It is quite unfortunate that most people have very little financial knowledge to grasp that money doesn't just pop out of nowhere.
And if it does, it's really just a trojan horse with what's to be expected ahead.
Is this unethical? Well, from a business standpoint, what's that saying?
“All is fair in business.”
Surely, that's not true, generally, however, it's all about execution and when you look at developments surrounding Telegram mini apps and TON projects, the executions do not directly present themselves as a fraud.
It's more of a case of “I reward you for near nothing — you pay back more ignorantly in future.”
Probably Nothing
You simply have to hand it to them, Notcoin was brilliant, so much that it worked.
It wasn't just about the money, it was the sense of community, being a part of something unique and impactful.
This is why Hamster Kombat was explosive, Notcoin set the foundation for that.
But above everything, Notcoin was and is a strategic business to bring exposure to TON and Telegram.
When you look past the smoke and everything, what you are left with is a trend towards impulsive spending working hand in hand with advertising.
Starting with Notcoin, most TON/Telegram-based projects end up being some sort of advertising platform, while Telegram itself is explosive with increased attention on site, making their ads platform more valuable too.
Notcoin supposedly gave away $2.5 billion in rewards through its airdrop. Certainly, this is not on the basis of “convertible value” but simply a reflection of its peak marketcap during its early listing phase.
Notwithstanding, at best, millions of USD were distributed to users through Notcoin and it brought over 35 million people into the knowledge of cryptocurrency and montarily incentivized games and projects.
That being said, when people look at projects like this, most just don't think deep into why the numbers they pull are even possible.
Notcoin did a great thing and hamster kombat blew it out of proportion. How?
Well, we can all act ignorant of the fact that Notcoin was definitely backed by Telegram, so there was funding, and carefully thought out marketing. Its success was worth 35 million blockchain-exposed users.
What message does this send to crypto VCs?
That's right, it's promising, but Notcoin probably did not care about Crypto VCs because it already had Telegram and TON behind it, a team willing to lose money to the community through airdrop for the right reasons.
Hence the successful launch.
What happened after Notcoin was exactly why Notcoin was founded. The explosion of Telegram mini apps and insane exposure to TON.
The target audience was and will always be consumers, so Hamster Kombat's growth did the trick.
But something very interesting happened amidst all this that people did not really pay attention to.
Here's a few I picked up on:
- Numbers are just numbers without a unique product: did nobody notice that most mini-apps had huge users but poor results in terms of airdrop value?
That's because in-app revenue from user spending and ads is not exactly enough to pull a successful token airdrop listing.
Crypto VCs interest in Notcoin was a first mover advantage.
Crypto VCs interest in Hamster Kombat was also a first mover advantage coupled with its large userbase: Hamster Kombat explosive growth was bound to attract VCs because it wasn't just some random tap to earn, it had uniqueness to its brand. Sadly, its growth also made it impossible for other projects after it to impress VCs with user counts.
DOGS success was about being a meme with relevance made by unique stories. DOGS was frankly a move to tokenize the journey of Pavel Durov and him being arrested just when it was to be launched, made it even more relevant and it was also backed by Telegram, probably through Notcoin.
The failure to impress from all other projects was because Crypto VCs don't care about head count with no relevant product that can make them money because having 50 million users means VCs have to gamble on longevity of a project rather than short-term gains as users have to be well compensated early on and lots of mouths to feed is expensive for VCs.
The failure isn't exactly failing because there's a dream still being sold and Telegram is profiting from it.
This may have not been exactly how Telegram envisioned it when Notcoin was thought of but it is a system that is now working. When you deliver a system that allows just anyone to build a simple app and gain thousands or millions of users, you effectively give room for lots of trash projects to hit the market and some scams.
However, at the end of the day, your platform will still profit through all financing solutions you've built for their leverage and also your in-platform advertising solutions.
So much value now flows through Telegram, from creators earning Telegram stars and TON to mini-apps being able to literally sell in-app upgrades and simple features to users through stars purchase or TON transactions.
It's a fuckin under the radar — in a sense — industry but it's pulling great monetary numbers.
And, there's proof and the biggest of it is that Telegram has recently reported now being in profit as a business with over $1 billion in revenue.
It's all just business.