users, native payments via TON, frictionless onboarding.
But honestly, tap-to-earn was never sustainable. Players tapped for tokens that crashed sooner or later.
No real gameplay. No real economy. No reason to stay.
The next wave on Telegram isn't tap-to-earn imho. It's create-to-earn.
Here's the shift: instead of paying players to tap, the platform rewards players who create: levels, challenges, content — everything others want to play.
When other players spend in their creation, they earn.
Simple and real economic loops.
This is what Roblox built into a $40B business on mobile. What Fortnite Creative pays out hundreds of millions for.
Telegram has every ingredient to do this better than any of them:
- 900M+ users with the app already open
- TON-native payments built into the platform
- Native sharing primitives that make games viral inside groups
- Mini-app infrastructure that loads instantly
The first generation of Telegram games (Notcoin, Hamster Kombat) proved distribution works. They had 50M+ users each.
The second generation has started to ship. Games where the loop is sustainable because every TON earned by a creator was actually paid by a player who got value.
Examples building this thesis right now:
- Nexus Dash (NexusDashGameBot): retro-style level-creator where players design and share levels. Creators earn from plays.
- Puff Pals (PuffPalsBot): bubble-shooter with community-built worlds. Same model.
This is early.
Most builders haven't pivoted from tap-to-earn yet.
The opportunity window is small but the ceiling is enormous.
The next breakout Telegram game won't reward you for tapping.
It'll reward you for creating something other players want.
Watch this space.