The number of Telegram users worldwide is surging as interest in games on the platform explodes. Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder and CEO, announced Monday that the messaging platform has reached 950 million monthly active users.

”Up from 900 million in the spring,” he wrote. “On track for 1 billion!”

The milestone was undoubtedly reached more swiftly thanks to the immense interest in crypto games proliferating on Telegram, and the rise of The Open Network (TON), which Telegram itself originally founded before abandoning the project in 2020 amid regulatory troubles. Instead, a community of external developers brought the chain to life.

The recent gaming rush was kicked off by Notcoin, a simple tap-to-earn game that gave players enormous amounts of in-game coins, promising an on-chain reward on the horizon. Players joined by the millions, collecting virtual currency in the hopes of one day converting them to an actual crypto token.

That came in May, when Notcoin players could convert their earnings into NOT tokens on TON. Supported by major exchanges Binance and OKX, the NOT token airdrop immediately became the biggest gaming token launch of the year. TON now has a $17 billion market cap, making it the 10th biggest cryptocurrency by that measure.

But while Notcoin opened the door, Hamster Kombat blazed the trail. With a similar tap-to-earn mechanic, coupled with cute hamsters and a variety of ways to earn more and faster, the game became a global phenomenon. It hit 100 million users in June, and even drew the attention of the government of Iran, which feared its popularity among its citizens would distract them from their presidential election.

Earlier this month, Durov said Hamster Kombat had drawn 239 million users, describing the game as “the fastest-growing digital service in the world.” Since then, Hamster Kombat claims to have topped the 250 million player mark.

Many more games have followed, including Yescoin, TapSwap, Catizen, PixelTap, W-Coin, and Musk Empire. Some of these games have even begun collaborating with each other, with both PixelTap and Musk Empire offering benefits for Notcoin holders.

Like Notcoin, Hamster Kombat has announced that it will launch its own token on TON, and PixelTap's token is already live on Ethereum ahead of planned expansion to TON.

And while Telegram effectively handed TON off to the community in 2020 as the company faced scrutiny by government regulators, the popular messaging app has since reintegrated the network in various ways—including to share ad revenue with Telegram channel owners.

Edited by Andrew Hayward