The Open Network’s nascent gaming ecosystem has emerged as one of 2024’s most interesting case studies in crypto as casual games like Notcoin, Hamster Kombat and Yescoin may have helped onboard tens — if not hundreds — of millions of people to web3.

Gaming on the TON blockchain (The Open Network) has grown exponentially in recent months after a series of clicker games, which offer players the promise of earning token rewards, became accessible to anyone with the Telegram messaging app.

TON Foundation’s Gaming Lead, Inal Kardan, said as recently as last December, only about 1% of Telegram’s monthly active users were playing games on the app.

"And I was saying it should be at least 10% to 12% as on other socials, or even 30%, as on WeChat," Kardan told The Block in a recent interview. …