decrypt.co
The makers of W-Coin, a Telegram-based tap-to-earn game, opted to let players decide on one of three major blockchain networks to mint its token on. And as announced Wednesday, players overwhelmingly picked the network of choice for the Telegram space, The Open Network (TON).
The Open Network dominated the player poll, according to a message in the official W-Coin Telegram channel, securing 68% of the votes with over 8.8 million players supporting the network. Solana finished second with 24% of the vote, with Ethereum last with 8% of votes.
While Solana and Ethereum are much more established networks with substantially more value locked up in their ecosystems, TON has become closely aligned with Telegram and will host the tokens of several other prominent games built on the messaging platform.
TON was originally created by Telegram, but now operates independently via community developers after Telegram abandoned it in 2020 amid regulatory scrutiny. Over the past year, Telegram has started to embrace and integrate TON, including paying channel owners a share of ad revenue in crypto and launching an in-app currency linked to TON.
All of that has come amid a rise in Telegram mini apps built around cryptocurrency—most notably tap-to-earn games like Notcoin and the upcoming Hamster Kombat. Notcoin’s TON token NOT is still this year’s biggest gaming token launch, reaching a peak market cap of nearly $3 billion, though it has fallen substantially since.
Hamster Kombat has amassed more than 300 million players to date and will launch its HMSTR token on TON on September 26. Other notable Telegram games that are planning to launch tokens on TON in the coming weeks include Rocky Rabbit and X Empire.
It’s still unknown when W-Coin plans to launch its WCOIN token. The game, which has amassed nearly 20 million players to date per in-game statistics, recently added a “W-AI” game mode that lets players invest in upgrading a fictional trading bot that generates passive income.