Gaming ecosystem Solana has launched Sonic X, a one-tap earning game originally developed for TikTok that is vying to be the next “Notcoin.”
Tap-to-earn has taken over the crypto gaming landscape this summer, as Telegram-powered mini-apps have attracted over 300 million concurrent players. But a Solana-powered project has launched a tap-to-earn game called SonicX that runs natively inside TikTok, aiming to become the Notcoin of the social media platform beloved by Gen Z.
Sonic SVM, a layer 2 gaming network built on top of Solana, plans to partner with content creators to launch a series of ads on TikTok that players can click to open the SonicX game natively inside TikTok. Similar to Telegram's mini-apps, TikTok allows users to open web pages inside their own browser, where gamers will begin collecting game points after logging in through the social network.
Ultimately, the game follows the same premise as other tap-to-earn games. Players will frantically tap screens to collect rings, buy upgrades to passively progress in the game, and invite friends to rank up – all in the hopes of a future token giveaway that has yet to be confirmed.
Screenshots from SonicX Tap-to-Earn. Image: Sonic SVM
All of this takes place in a world based on the classic Sonic The Hedgehog video game series, although there is no official connection to Sega.
An interesting feature is that every tap in the game will be recorded as a transaction on the chain. We've already seen this with the tickle-to-earn cat game Tapos on Aptos, which saw over 115 million transactions in a single day in May with just over 63,000 players. By comparison, Ethereum only processed 1 million transactions a few days earlier.
“We’re talking about getting a billion users when we often don’t even have a million, and I think a million is a low bar,”
" Chris Zhu, CEO and co-founder of Sonic SVM, told Decrypt. "Even with just 1% of the entire TikTok population, we have 10 million users. So I think it's not a dream anymore."
TikTok has 1 billion monthly active users, according to Shopify, and its total user base is expected to grow to 2.35 billion by 2029. By comparison, Telegram, which has been the epicenter of the tap-to-earn craze so far, had 950 million monthly active users as of this summer. While those numbers aren’t far off, Zhu believes TikTok is an untapped market that’s much easier to reach with advertising.
"Gen Alpha, Gen Z are already exchanging meme coins and watching this content on [TikTok]"
"Zhu explained. "When it comes to advertising on top of Telegram, it's really bad. That said, we think TikTok will be one of the biggest traffic pools if we do it right."
Screenshots from SonicX Tap-to-Earn. Image: Sonic SVM
Sonic SVM is a Solana layer-2 network, also called an “extension network,” that acts as a publisher for crypto games — similar to the model Ronin deployed on Ethereum. Sonic SVM already hosts 67 playable games, but the team felt TikTok was the best place to launch SonicX.
This comes as a result of the team's experience at Bytedance, TikTok's developer. Zhu believes they can make the most of the platform.
Of course, players play tap-to-earn games because of the promise that their in-game progress will translate into token rewards. SonicX is no different, with a Sonic token looming on the horizon, though the game doesn't officially advertise it as such.
Many other tap-to-earn games have done this as well, likely to avoid potential regulatory issues, but SonicX is in this case fighting TikTok's ad restrictions. Otherwise, Sonic SVM could see its main distribution channel removed.
Notcoin was a pioneer of the “tap to earn” movement on Telegram. The game successfully launched its NOT token on The Open Network (TON), reaching a peak market cap of just under $3 billion, becoming the largest launch of a gaming cryptocurrency token in 2024. Notcoin has since reinvented itself, collaborating with other projects and aiming to become the “Netflix” of social viral games.
It’s a similar model that SonicX is looking to replicate, albeit on TikTok. Zhu explains that the vision is to include other games in the tap-to-earn genre as it seeks to segment its audience around the Sonic SVM ecosystem.
This can be done through social tasks that reward players, such as following a project's TikTok account. It's a similar method that many Telegram tap-to-earn games have also used, and Zhu calls it "decentralized advertising."
SonicX on TikTok is, in many ways, designed as a “growth strategy” for the broader Sonic SVM gaming ecosystem. And since every game click is recorded in the chain, it could serve as an advertisement for the level of scalability that Sonic SVM offers if it finds a significant audience.
