For the past couple of months, over 30 million total people have been playing the viral clicker game Notcoin on Telegram. In the messenger-based game, players click a button to “mine” coins. It’s that simple, but also a lot more engaging than it might sound.
Initially, it wasn't clear whether or not Notcoin would launch an actual cryptocurrency—but the team recently confirmed that it will indeed launch a token on The Open Network (TON), targeted for a late March or early April debut.
With an airdrop confirmed, let’s dive into how to make the most out of Notcoin.
The core concept is one of the most straightforward game mechanics we’ve ever seen: You tap a button and receive Notcoin. When you start playing, you’ll have a full energy bar; my energy bar as a new user had a maximum value of 1,000, but you can purchase boosts (using your amassed Notcoin) to increase it.
The energy bar correlates to how many coins you can earn via tapping. If your energy hits zero, then you’ll have to wait for it to fill up—or use a boost to refill it—before you can tap and earn more coins. That’s a classic free-to-play gaming model, but in this case, you can actually use the coins you’ve earned to clear such roadblocks.
There are two free categories of boosts: Turbo and Full Energy. The Turbo boost makes a rocket ship appear while you’re tapping, and if you tap the Rocket, then it takes you into a “Turbo Mode” where you can earn tons of Notcoin per tap for a short period of time. Meanwhile, the Full Energy boost refills your energy bar so you can keep farming. You get three of each free booster each day.
Further down on the boosts page, which is located within the messenger game, you’ll see a few more options to increase your Notcoin farming capacity. You can use your earned Notcoin to purchase Multitap, Recharging Speed, and Energy Limit boosts.
The boost section also offers users access to an Auto Tap Bot, which you can purchase for 20,000 Notcoin. You can only purchase the Auto Tap Bot once you’ve hit the Silver League, which you can get to pretty quickly by using your free daily boosts and tapping away.
And you should make sure to use all of your free daily boosts as quickly as possible. Not only is it the quickest way to get into the Silver League, but the free boosts also don’t carry over from day to day—so there’s no point in letting them go to waste.
You’ll want to maximize all the available boosts as quickly as possible to increase your earning potential, and purchase the Auto Tap Bot to automate some of the tapping process. After all, who doesn’t love passive income? A quick way to get a few hundred thousand Notcoin (to purchase boosts with) is by completing the quests under the “Earn” tab in the app.
The types of quests include activities such as joining several Telegram groups, connecting a TON wallet to the app, and joining a “Squad” of Notcoin players. The quests are broken up into 3 different categories: Onboarding, Specials, and Web3 World.
The Onboarding section is pretty straightforward: You get increasing rewards depending on how many people you invite, as well as for completing activities like joining a Squad. The Specials quest section is where you’ll find tasks relating to joining different online communities, and the Web3 World quests reward players for learning about various crypto protocols.
When it comes to inviting friends, you’ll also get Notcoin based on their activity. Every time your referred friends move up a league, you’ll receive a bonus. Telegram Premium users receive the largest bonuses, but you can still farm Notcoin with the free version of Telegram.
Once you’ve upgraded all your boosts and gotten your Auto Tap Bot, just stop by the app once every 12 hours to claim the tokens your Auto Tap Bot has farmed. And make sure to keep purchasing additional boosts with your Notcoin so that your Auto Tap Bot can increase its earning potential.
Basically, maximizing your Notcoin earning boils down to these steps:
- Use your free boosts to get to Silver League as fast as possible so you can purchase the Auto Tap Bot.
- Complete quests to earn big Notcoin rewards, and use those rewards to buy Recharging Speed and Energy Limit Boosters. These increase your total earning potential.
- Stop by the game once a day to claim the rewards your bot has farmed.
It’s fine if you go a few days or a couple of weeks without playing. But don’t let 30 days lapse without playing—Notcoin recently said that it will gradually purge mined coins from inactive accounts ahead of the planned token launch.
Should I cash out?
Notcoin recently announced a pre-market trading system that lets players with 10 million or more Notcoin exchange their coins for an NFT voucher. The vouchers can be traded, bought, or sold before the official launch of the Notcoin token on the TON network, and then redeemed afterwards.
This move lets players and external observers speculate on the price of the eventual NOT token. But if you don’t want to exchange your in-game coins for a voucher, that's totally fine: You’ll still be able to exchange them directly into the Notcoin token when it launches.
As of Wednesday, the vouchers equal to 10 million in-game coins were trading for $31.50, or 7.5 TON. The voucher system appears to have breathed new life into the game, with it reaching an all time high of 5 million daily active users on March 20 after surpassing 30 million total players the previous day.
Should you cash out your coins? Whether or not you partake in the voucher system, you’re still taking the same risk: being exposed to the price fluctuations of Notcoin. Whether or not you use the NFT vouchers just determines at which point you’ll be exposed to those fluctuations.
However, converting to NFT vouchers is, at the moment, the only way to sell all those coins you’ve been tapping away for. That said, you’re not technically losing out on anything by waiting for the token to launch. So if you don't want to take the risk right now, or don't want to deal with the hassle, then don't worry. Just keep tapping away.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Editor's note: This story was originally published on March 5, 2024 and was last updated with new details on March 21.