At the beginning of 2024, the first Telegram game of its kind, Notcoin, gave birth to a whole genre of so-called tap-2-earn (tap-to-earn) games. However, the primitive interface and copycat mechanics quickly reduced the interest of users. Last fall, people started talking about the Telegram messenger’s tap-2-earn games death. At the beginning of 2025, several projects appeared that showed promise. For example, Paws. But no miracle happened.
Notcoin co-founder Vladimir Plotvinov believes that the era of tap-to-earn games is over, as developers are focusing on creating more interesting games. And the tap-to-earn system failed to satisfy the interests of players.
«We’re going to see different types of games, as tap-to-earn games are probably dead because they’re not sustainable,» Plotvinov believes.
In 2024, Notcoin was one of the most popular tapas on Telegram, with more than 30 million users in the three months after its release. It solved the issue of getting Telegram users to use and understand cryptocurrency. However, gamers soon began to move from one game to another because their motivation is simply to earn something. And with games, it’s more about having fun with friends. The first wave of games on Telegram did not contain this social element.
Therefore, developers began to move to models where the economic part of Web3 becomes a «add-on» rather than the main value proposition. However, Telegram does not yet have «real games».
Source: Cointelegraph