decrypt.co
As expected, X Empire—a Telegram tap-to-earn game that has amassed more than 50 million players—has completed its latest mining phase, shutting down the game ahead of next week’s X token launch on The Open Network (TON).
The brief “Chill Phase” of X Empire lasted just over two weeks, giving players a last chance to earn a larger share of tokens ahead of the planned airdrop on October 24.
This isn’t the first time that X Empire has gone through this process. The game completed its original, monthslong mining phase on September 30, with plans for the X token launch to take place soon thereafter.
But two days later, the developers said that an unexpected delay meant that they would bring back the game and allocate another 5% of the total token supply as rewards for players who engaged with the “Chill Phase.” The mini-season reset every player’s progress back to zero, turning the tap-to-earn game into a short sprint for bonus token rewards.
This time around, however, X Empire appears primed to follow through on its plans. The game plans to open up a claim window on Friday, presumably letting players choose if they’d like their airdrop allocations to be sent to a participating exchange. X Empire has said that OKX, Bybit, Bitget, KuCoin, Gate.io, and MEXC will list its X token upon launch.
“Very soon, we'll share more about the future of the X token—where you can use it and how it fits into our growing ecosystem,” the team wrote in a Thursday post on Telegram.
The Elon Musk-themed X Empire, first launched as “Musk Empire,” is one of several popular Telegram crypto games that emerged over the past few months following the early-year success of Telegram tap-to-earn pioneer, Notcoin.
Games like Hamster Kombat and Catizen have since launched their respective tokens, leaving X Empire as one of the most prominent Telegram games that’s still on the verge of taking that step, alongside Tomarket and Major.
A new wave of Telegram games—including Captain Tsubasa: Rivals, Flappy Bird, PiP World’s Gold Rush, and CryptoKitties: All the Zen—has started to take root while games that have launched their tokens are starting to plot their next steps. Hamster Kombat, for example, will launch a new full season focused on building a thriving video game studio and platform.