Exclusive Interview with Notcoin Founder Sasha: No Longer Just a Game but a Community and Culture, Attempting to Replicate Point-Earning Games Usuall

Author: Weilin, PANews

The "Tap to earn" type of play-to-earn games is undoubtedly one of the hot trends in the crypto market this year, successfully driving up the popularity of Telegram and the TON blockchain network. For example, Hamster Kombat claimed to have attracted over 300 million players before its airdrop in September. Tracing back to the source of this craze, the tap to earn game Notcoin, which launched on January 1 of this year, is undoubtedly the pioneer of tap to earn games on Telegram. Its token NOT, launched in May, had a market cap that once approached $3 billion in June.

On November 1, PANews interviewed Notcoin's founder Sasha Plotvinov during the TON ecosystem conference The Gateway in Dubai, discussing Notcoin's founding concept, token price fluctuations, the current state of the TON ecosystem, and how Notcoin maintains sustainable growth in a competitive market.

Sasha stated that simply copying others' gameplay is actually very difficult to succeed. Notcoin now also plays the role of a game publisher. He believes that by focusing on the community, Notcoin has enough depth to become a culture, effectively becoming a "cult." The key to achieving mass adoption of Web3 is first to eliminate all entry barriers, secondly to have a viral mechanism, and finally, to maintain a genuine and personalized product experience.

The Challenge for Product Managers: Unexpected Crash on Notcoin's Second Day

Sasha's career began as a product manager, where he learned many valuable lessons. He mentioned that the biggest challenge he faced early on as a product manager was that not everything one could think of would work as expected after launch. Many assumptions simply do not hold. And that’s okay; this "uncertainty" is an inevitable part of the development process.

He recalled that on January 2, the day after Notcoin's launch, the app crashed almost all day due to overwhelming demand. The team worked from 8 AM to 11 PM trying to resolve the issue but was unsuccessful. The next day, the app still could not function properly. "We were thinking, 'What should we do?' But we also learned a lot. So, we can say we did anticipate this goal, but we did not expect it to happen in this way," Sasha said. "To be honest, we had no experience with high-traffic applications before Notcoin, so we had to learn and adapt ourselves in the face of everything collapsing."

Tracing back to Notcoin's history, it was first launched for closed testing on Telegram in November 2023. Initially, the game was marketed as a meme coin with no clear purpose, merely to become a temporary viral phenomenon. At that time, Notcoin attracted over 650,000 users within a few weeks. After its official launch on January 1, over 5 million players joined in just the first week.

In the first quarter of this year, Notcoin drove the popularity of Telegram and TON, which now has hundreds of millions of monthly active users, while TON currently has millions of users. In fact, when founding Notcoin, Sasha and his team spent a long time thinking about how to establish a connection and how to guide some users to another platform.

They tried many different approaches, but at some point, they realized that they just needed to remove all entry barriers. For Telegram users, entering Web3 does not need to start with complex processes like wallets or gas fees; users can start playing directly. When they start earning, they become more motivated to explore the overall crypto and Web3 ecosystem. Sasha believes this is a form of innovation because many Web3 games were too complicated for newcomers at that time.

Sasha and his team decided to simplify the process as much as possible. "We understood that people like mining or earning tokens, so I don't think tapping is the key point here; the key point is more like a mechanism suitable for mining. There can be various ways to mine. We realized that people like to see their balances grow, so why not let them see it? At some point, we would tell them, 'If you want to mint your balance now, you can do it anytime.' I think that was the turning point."

Recognizing Telegram's Strong Social Attributes, Believing TON Ecosystem is Still a Blue Ocean

Notcoin has become a powerful Web3 technology application scenario on the TON network. When asked why they chose to develop on the TON network, Sasha stated that this decision stemmed from the strong social attributes and openness of the Telegram platform itself. Telegram provides a unique ecosystem that allows crypto applications and mini-games to be directly embedded into the platform.

"The opportunity is very clear. There is no 'exclusive secret' or anything like that. We just spent enough time researching these fundamentals to understand the opportunities here."

Three years ago, when there were almost no projects on TON, no smart contracts, tokens, or NFTs, Sasha saw the opportunity on TON. "You can imagine it as a bare chain with no activity. It was because we started from that time, and of course, we established close relationships with the foundation and other projects. All the teams building on TON are our friends, and clearly, we all started small. We all began in an environment that was never optimistic until now when everyone has discovered its potential."

In his view, if one wants to develop a game now, for example, to launch on the App Store or Google Play Store, they will face many competitors, all vying for users' attention. This makes it very difficult to stand out there. But on Telegram, it is now easy to launch something that can find product-market fit; users will like it, use it, and even be willing to pay for what they like. "This is really a blue ocean; there are almost no competitors here. Being one of the first entrants is very advantageous," he said.

About the NOT Token: Highly Decentralized Issuance, Whales Hard to Manipulate

In May of this year, NOT was launched on Binance, attracting widespread market attention and significantly boosting trading volume. However, recently, NOT's price has seen a pullback. Additionally, regarding the price fluctuations, are there known supporters or "whales" intervening to stabilize the price?

In response to this question, Sasha stated that it is basically very difficult for whales to manipulate Notcoin's price because Notcoin's issuance is very broad and decentralized, meaning there are a large number of users, with 11.5 million people having claimed the tokens. This means that many users hold very small shares of tokens; to manipulate the price, one must be a super whale, like someone holding over $100 million, and they would have to be crazy enough to buy tokens without fully understanding them. "Whales usually prefer VC tokens because they can control a lot of things there, understand all the distribution situations, including lock-up periods, etc. Notcoin has no lock-up period; all tokens were distributed from the start."

Sasha explained, "At the peak of trading volume, there was about $4.5 billion in 24-hour trading volume. How much capital would it take to manipulate the price of such a high-risk asset? It's almost unbelievable."

Sasha explained that during the summer, the market's reaction to NOT was neither particularly active nor particularly cold. He believes this is because many people were hesitant. "Recently, France decided to arrest Pavel Durov for some strange reasons. I think for some investors, they see it as a risk. Once he is released, the TON ecosystem is expected to grow because this will reduce risks for investors and businesses."

Notcoin's development has not always been smooth sailing. Previously, reports indicated that Sasha's team announced in an AMA that the community allocation share of NOT was 95%, but later project announcements showed that the community share was 78%. In response, Sasha clarified, "First of all, when people play the game, they earn some Notcoin. On the first day of the TGE, we basically distributed 78% of the tokens to these players. The remaining portion was distributed through channels like Binance Launchpool, OKX Launchpool, Bybit Launchpool, with approximate ratios of: Binance 4%, OKX 1.5%, Bybit 1.5%. Additionally, we launched activities through some wallets, such as the Telegram wallet, which accounted for about 1% to 2%. Along with all these incentive competitions, this is part of the token listing process."

"There is always a need to help traders on exchanges explore your product in some way. So, basically, Launchpool is the most efficient way. This is how we distributed most of the tokens. We also burned some tokens, and in the end, we retained about 5% of the tokens for the project's development over the next few years. This allows us to continue building and ensures that even if we enter a bear market tomorrow, it still makes sense to continue building the project for the coming years."

Sasha introduces Not Pixel at the TON ecosystem conference The Gateway 2024

The Future of Notcoin: Becoming a Culture

The recent decline in the popularity of some play-to-earn games and the difficulty in user retention is another topic of concern in the market.

In this regard, Sasha shared his views. "I believe that games that try to replicate other methods usually fail because people are smart enough not to play 'another tap to earn' game. What people want is fun, emotional experiences, but they also want some real experiences. If you just copy something, people might think: I've seen this before, I don't like it, I don't want it."

Specifically, Notcoin does not have a concrete roadmap. Currently, Notcoin has launched Phase 3, with more mini-games being introduced, such as the pixel tap-to-earn game Not Pixel, which attracted over 20 million users within weeks.

Sasha emphasized that Notcoin is no longer just a game application; it has become a community with depth. Through collaborations with multiple game projects, Notcoin can return more value to its core community members. "What we are doing now is basically placing Notcoin holders and the Notcoin community at the center. This means that every game currently collaborating with Notcoin is contributing to the core Notcoin community."

Sasha mentioned that, for example, 20% of Not Pixel's tokens will be distributed to Notcoin holders and the Notcoin community. They hope to make it more attractive from a product perspective, more like a game profile, where you have your own avatar, customized background, and can play different games. For instance, if you play Not Pixel and complete your first 100 pixel artworks, we will give you some achievement rewards, ultimately making you part of more core community members."

Not only is the focus on community building, but Notcoin has also gradually taken on the role of a game publisher. "We help other games; currently, there are only two games, and we assist them in building the right content and launching smoothly. We ensure to introduce them to our community and provide help from a building perspective, whether in coding or many other aspects. But conversely, every game launch contributes to the Notcoin community."

Sasha believes that Notcoin was initially an application, but now Notcoin is no longer just an application; it is a community. "You can think of it as something like 'Bored Apes.' It can be very broad, even including restaurants, burgers, etc. Sometimes, the entire ecosystem can be very extensive. Notcoin has enough depth to become a culture, effectively becoming a 'cult' for some of us. In a good way, when people feel that the values in Notcoin resonate with them."

The Key to Mass Adoption: Eliminating Usage Barriers and Adopting Viral Mechanisms

Although Notcoin is currently primarily based on the TON ecosystem, Sasha stated that the team does not rule out expanding the project to other blockchains in the future. When discussing development on TON, Sasha mentioned that users need more time to adapt to and trust cryptocurrencies. Investing funds into cryptocurrencies, etc. "What we see now is actually just the beginning of real impact because these numbers are just numbers. But in two or three years, we will see those who truly enter Web3, and their entry process began with Telegram and TON."

Sasha believes that the key elements for achieving mass adoption of Web3 are first to eliminate all barriers. Second, it is essential to ensure that the mechanism is viral. "I don't believe you can build a large application by purchasing a lot of traffic. Basically, all truly large applications grow naturally and organically. You need to create an application that people want to play or use, and they will have enough motivation to share, invite others, etc. This involves network effects. So, eliminate barriers and ensure that your internal mechanisms can promote the occurrence of these network effects."

In his view, it is also necessary to maintain a genuine experience. "Many applications just try to replicate other applications. That's fine, but I think if you can really create something unique, it will work better. Also, I think generally, people like something fun, like memes. When people experience some emotions, similar to feeling a sense of belonging or some emotion related to a specific meme or specific game or thing, that’s really nice. So, if you can create a game that provides users with some personalized experiences, that's a great way to grow. 'Real communities are built when people have shared emotional experiences,'" he mentioned.

At the end of the interview, Sasha expressed very positive expectations for the development of the TON ecosystem. He said, "I expect TON to become the largest blockchain; it's not hard to understand. I originally thought it would happen next year, maybe even this year. You know, TON has now surpassed 100 million wallets, and TON is moving very quickly here. And the growth curve is still exponential."

"Let's wait and see; I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next," Sasha concluded at the end of the interview.