Greetings, diamond hands!
I know what you did last summer. I know what we all did. We were tapping our phones like crazy, acting as hamster CEOs, taking care of cats, and doing many more stupid things while hunting "the biggest airdrops in the history of mankind". All this was done conveniently on TON using Telegram mini-apps, or bots.
Many believed this would finally open the gates for the masses to jump into the crypto space with ease. I believed so as well. So, where are they?
Even though Bitcoin is currently surging it's not the retail money that's pumping the price but instead, it's the institutional capital that's pouring in while retail interest remains low.
Google Trends Crypto & Bitcoin searches for past 12 months.
I honestly believed the tap-to-earn/TG/TON combination would lead to wider crypto interest among no-coiners. I mean, can you make it any easier? Just play the game and earn. Even wallet creation is made pretty easy on TON.
The setup was there. Everyone has a phone and TON operating on Telegram had 900 million potential users right at their doorstep. Still, it seems the tap-to-earn summer boom is fading and there's no significant demand for $TON even though it would be the obvious choice for newbies who entered through that door.
So what went wrong?
High Expectations, Low Rewards
First of all, by reading all the angry comments after Hamster Kombat and Catizen launches I noticed that many users had way too high expectations for their allocation. The number of users is shown on the top of each Telegram app and for example, Hamster Kombat had tens of millions of users!
To those of us who have been in the crypto space for a longer time and farmed airdrops, these numbers tell that the airdrop was highly diluted so no matter how big the total pot was since it was spread among so many people, you needed to be very close to the top and to get there you needed to be early or invite a lot of new users. Apparently, the latter option is what many projects seem to favor when deciding on sharing their tokens. This then leads apps to resemble a pyramid scheme, which they actually are, and those rarely have a long lifespan.
The Farmer Gets Farmed
If you don't want to bother your friends and don't feel like spamming X with ref links, there's another way to move up in the ranks with TG mini-apps. You guessed it, use $TON.
Many tap-to-earn mini-games have this "daily sign-in" task that is also familiar to many crypto airdrop farmers outside TON. The difference with the TG mini-apps version is you have to make an on-chain transaction. Now this ain't much but if you're farming multiple apps, it's slowly eating up your TON while there are no guarantees of a decent airdrop.
Recently I've noticed another sneaky trend emerge. The closer the airdrop date gets, the more new ways to "get ahead of the competition" -tasks are appearing. This is the end farming game of the project in which they farm the farmer until there's nothing left to farm. After that, the farmers are left with their fingers crossed hoping to get back at least the amount they've spent.
Here is a pic of the MemeFi mini-app dashboard. Those boxes promising all sorts of bonuses started to appear just recently so I guess the end game is now on and the airdrop is getting closer. Each of them brings good stuff to those willing to pay $TON while diluting the casual players by doing so.
On top of all that, MemeFi is also cashing in by "forcing" users to watch their and their partner's YouTube videos daily. I got to hand it out to them though, setting up a TG mini-app and re-directing the traffic to their YouTube channel is a pretty good revenue model among other income sources.
I guess if their hands weren't deep enough in your TON wallet, they'd probably shove it up your...🍑
Crappy Games
Most of the tap-to-earn games I've come across are Hamster Kombat copies (although I'm not even sure if it was the first...) where you are supposed to tap the screen and earn points. Who would do that? That would be extremely stupid but fortunately, these games can usually be played in other ways such as collecting cards that earn you much more points than you would get by tapping your screen.
Still, they suck, and if that wasn't enough, many apps have now introduced the classic spin-the-wheel game which usually feels rigged and is almost as boring as tapping the phone.
The more of these simple, crappy games you play, the more it will start to feel like work. It doesn't help that the road to airdrops is painfully long and projects often break their promise and extend the TGE date while milking the farmers a little bit longer.
Without a clear promise of at least a decent airdrop, I have faded many of the games I was playing as the tap-to-earn summer turned to autumn.
It's a bit funny but I still have the bots on my phone and sometimes I feel I should click them and do those daily tasks but I just can't because it makes me feel sick. Without this article being a total rant, I must say that the only game I'm happy to play, and the only one that actually feels like a game is Wizzwoods.
Sure, you can take part in partner quests and buy stuff here as well but it feels less forced and less mandatory. Also, I don't know if it's just me but I have a soft spot for these building games and there's something quite laid back and soothing about Wizzwoods once you get the hang of it.
All in all, it's a well-made game separating it from other TG games and I would probably play it without the promise of an airdrop. That being said, I remember reading that Wizzwoods is somehow connected, or at least touching the Berachain surface as well as Tabi so who knows, playing this could lead to some rewards in the future...
Poor Performance
Now, back to the rant.
Excluding Notcoin, DOGS, and perhaps a few others, the airdrops on TON haven't been great and the tokens haven't been performing well either. The already mentioned Hamster Kombats $HMSTR token is down -62.0% while Catizens $CATI is down -69.3% since ATH close to their launch.
I'm not 100% sure about their future either. Many of these projects seem to aim to become some sort of launchpads for other games and I'm not sure whether there's gonna be enough demand for all of those. Or is it such a good business model to begin with?
Still, the farming goes on as already airdropped projects continue with second seasons and new airdrops that won't be as big as the first ones(which weren't so big anyway).
Conclusion
So imagine if you were new to crypto and your first experience was through a pyramid scheme that farmed and perhaps in the worst case, even scammed you. Would you then like to explore more?
As a cherry on top of the rant cake is The Open Network itself. Even though the fees are relatively cheap on TON, the network lacks some good, user-friendly dapps. However, this could very well change in the future as many projects are building on TON inspired by the last summer boom.
I'm not saying the tap-to-earn summer was a complete failure but the space can do a lot better in attracting new users into crypto.
Lastly, I have one important announcement before I say 'thank you for reading' and that is to let you know about our Discord server we are setting up, or reviving. It's called GREENER CANDLES and it's a newbie-friendly forum for all kinds of crypto talk ranging from trading to airdrops. Also, I'm trying to add some alpha there daily so if you are interested, hit the link above and join us!
Now, thank you for reading! 🙂
Let's connect:
DISCLAIMERS:
- This is NOT financial advice.
- Thumbnail image created with Canva, Screenshots: Google Trends, Wizzwoods, MemeFi
🟢 Grass season 2 is now ongoing so if you want to try passive farming, here is my referral link: Grass.