Recently, users of the well-liked tap-to-earn game W-Coin on Telegram selected the blockchain network that would house the game’s coin. A vote that ended on Wednesday revealed The Open Network (TON) to be the clear front-runner. With 68% of the votes cast by more than 8.8 million gamers, TON—which is intimately related to the Telegram ecosystem—bested Ethereum and Solana, which came in second and third with 24% and 8% of the votes, respectively.
Despite Solana and Ethereum’s dominance in the blockchain world, TON’s strong connection with Telegram played a major role in its selection. Originally developed by Telegram, TON now operates independently through community developers after the company ceased its direct involvement in 2020 due to regulatory issues. However, in recent years, Telegram has reintegrated TON into its platform, allowing features like ad revenue payments and an in-app currency tied to TON. These developments likely influenced W-Coin’s player base to lean toward TON.
As stated in the W-Coin Telegram channel, TON’s growing presence in the Telegram gaming space was pivotal. The platform has become the backbone of many Telegram-based games, including tap-to-earn titles such as Notcoin and the upcoming Hamster Kombat. The TON token for Notcoin, called NOT, reached a staggering peak market cap of nearly $3 billion earlier this year, although it has since seen a significant drop.
While the launch date for W-Coin’s token, WCOIN, remains uncertain, the game has already amassed a substantial player base of nearly 20 million users. A recent addition, the “W-AI” game mode, allows players to upgrade a fictional trading bot for passive income generation. Other Telegram-based games, such as Hamster Kombat and Rocky Rabbit, are also set to release their tokens on TON in the coming weeks, signaling further integration of the network into Telegram’s expanding crypto ecosystem.