Millions of users and an empty Whitepaper: what is Notcoin (NOT), and why is it so popular?
In the crypto industry, both fundamental projects provide advanced technology to solve specific user problems and assets with no value that are essentially shitcoins — the majority of them.
However, even seemingly useless cryptocurrencies can cause a stir among investors and even gather a large community of devoted fans around them.
What is Notcoin?
Notcoin is a viral clicker game based on TON, available directly in Telegram messenger. The developers of Notcoin originally conceived a simple game based on a popular meme without any specific goal.
The essence of the game is that users accumulate virtual coins, Notcoin (literally translated as "not coin"), by simply clicking on the smartphone screen. Users can use boosters to increase the number of mined coins and join groups called squads to mine together.
A closed beta version of the Notcoin game was launched as an embedded app in the Telegram messenger in November 2023. Notcoin was created by the Open Builders team, which has little experience with large-scale projects.
The project is presented in the infosphere as something new and almost cutting-edge, but a similar story and a project associated with Pavel Durov have already happened. "Old-timers" in cryptocurrency probably remember the hype with VK Coin, when users rushed to "click" coins in anticipation of a life-changing reward. However, it didn't happen: VK never released the tokens, even though it didn't promise anything. Nevertheless, none prevented users from buying and selling their coins via OTC (over-the-counter market). Still, after a while, everyone forgot about the project, and the application itself has long been defunct. It looks like history is repeating itself, only now with Telegram.
Notcoin became so popular that, expectedly, a little time later, copycats appeared, some of which copied even the appearance of the game's interface. One of the most famous copycats was the DeFinder Capital project. The only thing DeFinder Capital was ahead of Notcoin was that the project had already released its DFC token and even became one of the top regarding the number of blocked assets in the protocol (TVL) in the TON ecosystem.
The TON Community has supported the Notcoin project, which was unveiled at The Gateway conference in November 2023. Within a week of the main version's launch, Notcoin gained over 5 million players, becoming the fastest-growing game in Web3's history.
Notcoin token
The token has not been officially launched yet, but it is known that it will be: a token page with the ticker NOT has already been created on the CoinMarketCap website. The exact listing date, the number of tokens issued, or how the tokens will be distributed to users is yet unknown.
Although there has been no official confirmation from the team, the community expects Notcoin to airdrop NOT tokens among active app users. However, we don't yet know the criteria for token accrual or whether there will be a distribution at all — we can only be active and be prepared for time to be wasted.
What are the prospects for Notcoin?
A banal clicker can hardly be called a promising project, no matter how you view it. So far, the only value of the yet unreleased NOT token is that it is the first, one could say, official memcoin in the TON ecosystem.
However, it's also important to realize that Telegram has an audience of over 800 million users worldwide. Things could change if Notcoin finds a use for Notcoin and the token itself is integrated into the messenger.
Probably, Notcoin was initially conceived as a hype project. After all, it even has an empty Whitepaper. This is no joke: except for the document name and date, only one blank page. However, the most famous and first in the crypto industry, memcoin, Dogecoin, was also conceived as a joke but now has a multi-million dollar community and is even among the top ten largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization.
However, copycats of the leading memcoin are not doing so well. Here are a few more factors that raise doubts about the Notcoin project:
- A little-known team with no successful significant projects under its belt;
- Primitive game mechanics with the same repetitive action do not even provide for any development. In other words, Notcoin is essentially a one-day game that quickly gets boring;
- Project statistics may include fake activity (bots);
- Lack of specific development plans;
- It is actively used to advertise projects by involving them in the game;
- Nothing is known about investors and partners except for TON Community.
The Notcoin project has become a vital tool for promoting TON ecosystem applications such as STON.fi and Fragment — users are introduced to them when they complete tasks in the Notcoin game.
The name of the NOT token is a palindrome of the word TON — the primary cryptocurrency of the ecosystem of the same name. It's as if the team is trying to show how humorous the project is. Perhaps they intended to convey to the entire crypto community the philosophical idea that you can issue any "wrapper" and millions will want it anyway?
In any case, not much is known about the Notcoin team's plans yet, and apart from the most primitive, albeit beautifully designed, clicker, an empty Whitepaper, and more than 22 million waiting airdrop players, there is nothing else. At least it's free and doesn't carry any risks.