On December 23, after the ecological user count of a Mini App named 'Zingo' on the social software Telegram surpassed 500,000, it increased by another 200,000 users by the time of publication, marking the 'achievement' of the application in just over a month since its launch. Although Zingo currently focuses mainly on games, it positions itself as 'Social Payment Finance' (S-PayFi), suggesting that games are merely its prologue.

Zingo's phenomenon once again proves the strong attributes of Telegram's 1 billion user 'traffic base'. Of course, not all Mini Apps can mine traffic 'gold mines', but Zingo seems to have grasped certain principles from 'social + gaming'. Recently, Zingo's official revelation that 'version 2.0 will add Web3 wallet functionality' fully exposes Zingo's intention to mine traffic.

Just like 'internet celebrities need to sell goods when they become popular', Web3 applications will inevitably move towards crypto assets and digital currencies. However, Zingo has never publicly mentioned issuing tokens or financing. Compared to other Web3 games, this platform application seems to have found a combination point of Web2 and Web3 advantages—strongly binding scenario experience and digital assets to explore new traffic entry points.

The growth history of various Web2 giants tells us that after becoming a 'new species of social traffic', there are plenty of things that can be 'added', and Zingo, linking Web2 and Web3, has an extraordinary imagination.

Using games to mine the first 'golden traffic' of Telegram

Users can access and use various functions directly within Telegram without downloading and installing additional software. In September 2023, Telegram officially launched this new feature that allows 'Mini Apps to run within Telegram' (hereinafter referred to as 'TMA'), which Chinese users familiar with WeChat may be more accustomed to, known in China as 'mini programs'.

Compared to WeChat, the open-source and global Telegram quickly attracted a vast number of developers and users with its Mini App functionality, with over 500 million users interacting with TMA each month out of its 1 billion users. Telegram has thus become the third largest traffic entry point after Google and Facebook, forming a 'new cake' of global traffic.

In the second half of 2024, Zingo has targeted this traffic entry point. Relying on the modular innovative public chain Nal, Zingo initially packaged itself as a Web3 entertainment platform for earning through various mini-games like 'Tap To Earn', quickly capturing traffic. According to official data, within a month of launch, Zingo's ecosystem registered users exceeded 500,000, and the monthly active users of its first zombie-themed game, ZombieRush, have surpassed 1 million.

Deeply understanding the rules of internet traffic, the games on Zingo are not complex; many reflect traditional casual gaming. The difference lies in how game mechanics are deeply bound with 'tasks + incentives + viral growth', forming an account system through blockchain addresses, providing commercial monetization space for subsequent entertainment content providers and planting opportunities for users to realize crypto assets.

Subsequently, Zingo launched popular TG games like The Last Visitor, Meworld, PEPE Battle, and OUTA, quickly capturing 'gold mining' and 'airdrop' gameplay with 'informed' Web3 users—some start-up Web3 projects in the crypto asset market distribute or airdrop tokens to users based on interaction traces from task completion. These tokens can become valuable crypto assets like DAI, USDT, ETH, etc., in DeFi applications on the blockchain.

'Play and earn' and 'gold mining' concepts became popular in 2021, with the once-popular Axie Infinity bringing real earnings of hundreds of dollars monthly to 150,000 Filipinos, many of whom supported their households by playing games during the pandemic. However, later chain games turned into 'money-sucking black holes'—many projects required the purchase of 'props' to play, with complicated cross-chain and recharge processes, and props often being quite expensive, making some games a losing business.

However, due to its reliance on Telegram, Zingo's users are predominantly Web2 social users. This can be seen in Zingo's Telegram community, where users primarily discuss game mechanics, bugs, and modification suggestions, with little mention of Web3 terminology such as Token and airdrops. This means that if a massive number of Web2 users enter Web3 in an unconscious manner, it will open up a new way to acquire users in the Web3 world.

Indeed, Zingo is trying to lower the threshold for gold farming games, which could even be termed 'simple and crude'.

For instance, in The Last Visitor, prop recharge only requires single-digit dollars and supports fiat currency recharge, making it easy for Web2 players to enter. Users can earn points by recharging to purchase props or accumulate points through free tasks, which will later be converted into revenue in token form.

Another Zingo game, Meworld, will more directly airdrop popular Meme coins from the current crypto asset market to users, where the proof of collection is the coins users gather in the game.

Meme-themed game Meworld on Zingo

In addition, Zingo itself has ecological points called ZIN, which can be accumulated through playing games and completing tasks. According to Zingo's official introduction, ZIN is an important exchange certificate within the ecosystem.

Simple games and a play-and-earn model quickly allowed Zingo to accumulate traffic. Now that traffic has been established, what will Zingo's next step be?

Embedding financial foreshadowing into the wallet function

How to retain users and maintain activity has always been a challenge for Web3 projects on Telegram.

Taking Catizen as an example, after announcing two rounds of financing, the website traffic of Catizen peaked, and its data subsequently reached new highs with over 500,000 daily active users. However, after the team announced the start of an airdrop event on September 14, traffic plummeted from 260,000 daily visits to 36,000, a drop of 86%.

How not to be abandoned by traffic?

In addition to continuously iterating content, increasing incentives, and their consumption scenarios, Zingo's recent actions have revealed its long-term strategy and ambition. According to official news, Zingo will launch wallet functionality in version 2.0, using PayFi as the core driver to bring new growth in demand and traffic to social capabilities.

Zingo 2.0 upgrade announcement

Zingo's direction towards iterating Web3 tools can address a pain point in Web2 gaming scenarios—it is challenging to integrate with financial methods and has a singular means of monetization. Most internet games only incorporate financial advertisements or simple recharges into the monetization pathways of mini-games. In contrast, Web3, due to the circulation capabilities of blockchain, has a natural financial assistive nature, allowing crypto assets to serve as a bridge between games, traffic, and finance.

According to reports, the Zingo wallet can provide acquiring tools for games within the ecosystem, supporting the transfer of in-app assets to the blockchain. Users can recharge, withdraw, and view transaction history. Since Zingo's blockchain capabilities are provided by the Ethereum-compatible modular innovative blockchain Nal, its wallet is interoperable with the Ethereum and Ton chain ecosystems, thus supporting the deposit and withdrawal of multiple assets like Star, TON, and Ethereum-compatible USDT.

This not only means that the game assets obtained by users on Zingo have a convenient transaction path, but idle assets will also enter revenue scenarios. As a B-end application developer, integrating Zingo wallet allows seamless entry into the Telegram, Ethereum, and Nal chain ecosystems, adding a Web3 pathway for commercialization while receiving traffic support from Zingo.

If Zingo is viewed as a gaming platform, these features are essentially basic operations, but Zingo seems not to intend to become just a gaming platform; instead, it plans to open its wallet capabilities to all Telegram Mini Apps (TMA), fundamentally changing Zingo's properties.

In public information, Zingo 2.0 positions itself as Social Payment Finance (S-PayFi), which can be understood as expanding the 'PayFi domain' by building a 'social scene', thereby forming high-density traffic and establishing a PayFi ecosystem with real scenarios, real traffic, and real demand.

From its positioning, the games on Zingo are currently one of the contents of the 'social scene'. According to its future plans, it will also incorporate AI experiences, audio-visual entertainment content, and even e-commerce, all of which are part of social scenarios and consumer content. The digital/data assets accumulated by users from these scenarios will become part of value accumulation and can be realized through diverse applications of payment/finance via Zingo, such as instant transactions and on-chain wealth management.

When such ecological construction capabilities are delivered to all Telegram Mini Apps via Zingo wallet, a two-way integration of scenarios and traffic, finance and social interaction is formed between Zingo and Telegram.

On one hand, leveraging the 'traffic engine' Telegram, Zingo can build entertainment content through games and streaming, forming a traffic aggregation with real blockchain addresses, which is a 'basic need' for both Web2 & Web3 applications and serves as the foundation for Zingo's commercialization. Secondly, traffic + scenarios can generate a large number of digital assets, which can flow across platforms through the chain rooted in Zingo, allowing value within Zingo to be exported while also enabling assets and infrastructure from other chains to flow into Zingo.

Through this construction path, Zingo will realize a closed loop of scenarios-traffic-assets. If successful in creating a positive cycle, this innovative method will bring new changes to Web2 & Web3 innovation projects, including simplifying the pathways for Web2 applications to go global and commercialize, helping Web3 applications escape the 'death spiral' of only speculating on tokens.

The crypto asset market, keen on炒 concepts, inevitably gives rise to bubbles time and again, with significant drops following big rises that puncture these bubbles. Each cyclical fluctuation helps solidify real value species, such as smart contracts, DeFi, decentralized identity IDs, etc. Without exception, they are all 'useful' products, and Zingo's goal is the same.

(Disclaimer: Readers should strictly adhere to local laws and regulations; this article does not represent any investment advice)