Catizen game pounces on Telegram 'tap to earn' market

Catizen, a game available on messaging platform Telegram, is gaining attention after claiming to garner over $10 million in in-game revenue by the end of May . Project founders also say the game has over 10 million active players, including one reporter for The Block. 

Telegram-based games have taken the world by storm since the launch of NOTcoin (and other derivative projects) on the TON blockchain . These “tap to earn” games are simple to play and offer users the possibility of airdropped tokens. 

“Following Notcoin, the TON +0.85% blockchain ecosystem has seen the emergence of numerous Tap-to-Earn robot platforms, attracting significant Web2 user traffic,” representatives for Pluto Studios, the founders of Catizen, said in a sponsored blog post . 

Like other “tap-to-earn” games growing in popularity on Telegram, Catizen offers players a chance to reap rewards by touching buttons on a screen. The primary game is a type of roulette wheel that users spin to determine what types of rewards will be granted. 

Users can either win a “Meow Box,” “Super Box,” or points, each of which will contribute to their holdings, which could conceivably be redeemed for a cryptocurrency called $MNT via the ByBit exchange once they reach an equivalent amount of in-game points as one U.S. dollar. 

To enter the game, players must navigate to the official Catizen Telegram bot . Once there, they can view game instructions, engage with the community or click “Play” to begin. Clicking “Play” will launch the game, enabling players to begin earning in-game tokens. Each tap will increase their total balance. 

Aesthetically, the game looks a cross between Pokemon and Hello Kitty. The background music is repetitive but jazzy. 

One reporter from The Block was able to earn 99 cents worth of in-game points before running out of spins. To gain more chances at the wheel of fortune, users must invite their contacts on Telegram to play, unless they are willing to pay to play. 

Catizen offers both a free and paid version and claims a user base of over 50% paid users. Free users cannot always play the game and must wait for “seats” to open up. Users can also join “clubs” that could potentially place them in a league with the top-ranked players.

Game developers plan to expand into a full-fledged “mini-game platform” and reportedly “have signed agreements for 18 mini-games with over 50 million downloads, including the blockbuster game Hero Wars with over 100 million downloads.”

A YouTube video advertising the app also shows a Neopets-like game where players can care for cats, which was not accessible using the unpaid version of Catizen. 

A review of the project’s X (formerly Twitter) page suggests that many of the game’s users are based in Russia, which is often the case for Telegram-based games.