In the Web3 circle, 'phenomenal projects' are common, but those that can move from 'short-term explosion' to 'deep ecological cultivation' are rare—Notcoin ($NOT) is the exception. Starting from a 'click mining' mini-game in Telegram, it not only attracted a total of 50 million users and 2.8 million on-chain holders but also distributed over $220 million in rewards to the community, driving $1 billion DEX transaction volume and even incubating over 200 Web3 projects. This article will analyze this 'not just a game' flagship project of TON from five dimensions: gameplay evolution, community operations, token value, ecological interaction, and future layout (for research analysis only, not investment advice).
I. Gameplay Evolution: From 'single click' to 'diverse exploration', breaking the 'novelty curse of games'
Notcoin's core competitiveness is not just the 'click mining' gameplay, but its ability to continuously iterate gameplay, transforming users from 'coming for profit' to 'staying for the ecosystem', perfectly avoiding the trap that most Web3 games fall into—'loss of novelty leads to decline'.
1. Initial Gameplay: Capturing public demand with 'extreme simplicity'
When launched in early 2024, Notcoin's gameplay was straightforward to the extreme: open the Telegram mini-program, click the bouncing 'Notcoin' animation on the screen to receive tokens; no need to register a wallet or remember mnemonic phrases, the mined tokens are directly deposited into the TON wallet linked to the system—this 'zero threshold + instant feedback' design precisely hit the public psychology of 'wanting to try Web3 but fearing complexity', attracting 35 million users in just three months, becoming 'the first lesson in cryptocurrency entry'.
2. Gameplay Upgrade: From 'clicking' to 'exploring', building a sustainable ecosystem
When 'click mining' reached its peak user base, Notcoin did not continue to exhaust the novelty, but quickly entered the 'Gameplay 2.0 Era':
◦ Phase 2 (May 2024): Launching 'Task Reward System', where users can not only click but also complete simple tasks such as 'inviting friends' and 'binding wallets' to earn additional $NOT, while also opening exchange channels to transform tokens from 'game items' to 'tradable assets';
◦ Phase 3 (Mid-2024 to present): Launching the 'Notcoin Explore' platform, completely breaking out of the 'single game' framework—users can experience other Web3 projects (covering games, DeFi, SocialFi) on the platform, complete tasks like 'experience a 3-minute DApp' and 'complete a small transaction' to earn NOT rewards. Currently, the platform has integrated over 200 projects, with each cooperative project offering a minimum of $20,000 in NOT rewards, and user participation costs only $0.1-$0.2, enriching the gameplay while opening up a 'panorama' of the Web3 ecosystem for users.
II. Community Operations: Not only 'many people', but also a refined logic of 'people willing to stay'
Notcoin's community is not a 'hollow shell built on data'—behind 2.8 million on-chain holders and 7 million Telegram group users is a closed-loop operation of 'bringing in new users - retention - activation', transforming users from 'passersby' to 'co-builders of the ecosystem'.
1. Tiered Rights: Locking core users with 'exclusive benefits'
The project has designed a three-tier user system of 'Regular-Gold-Platinum', where higher levels have scarcer rights:
◦ Gold Users: Can participate early in Notcoin cooperative project activities, gaining opportunities for 'low-price token subscriptions';
◦ Platinum Users: Directly unlock 'top token issuance participation rights' (such as IEOs for leading projects within the TON ecosystem), and enjoy 'double rewards for exploration tasks'.
This 'tiered rights' structure encourages users to continuously participate for upgrades (upgrades require completing more tasks or holding a certain amount of $NOT), with a core user retention rate exceeding 60%, far higher than the industry average.
2. Social Viral Growth: A reward mechanism that encourages users to 'actively bring new users'
Unlike most projects' 'one-time new user rewards', Notcoin has designed a 'long-term revenue sharing' model: the inviter can permanently earn 5%-10% of the invited user's 'exploration task earnings', and when the invited user upgrades, the inviter can also receive additional 'level rewards'. Under this mechanism, users are not only willing to bring in new users but also actively guide new users to complete tasks (helping each other level up and getting more revenue sharing), forming a 'spontaneous user education system', achieving user growth from 35 million to 50 million with zero marketing expenditure.
3. User Co-creation: A sense of belonging where the community 'calls the shots'
Key decisions for Notcoin almost all come from community feedback: for instance, the decision to 'stop Phase 1 mining' was finalized after gathering opinions from over 100,000 users via Telegram groups; community-created Notcoin memes are organized and disseminated by the official team, even printed on merchandise; user suggestions for 'optimizing the exploration task process' were implemented within two weeks by the development team. This sense of 'co-creation' makes users no longer 'passive participants', but 'owners of the ecosystem', keeping community activity consistently at the top of TON ecosystem projects.
III. Token Value: Evolving from 'Reward Tool' to 'TON Ecosystem Token'
$NOT's ability to become the flagship token of TON is not based on 'hype', but on its value continuously upgrading from 'pure rewards' to gradually becoming the 'circulation core' of the TON ecosystem, even possessing potential attributes for 'ecological governance'.
1. Basic Value: Fixed Supply + Burning Mechanism, solidifying the value baseline
The total supply of NOT is fixed at 10.27 billion tokens, with no new issuance, eliminating inflation from the source; at the same time, unclaimed tokens will be burned proportionally—by August 2025, over 5% of unclaimed tokens have been destroyed, continuously reducing circulation. This 'deflationary model' frees NOT from the predicament of most meme coins 'endlessly issuing and diluting value', providing a foundation for its long-term value.
2. Practical Value: Evolving from 'tradeable' to 'multi-scenario usable'
Initially, $NOT was just a 'task reward', but now its use cases cover multiple scenarios in the TON ecosystem:
◦ Ecological Participation: Holding $NOT can unlock advanced tasks on the 'Explore platform', providing priority access to newly launched Web3 projects;
◦ Asset Exchange: Can directly exchange NFTs from cooperative projects (such as 'Not Pixel' game skins), Telegram social rights (such as exclusive emojis, group management permissions);
◦ DeFi Scenario: The project plans to launch '$NOT Staking Features' by the end of 2025, allowing users to stake tokens and earn revenue sharing from cooperative projects, further expanding financial properties.
3. Circulation Value: Supported by 15 major exchanges, with 96% of tokens in the community
NOT has been listed on 15 mainstream exchanges including Binance, OKX, and Bybit, with 96% of the tokens flowing directly into the community, no institutional holdings, and no early whales, with an average holding of only 0.0003% for 2.8 million holders. This 'extremely decentralized' holding structure makes NOT's circulation fairer and attracts more ordinary users to participate—currently, its DEX transaction volume exceeds $1 billion, consistently ranking first among TON ecosystem tokens.
IV. Ecological Interaction: Not just 'succeeding on its own', but also driving the entire TON ecosystem
The significance of Notcoin goes far beyond 'a successful project'—it acts more like a 'catalyst' for the TON ecosystem, leveraging its own traffic to drive the launch of over 200 Web3 projects, even promoting the 'popular adoption' of the TON blockchain.
1. Empowering Small and Medium Projects: A low-threshold 'traffic incubator'
For small to medium Web3 projects within the TON ecosystem, Notcoin's 'Explore platform' is a 'low-cost customer acquisition tool': projects only need to provide a minimum of $20,000 in $NOT rewards to reach Notcoin's 50 million users, with user participation costs of only $0.1-$0.2 (far below the industry average customer acquisition cost of $10-$20). As of August 2025, over 200 projects have landed via this platform, covering games (like 'Flappy Bird' TON version), DeFi (like small loan DApps), SocialFi (like decentralized social groups), with more than 10 projects surpassing 100,000 users, becoming 'new stars' in the TON ecosystem.
2. Drive TON Infrastructure: From 'Wallet Opening' to 'On-chain Transactions' Explosion
Notcoin users must open a TON wallet to participate in 'exploration tasks'—this directly drove a 300% increase in TON wallet openings, with Notcoin contributing to 25% of the total wallet count; simultaneously, the on-chain transactions generated when users complete tasks (such as small transfers, DApp interactions) increased the daily active transactions on the TON chain from 500,000 to 1.2 million, accounting for over 12% of total transactions, significantly enhancing the 'network effect' of the TON blockchain.
3. Cross-industry Collaboration: Connecting 'Telegram + Web3' in all scenarios
Notcoin is deeply integrated with the Telegram ecosystem, not only as an 'embedded mini-program', but also promotes the integration of Telegram and Web3: for example, collaborating with Telegram Wallet to enable 'in-game direct transfers of NOT'; linking with Telegram group features, where users can create 'Notcoin team groups' to complete tasks for additional rewards; future plans include integrating Telegram payments to allow NOT to be used for paid content within Telegram (such as channel subscriptions), further broadening usage scenarios.
V. Future Layout: The ambition of evolving from 'traffic entry' to 'Web3 super platform'
Notcoin is clearly not satisfied with being the 'flagship of the TON ecosystem'—its future planning aims directly at becoming a 'super platform for Web3 popularization', attempting to turn 50 million users into '300 million users' with richer functionalities and broader markets.
1. User Expansion: The 'Incremental Competition Battle' in the lower-tier market
Currently, Notcoin users are primarily concentrated in Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, with plans to focus on expanding into lower-tier markets in Latin America and Africa: through localized operations (such as launching Spanish and Swahili versions), adapting a 'light version mini-program' for low-end phones, and collaborating with local social KOLs for promotion, aiming to increase the user base to 300 million within three years, covering 4% of global internet users and becoming 'one of the platforms with the most Web3 users'.
2. Function Completion: Evolving from 'game + exploration' to 'full ecological coverage'
The project plans to enhance functionality in three steps:
◦ Short-term (by the end of 2025): Launching $NOT staking features and a Notcoin-exclusive NFT market, allowing users to stake tokens for earnings and trade game-related NFTs;
◦ Medium-term (2026): Integrating decentralized lending (DeFi) and cross-chain functions, supporting interactions between $NOT and other public chain tokens, breaking ecological barriers;
◦ Long-term (2027-2028): Launch the 'Notcoin Governance DAO', allowing $NOT holders to participate in project decisions, achieving 'fully decentralized operation'.
3. Technical Upgrade: A more intelligent 'ecological support system'
On a technical level, Notcoin will continue to optimize: upgrading anti-cheat systems, using AI to identify bot accounts (over 1 million invalid accounts have been cleaned), ensuring the rights of real users; collaborating with the TON Foundation to integrate TON's latest 'Layer 2 scaling solution', enabling the platform to accommodate hundreds of millions of users while maintaining zero fees and instant transactions; and opening a 'developer toolkit' to allow more developers to create DApps based on the Notcoin ecosystem, enriching ecological content.
Summary
The success of Notcoin ($NOT) is not merely 'luck'—it has solved the 'entry difficulties' of Web3 with 'extremely simple gameplay', retained 50 million users through 'refined operations', and driven the growth of the entire TON ecosystem through 'ecological interaction', even redefining the ceiling of 'GameFi projects': not just 'earning while playing', but also 'building the Web3 ecosystem while playing'.
For the Web3 industry, Notcoin's significance lies in providing a model for 'popular landing'—proving that as long as the core of 'simple, interesting, and valuable' is captured, Web3 can break out of the 'niche circle'; for the TON ecosystem, Notcoin is not an 'accidental hit', but a 'core engine' driving continuous growth, and every future layout may influence the competitive landscape of TON in the public chain track.
