TL;DR

Lightweight on-chain games are making a comeback and present a sustainable trend in blockchain gaming. Unlike large-scale blockchain games, these games offer simplified gameplay reminiscent of Web2 mini-programs or match-three games. This lightweight approach aligns well with public chains’ and exchanges’ needs to attract traffic. The simplified design ensures easier access and higher engagement, increasing appeal and user stickiness.

From a blockchain distribution perspective, opBNB and Ronin maintain active user bases, while the recent boom in the TON ecosystem has garnered significant attention. TON stands out in the GameFi space due to its fast and low-cost infrastructure, offering a smoother gaming experience and drawing in many new players.

Regarding game lifecycles, the trend is shifting towards shorter cycles, faster-paced gameplay, and community-driven growth. This transition signals a move from traditional VC-controlled funding models, favoring organic growth driven by players and communities. Rapid updates and adaptive strategies allow these projects to respond swiftly to market demands.

Finally, conventional platforms like YouTube and TikTok remain the most effective marketing channels for promotion. Additionally, leveraging social platforms such as Telegram to foster user sharing, partnerships, and viral growth has also proven highly impactful.

“Small and Beautiful” Game Models

Data (see Figure 1) reveals that since the GameFi boom in 2022, overall GameFi transaction volumes experienced a slump in 2023, followed by a slow recovery in 2024, which continues to rise steadily. However, the recovered transaction volumes still fall significantly short of their historical peak.

This year’s notable trend is the substantial increase in transaction frequency, even as transaction values per trade remain lower than before (see Figure 2). This suggests growing market participant activity but without a proportional rise in overall transaction value. This phenomenon correlates with the emergence of lightweight on-chain games focusing on high transaction frequency but low transaction value per instance.

Figure 1: GameFi Quarterly Transaction Volume Data

Figure 2: Comparison of Overall Transaction Volume and Number of Transactions in the GameFi Sector

Overview of Star Projects

Catizen

Catizen allows players to collect, breed, and manage “catizens” to develop their virtual feline community. Core gameplay involves cat collection, community building, quest exploration, and PVE or PVP battles. The game features a dual-token system with $CATI as the governance token and $PAW as the in-game token, designed for community governance and in-game transactions. This token model creates a balanced and interactive economic system inside and outside the game. According to the founding team, Catizen has achieved notable results in paying user metrics. Its paying user base has exceeded 1 million, with a diverse distribution: Russian-speaking users account for approximately 40%, English-speaking users for 20%, Ukrainian users for 7.5%, Vietnamese users for 5.5%, Chinese-speaking users for 3.2%, and Korean and Japanese users each making up 1%-1.5%. Regional differences are apparent in terms of average revenue per paying user (ARPU). Japanese and Finnish users lead with ARPPU exceeding $200, followed by Korean users at $100, Dutch and Vietnamese users at $50-$60, and Turkish, European, and Eastern European users at approximately $30. Although Russian-speaking users represent the largest segment, their ARPU is around $25. Overall, ARPU ranges from $20 to $200, reflecting the potential for market development in different regions. Beyond its current focus on gaming, Catizen plans to expand into launchpad services, aiming for a longer operational lifecycle.

Notcoin

Notcoin’s gameplay revolves around a Tap-to-Earn mechanism, enabling users to mine and earn tokens through simple click-based interactions on Telegram, significantly lowering the barrier to entry and attracting a broad user base. Players earn tokens by participating in activities and completing tasks within the Telegram ecosystem, incentivizing continued engagement. Notcoin employs a single-token system, with its token supporting value circulation within the ecosystem, reward distribution, and potential future functionalities. In April 2024, Notcoin experienced rapid growth, reaching over 35 million users, including about 1 million active users before its token listing. Following its launch, active user numbers ranged from 300,000 to 500,000 in the first five days before gradually declining. The number of token holders rose from 220,000 before listing to over 1 million afterward, demonstrating remarkable growth in its community. By leveraging Telegram’s Tap-to-Earn model and emphasizing community interactions, Notcoin achieved rapid and viral user expansion.

Hamster Kombat \
Hamster Kombat is a Telegram-based Tap-to-Earn game where players control hamster avatars to engage in competitive battles. Core gameplay includes completing daily tasks, teaming up with other players, and participating in in-game activities to earn rewards. The game’s rapid growth can be attributed to its referral system, which encourages players to invite friends, fostering community expansion. Interactive elements such as cooperative challenges and limited-time events enhance player engagement and retention. The game uses HMSTR tokens as its reward mechanism, with approximately 75% of the total token supply allocated to player rewards distributed across multiple seasons to ensure long-term activity and participation.

Pixelverse \
Pixelverse is a cyberpunk-themed MMORPG integrated with blockchain technology, offering crafting, combat, and exploration activities. The game’s core token, PIXFI, is used for marketplace transactions, robot crafting and breeding, and arena battles. The token economy supports player interactions and transactions and includes staking and governance features, enabling players to influence the game’s future development. Pixelverse incorporates an invitation system where players earn coin rewards by inviting Telegram premium members and enjoy permanent bonuses. The combat system allows players to upgrade pets, enhancing attributes like battery life, lightning power, and strength for PVP battles. Players can also earn coin rewards through daily check-ins, quizzes, and task completion, such as inviting friends or liking posts on Twitter. Weekly invitation rankings reward players based on the number of referrals, creating a competitive and engaging ecosystem.

GameFi’s Impact on Public Chains

TON’s ecosystem, leveraging Telegram’s significant traffic channels and support from top-tier investors, has accelerated the emergence of applications across DeFi, meme tokens, and GameFi. TON’s ecosystem expansion began around late 2023 and early 2024, gradually gaining influence during this period.

Figure 3: Daily Rankings of Mini-Applications on TON Chain

Currently, the leading mini DApps in the TON ecosystem are primarily concentrated in three sectors: social, meme, and gaming (refer to Figure 3). These applications demonstrate strong performance regarding Monthly Active Users (MAU) and have shown a relatively stable growth trend over a week. The boundaries between these categories are becoming increasingly blurred. Gaming projects are increasingly adopting meme culture and social attributes, with social-driven growth and meme-based community consensus becoming hallmark features of top-tier gaming projects. These characteristics enhance community interactions and significantly increase user stickiness and engagement, allowing gaming projects to stand out in a highly competitive market. Social-driven growth leverages user referrals and interactions to expand a project’s influence quickly, while meme culture injects emotional resonance and entertainment value, making games more viral and appealing.

This year, the most popular gaming projects have predominantly emerged from the TON chain, showcasing distinct traits. These projects are highly native to the blockchain, fully utilizing blockchain features, and rely on Telegram’s traffic gateway to directly access a large user base, boosting participation. Additionally, these games resemble traditional match-three games, offering simple and accessible gameplay that attracts many players.

From Figures 4, 5, and 6, we can observe the following metrics for GameFi projects on the TON chain:

• Daily Transactions: Average of 300,000
• Daily Active Users: Average of 200,000
• Daily Transaction Volume: Approximately 0.02 million

These figures highlight the characteristics of GameFi projects on TON chain, including high transaction frequency, a substantial number of active users, and relatively low total transaction volume.

This phenomenon reflects TON chain’s strategy of prioritizing the expansion of its user base and creating high-frequency transaction scenarios, even at the cost of lower Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

Figure 4: Number of Transactions and Growth Rate of GameFi Projects on TON Chain

Figure 5: Active Users and Growth Rate of GameFi Projects on TON Chain

Figure 6: Transaction Volume and Growth Rate of GameFi Projects on TON Chain

By comparing the number of new and active addresses on TON chain (refer to Figure 7), we find that both metrics show parallel trends of consistent growth throughout the year. This indicates that new projects effectively attract fresh users while maintaining high retention rates. It can be concluded that this mini-game-focused model not only meets user demands but also positively impacts driving traffic within the TON chain itself.

Figure 7: New Addresses and Active Addresses on TON Chain

Lightweight Games: A Double-Edged Sword

Looking back at this year’s popular GameFi projects, several key characteristics emerge. During their initial launch phases, these projects primarily rely on community support. For promotion, they focus heavily on video ads, enabling them to reach a broader audience. Additionally, the relatively low development costs allow these projects to be quickly launched and tested.

In terms of lifecycle, these projects typically last an average of three months, a much shorter span than many earlier-cycle games like Axie Infinity. This brevity makes it difficult for venture capital (VC) firms to intervene during the initial stages. However, one of the most criticized aspects of lightweight games is the frequent occurrence of “soft rugs” after the Token Generation Event (TGE): users leave in droves, and the project teams become sluggish in operations. The rapid pace of launching and fading is one of the reasons lightweight games are considered a double-edged sword.

Lastly, many projects struggle to replicate the success of games like Notcoin. The Tap-to-Earn model is not easily transplantable to other chains. As the window for such lightweight games begins to close, the probability of investment success in these projects has significantly diminished. Fundamentally, Tap-to-Earn represents a success unique to the TON chain, rather than the birth of a new GameFi paradigm. That said, lightweight games—and on-chain games in general—will evolve innovatively. They are unlikely to stop at their current form.

The greatest advantage of lightweight games is that they provide market participants with a tangible gaming experience and potential financial returns, instead of confusing them with CGI or vague project pitches.

In any case, the market will always welcome new and innovative forms of games.