The Notcoin game, based on Telegram, announced its collaboration with a renowned analytics firm to establish an incubator for the next wave of Telegram games, marking the project’s most significant move to date. This initiative expands from a viral sensation to a cornerstone of an explosive ecosystem of crypto-supported mini-apps.
Both companies stated on Wednesday that, with the support of the AI analytics firm Helika, Notcoin will soon launch a Telegram game accelerator.
Helika’s co-founder and CEO, Anton Umnov, shared in a statement with Decrypt: “This is an important milestone for Helika in supporting our current and future clients to build on Telegram.” “Helika sees a tremendous opportunity for game studios of all sizes to leverage global user acquisition and engage with users on a deeper level.”
The project will focus on developing mini-apps within the popular messaging app Telegram and will be broadcasted on Telegram’s blockchain network, Open Network.
The Telegram game accelerator will assist developers of such games, which have so far followed a simple yet enticing roadmap: entice Telegram’s over 900 million users with basic games, then reward them with real crypto tokens via airdrops.
Notcoin was the first Telegram mini-app to adopt this strategy and achieved great success. Within weeks of the Notcoin player airdrop in May, the market value of the NOT token exceeded 2 billion dollars. Since then, the market value of NOT has fallen to 1.3 billion dollars.
Other projects quickly adopted this novel approach. Hamster Kombat, a similar Telegram-based game involving constant button clicking, was highly popular last month. Catizen, a cat-themed button-clicking feast, is another mini-app on Telegram that has gone viral online recently.
For months, even before the release of the NOT token, the Notcoin team planned to go beyond developing a viral game and build an infrastructure to spur a surge of similar apps on Telegram.
“We want it to become the Netflix of social, viral games,” Notcoin’s co-creator Sasha Plotvinov previously told Decrypt about Notcoin’s future plans.
Plotvinov elaborated on his vision to turn Notcoin into a home base for developing “viral, fun, entertaining, competitive social crypto games” that will be broadcasted live on Telegram.
Today’s announcement brings the project one step closer to this goal. Helika, the company collaborating with Notcoin to establish the game incubator, has previously worked with gaming giant Ubisoft and Bored Ape Yacht Club founder Yuga Labs to effectively integrate crypto elements into games and help market these experiences.
In March this year, Helika launched a 50 million dollar crypto game accelerator supported by venture capital to streamline the integration of crypto tools with games from early-stage and more mature studios.
A representative from Helika told Decrypt that while the previous project and the Telegram-specific incubator announced today might overlap and share some resources, the two initiatives are separate, indicating they will not draw funds from the same pool.
Edited by Andrew Hayward