What Is Notcoin? Behind the Telegram-Based Game and Airdrop Details

Notcoin is a Telegram-based game that has captured the attention of millions of players over the past few months. The game has racked up 35 million total players, and hit a recent peak of six million daily active users. That’s vastly larger than most crypto games.

The game, created by Open Builders, is based within the Telegram messaging app, and will launch a token on The Open Network (TON) in the coming weeks. Its founder previously told Decrypt that the team sees it as a unique way to distribute tokens to community members in a fair manner.

What could motivate 35 million players to tap a golden coin in a messaging app? Crypto rewards, of course! Here’s what you need to know about Notcoin and the upcoming token.

What is Notcoin?

Notcoin, simply put, is a social clicker game. Players who want to earn in-game coins can open up the Telegram app, tap the Notcoin bot, invite friends to the game, and dive in. 

Once you’re in the game, a gold coin is displayed on your screen—and you tap the coin to earn an in-game currency called Notcoin. You’re given limited energy that depletes and then refills slowly over time, so you can’t click endlessly without barriers.

As you earn more and more Notcoin, you climb up a global leaderboard that’s broken into different tiers—from Silver league to Diamond league. Players can earn extra tokens by completing quests that usually involve actions such as following a Twitter account or joining a Telegram community.

Players can also use “boosts” or power-ups in the game that increase their earning potential. There are two categories of free boosts that refresh daily, the “Full Energy” and “Turbo” boosts, as well as additional permanent boosts that players can buy with their Notcoin. Such perks let players increase how many coins they earn per tap and how much energy they can spend at once, plus there’s an Auto-Tap bot that keeps collecting coins while you’re away.

Players can use the Notcoin they’ve earned to purchase cosmetic upgrades to change the background of the game, or what the coin they’re tapping looks like.

Note that the game ended its “mining phase” on April 1, which means that when you open the Notcoin app in Telegram, you cannot currently play the game. It’s expected to return after the token launches later this month.

What is the NOT token?

After all that, you might still be wondering: Why did 35 million people tapping a coin to earn an in-game currency? The Notcoin team announced an airdrop for a real token that will be awarded to players, after being cagey about the possibility at first.

The token, called NOT, will go live on The Open Network (TON)—the network that Telegram itself originally founded—and be exchangeable for the in-game Notcoin that players have been earning.

On March 30, the Notcoin team shared a look at the tokenomics, saying that 100% of the NOT tokens will by default be provided to the more than 35 million players who mined them by tapping the coin. There won’t be “Bitcoin-style early whales,” they wrote in a tweet thread and via the official Telegram community. However, some tokens could be useful for boosting the ecosystem.

“It would be helpful for the ecosystem growth to have a meaningful amount of Notcoins for the product development, upcoming listings, and for all the millions of people that will come next,” they wrote. “If there are no good ideas for these tokens, they will be burned.”

As a result, Notcoin is asking players whether they want to contribute a share of their mined tokens to an ecosystem fund. In the Notcoin app on Telegram, a message now appears asking whether players want to donate 10%, 20%, 30%, or 50% of their coins—or they can choose “Keep for yourself.” And there’s no obligation or incentive here.

“There will be no bonuses for participation, only respect,” the message reads.

When is the NOT token launching?

The Notcoin team has been particularly mysterious about when the token will launch. Recently, they deployed a glitch-like graphic that briefly appeared on players screens saying “7 Days.” They followed up the glitch with a post in the community channel, letting players know that the “mining phase” would end on April 1st—and then a new phase of the game would begin. 

But now we know the answer: Notcoin says the token will launch on April 20, the same day as the Bitcoin halving. Notcoin announced this on April 2 via Twitter after teasing something aligned with the Bitcoin network event.

Pre-market vouchers

Leading up to the airdrop, the Notcoin team recently launched an NFT voucher program. Any player with over 10 million Notcoin earned can convert their Notcoin (in 10 million increments) into NFT vouchers.

The vouchers can be bought, sold, or traded before the actual launch of NOT, allowing players to speculate on the eventual price of the real token. At the moment, Notcoin vouchers are trading for around 10 TON per voucher, or around ~$50.

Players who don’t have 10 million Notcoin need not worry—their Notcoin will become directly exchangeable for NOT when the token goes live, and they’re not really missing out on anything by not partaking in the voucher system. Well, besides a little bit of speculation.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on March 27, 2024 and last updated on April 2.