Published: June 19th, 2024
Popular messaging app Telegram is seeing rapid uptake of crypto-driven games, triggered by demand for new platforms and the buzz around this year’s Notcoin token launch. Notcoin closed its token claim for players last weekend and enthusiasts are getting ready for the next phase of development.
Notcoin’s player airdrop closed one month after its NOT token arrived on The Open Network. NOT quickly established itself as this year’s biggest gaming token debut to date, racking up a more than USD one billion market cap as millions of players rushed to claim rewards earned for playing.
And it didn't end there, as its popularity has grown steadily. A price spike seen at the beginning of June nudged the token over the USD two billion market cap line and onto the top 50 cryptocurrencies list overall. Even against the backdrop of a torrid few weeks both for NOT and the wider gaming token market, data from CoinGecko shows Notcoin rose by 55 per cent over the past two weeks.
There are still gains to be had for early adopters. Notcoin players from the mining phase of the launch conducted earlier in Q1 can still claim their tokens using the game’s Telegram mini app. Once claimed they can transfer the tokens to an exchange, move them to a personal wallet, or stake them inside Notcoin for the promise of future rewards and members benefits.
‘A portion of the unclaimed tokens will be used to fund the game’s future development,’ said developer Open Builders. The rest will be burned. According to the company, if the OK hand emoji is displayed when you sign into Notcoin mini app on Telegram, it means a player has successfully claimed their tokens.
In February 2024, Ethereum gaming token PIXEL racked up more than USD 1.2 billion in trading volume in the seven days after its launch.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, that established PIXEL as the tenth most-traded cryptocurrency across the 8,800 coins and tokens the firm tracks. That means PIXEL generated more buying and selling than some of the most popular coins, beating big names like Dogecoin (DOGE), Polygon (MATIC), and Cardano (ADA) in its first week of trading.
An offshoot of the popular blockchain game Pixels, PIXEL was far and away the most-traded gaming token for the same period. Runner-up XAI pulled in USD 277 million in trading volume.
The USD 200 million volume threshold eluded every other gaming token in the same period. PIXEL led the pack while XAI followed and Ronin (RON) came in third, reaching USD 150 million in trading volume over the same period. Because they run on the same Ethereum network, Pixels handed out 20 million PIXEL tokens to RON stakers in a surprise airdrop the week before.
Crypto gamers had been restlessly awaiting the PIXEL launch. The Pixels game has attracted a steady stream of new player accounts over the last few months following its migration from Polygon to Ronin in October 2023. By employing play-to-airdrop campaigns, the gaming firm has been able to boost its engagement with the promise of rewards for its +/- 28,000 top ranked players.
In January, US video game chain GameStop shuttered its branded NFT marketplace, which offered collectible gaming and other non-fungible tokens via the Loopring and Immutable X scaling networks on Ethereum.
According to the GameStop NFT marketplace website, the company took the decision to close its NFT marketplace because of 'continuing regulatory uncertainty in crypto markets.’ Gamestop added that the platform would cease operations in February 2024. GameStop NFT holders will still have options to trade them, however, since they were minted on the Ethereum blockchain. That means they can be accessed, sold, and purchased on other NFT marketplaces.
The high street retailer announced it was discontinuing its NFT wallet four months ago, citing similar reasoning. GameStop also delivered the news to crypto traders the same way, through a pop-up window on the NFT marketplace home page. Why GameStop didn’t close out both products at once remains a mystery.
GameStop announced plans to enter the NFT space in 2021. In January 2022 it hired a 20-person team to build a branded marketplace for gaming NFTs and announced that it had partnered with Immutable to use its blockchain about a month later. A USD 100 million facility was created for Immutable’s IMX token and then the company cashed out almost half its IMX token horde the following week, sending USD 47 million in tokens into the market.
GameStop launched its NFT marketplace in July 2022, but only listed Immutable X gaming NFTs much later, and then only after it had parted ways with the CEO who led the charge on its push into crypto.
Back in July 2023, a Simpson-eque NFT collection that blended elements of the successful CryptoPunks’ NFT collection with bits borrowed from ‘The Simpsons’ animated comedy, generated more than USD 2.3 million in sales in under 24 hours, leaping to OpenSea’s top trending spot.
The long-running series had just aired a special episode devoted to NFTs, lampooning non-fungible token enthusiasts.
Called ‘Springfield Punks’ the unofficial collection arrived as a free mint on Sunday, 5th November. Traders rushed in to grab the 3,400 Ethereum NFTs, generating 1,311 ETH (worth ca. USD 2.3 million) in trading volume at time of writing. Springfield Punks NFTs can be purchased for about 0.11 ETH (ca. USD 200) on secondary markets.
The brainchild of self-described parody artist Rino Russo, the Springfield Punks collection went live shortly after The Simpsons episode aired on Sunday night. Stacked against NFT’s big names, the collection was second only to Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks in trading volume.
