Notcoin Review: Should You Play the Telegram Game Ahead of the Airdrop?

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Notcoin. To be honest, I was pretty dismissive at first. You tap an image of a coin on your mobile device, earn an in-game currency for each tap, and are bound by an energy bar that depletes as you tap (and refills when idle). And in the end, you'll be entitled to an airdrop of an upcoming token based on your tapping abilities.

It sounded pretty dull. So imagine my surprise that three weeks after trying the game for the first time, I’m still opening it up every morning and tap, tap, tapping away to earn my imaginary internet money. 

Notcoin is built within messaging app Telegram and corresponds with a token being launched on The Open Network (TON), the blockchain originally created by the app. Following some initial uncertainty around the airdrop, Notcoin creator Open Builders confirmed that the token will indeed go on-chain via TON, with an ETA of late March or early April.

The team also recently launched an NFT-based voucher system that lets players convert their in-game currency into vouchers and trade them before the token debuts. Players who want to opt-out of the pre-money voucher system can just wait until their in-game currency becomes exchangeable for tokens.

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Notcoin popped onto crypto gamers’ radar at the start of the year, as millions of Telegram players flocked to the chat app’s curious coin-tapping distraction—and were apparently mining billions of Notcoin in the process. But there was a curious catch: the coins weren’t real, at least not in the on-chain cryptocurrency sort of way. Now there are more than 25 million “Notcoiners” furiously tapping that same gleaming coin, competing in squads, and absorbing messages that are somewhat nihilistic but...

There’s not much to the tapping—but what really grabbed me about this deceivingly simple game is the social aspect of it. Soon after setting up my Notcoin Telegram bot, I learned that a couple of my friends were also playing and immediately felt the urge to surpass them on the leaderboard.

The global leaderboard splits everyone into a league based on how much Notcoin they’ve farmed (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond). Additionally, each player has a ranking within each league. Finding out that I had friends with a higher ranking than me, for some reason, was enough to motivate me to take my tapping very seriously. 

The cadence of the boosts also brought me back regularly. In Notcoin, you have two free daily boosts you can use to super-charge your Notcoin earnings—one briefly juices your earnings when you tap a little rocket ship that blasts into view, and the other refills your energy when tapped out.

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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 air...

You can use three of each boost for free per day. The thought that I had free boosts available, and that these boosts may contribute to a future airdrop I’ll receive, were enough of an incentive to keep me coming back over and over again.

Beyond the free boosts, there are also “paid” boosts—but you can only shell out earned Notcoin, and there’s no way to buy that within the game. It makes Notcoin feel more fair without any pay-to-win elements killing the vibes.

Instead, you have to choose between stacking your in-game coins to reap a larger airdrop when the time comes, or investing your in-game currency into paid boosts to increase your overall earning potential. I quickly used all of my in-game currency to purchase the upgrades available. (You’re talking to someone with a level 10 energy limit. Don’t be jealous.) 

Is Notcoin the best game I’ve ever played? No, far from it—but this game has me in its clutches.

There’s something about the simplicity, the incentives, and the social aspect of this game that keep me coming back despite its very one-dimensional gameplay. If you want a fully immersive gameplay experience, Notcoin probably isn’t for you. But if you want to have some fun playing a silly mobile game and potentially earn an airdrop, then I welcome a new rival to the league.

Edited by Andrew Hayward