Are Telegram Mini Apps a New Global Trend for Crypto?

In recent months, tapping apps on the TON blockchain like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat have gained extremely growing popularity. The number of Hamster users reached 250 million—more than the number of Binance app users (200 mln). Telegram CEO Pavel Durov called TON mini apps “Internet Phenomenon” and marked Hamster Combat's success as a top case. In this article, I’d like to describe the most popular Telegram mini apps, their UI, and marketing mechanics.

Top mini apps

Actually, Telegram mini apps use Play to Earn agenda and may be compared with "clickers" from Steam. The mechanics of such applications are elementary. The user needs to perform specific actions in the application for which they get rewards. The most common action is to make a tap and get native app cryptocurrency. The key advantage of these crypto clickers over the previous generation of Play to Earn games is simplicity.

Notcoin was the first such app in Telegram. Besides tapping, users must specify certain ciphers daily and perform actions, such as subscribing to NOT partner channels. By the way, Notcoin didn't have any gaming plot. Hamster Kombat is different. Based on the HK story, you become CEO of a crypto exchange and get rewards in HMSTR for developing your company. You also get rewarded if you enter secret codes in the form of Morse code (all of them can be found in Telegram).

Notcoin and Hamster Kombat listing

Notcoin currency NOT was listed on Bybit, Binance and other top crypto exchanges. Its price since this May had a high level of volatility with the dip below $0.005 and top level - $0.026 according to CoinMarketCap. The current NOT price is about $0,016. The founder of Notcoin Alex has already spoken in the press about the future development plan of the project - to make something similar to a launchpad for promoactions and startups.

Hamster Kombat listing, due to the very high popularity of this coin, is likely to become one of the significant events for the crypto world in 2024. Most likely, Bybit will be the largest exchange in which this event will take place. After all, Bybit opened HMSTR trading at the pre-market last week.

Among other popular Telegram mini apps we can also mention Catizen, Tapswap, YesCoin and Blum. Catizen and YesCoin have become members of TON Open League and leaders in 4 Season with 1st and 2nd place in the rating. These projects mentioned in the popular channels of the TON ecosystem and show promise, although this is not yet certain.

Which apps are perspective and which NOT?

Most apps' profitability is determined not by their listings and token sales (like it was with previous play to earn games) but by their marketing performance. Utilizing mini apps for advertising and attracting real users through direct integrations is a crucial strategy for digital product promotion.

The main marketing channel to promote mini-apps is the Telegram Ads service, where it's possible to pay in TON and TON Stars for display advertising. Previously, to make a promotion in Telegram, you needed a fairly large budget or direct access to the channel you needed - now, in recent months, the situation has changed, and it has become possible to set up an advertising campaign with flexible conditions. At least, that's what many channel owners and marketers think.

What about TON blockchain ecosystem?

I would like to say two words about the TON blockchain ecosystem, which has rightfully become one of the world's top blockchain ecosystems this year. The main advantage of this blockchain is its popularity in Telegram. It also provides fast transactions. During the public performance test last year, it had smart contract execution 104 715 transactions per second.

TON ecosystem already has several convenient wallets and DEXes.

The significant events driving the growth of the TON ecosystem this year are the partnership with Tether and the emergence of native USDT on the TON blockchain. The amount of USDT on the blockchain is already $572,000 mln. Recently TON also received a record amount of investment from Pantera Capital, a prominent venture capital investor.  You can read the main TON news on the TON community channel and the list of projects and coins on the TON.app website.

Can I launch my app in Telegram?

As with any hot market in the cryptocurrency sphere, there are many people who appear eager to run their clicker, and some of them do achieve success. Nowadays, you can create your mini app quite quickly due to open-source tools, but attracting traffic is a bit more difficult.

At the same time, competition for traffic and leads is growing. The biggest advertising channels to promote clickers are Telegram ads and partnerships with already-existing mini apps.

Conclusion

Telegram's Mini apps have introduced new mechanics to properly promote cryptocurrencies - giving them away to users. This is the automation of airdrops and their extreme simplification. Overall, this is a good thing in terms of mass adoption. By spending time playing games users have fun and learn how to use cryptocurrencies.

As before in the Play to Earn games story, there is a lot of anticipation here, but the question is whether such projects will become long-lasting or if they are just for one season. If you compare tapping app tokens with memcoins, they, too, are very volatile and have no direct collateral. But at least mini-apps have a large audience of supporters and users in the millions who use them daily.

\If you are interested in getting more crypto insights, you can watch the global crypto regulation rating here and get updates on my X account.