Animoca underlines TON commitment with support for WAT token

Showing its commitment for the future of the TON blockchain, Animoca Brands has revealed it intends to buy WATCoins on the secondary market.

WAT is the utility token of WatBird, which is the Telegram app run by Animoca subsidiary Gamee. Alongside a few other mini-games on Telegram, the project has quickly boosted its user base through a recent airdrop campaign, accumulating in the distribution of WAT tokens in return for collected Wat points. 

Following the disclosure of the news, WAT experienced a sharp rise and doubled in price, but has since dropped back.

Kicking off the airdrop trend on Telegram at the beginning of 2024, Notcoin has since hit 40 million users. Hamster Kombat and Catizen have also followed suit, reportedly peaking at around 155 million and 30 million users respectively at the height of their airdrop frenzy.

As for WatBird, its Telegram bot currently has 3.6 million users, while Gamee’s Telegram channel has 4.5 million.

As TON’s largest validator and an investor in the growth of the ecosystem, Animoca’s bullishness on Telegram and TON is obvious, but the two platforms are not necessarily synonymous with each other.

Any game can launch on Telegram, regardless of whether they are web3-enabled or not. Similarly, games can be deployed to other blockchains than TON, as with Ronin-based Lumina Hunt; something adding to the thesis that Telegram is poised for mass adoption of web3 more genrally.

Emphasising this point, Animoca Brands co-founder and chairman Yat Siu has said he predicts 100 million new web3 users within the next 12 to 18 months thanks to platforms like Telegram. 

Perhaps even more bullish a statement, Animoca CEO Robby Yung also predicts Telegram will play a vital role in mass adoption of web3, likening the messaging platform to the banking system’s adoption to online banking. In a similar manner, he thinks games will use Telegram as a way to funnel users to their main browser-based games. Indeed, he foresees a future where every sector from DeFi to gaming will have a complementary Telegram app.

Crunching data on the growing number of mini-games on TON, his predictions would seem well-founded. During Q3 2024, the blockchain saw a 320% increase in new game titles. Less than three weeks into Q4, this number is up from 385 to 416, showing an additional increase of 7%.