Welcome to TON Innovators, our blog series celebrating the innovative and revolutionary talents within the TON ecosystem. Today, we introduce the Catizen project, which combines virtual pet interaction with blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse to provide players with a unique GameFi experience.
Catizen is revolutionizing the way TON and Telegram users interact with the digital world. The project uses advanced artificial intelligence technology to give virtual cats vivid and lifelike behaviors and personalities. These AI-driven pets learn and develop unique traits from their interactions, influenced by their owners and surroundings. The project has successfully built a vibrant community of cat enthusiasts who can interact in real-time within the vast digital universe. They are pioneers in the world of blockchain gaming.
As of June 4, 2024, Catizen has attracted nearly 13 million players, with daily active users approaching 1.9 million, on-chain users reaching 802,000, and on-chain transactions exceeding 9.55 million, making it one of the fastest-growing projects in the Web3.0 ecosystem.
TON Innovators: Catizen! Welcome to TON Innovators! Can you explain the core concept behind Catizen and how it integrates PocketFi, gaming bots, short videos, and e-commerce?
Catizen: Catizen introduces practical mobile payment functions to Telegram users using the TON blockchain, a significant innovation in both the Web3 and Web2 environments. Previously, most Web3 applications required desktop access, similar to the early stages of Web2. PocketFi could potentially change this by innovating Web3, similar to how smart contracts improve user interactions and centralized exchanges simplify transactions. PocketFi on TON and Telegram could change user habits and application scenarios in Web3.
Based on our team’s extensive experience in game development, we spent a lot of time analyzing the unique advantages of the TON ecosystem. After studying many market cases, we decided to create Catizen, a project that combines Gaming Launchpool with Pinduoduo (known internationally as TEMU). Pinduoduo has successfully overcome major product challenges by subsidizing users and lowering prices, accumulating a massive user base.
Similarly, the airdrop strategy widely used in Web3 is similar to Pinduoduo’s approach of attracting new users by offering more discounts. Before deep integration with WeChat, Pinduoduo faced similar challenges. WeChat had a large amount of traffic in the Chinese community but no clear strategy to convert that traffic into active users. The collaboration between Pinduoduo and WeChat not only solved the challenges WeChat faced but also effectively educated users about online applications. This approach is considered important by leading institutions in Web3. While many Web3 projects have attempted similar strategies, most have not succeeded. However, the strategic partnership between TON and Telegram provides us with a unique opportunity.
Catizen aims to become a Web3 modular consumption platform similar to Pinduoduo. Inspired by Pinduoduo’s success within the WeChat ecosystem, we plan to integrate gaming, short video content, and e-commerce. Our strategy is to use gamified Web3 models to educate and attract Telegram’s vast user base, transforming innovative products into widely used commercial applications. We will use token airdrops and short video promotion strategies to drive exponential growth. We will gradually introduce gaming platforms, launch pools, task centers, short video content, e-commerce, and other features, with the ultimate goal of creating a trillion-dollar Web3 social entertainment platform.
Catizen is not just a game; it is a platform designed to evolve continuously with the player community. The integration with Launchpool will be a key breakthrough, greatly enhancing the interests of the vast Catizen community. Over the next year, we will use Catizen as a launch platform to introduce new mini-applications. As the project progresses, we will further integrate elements of Pinduoduo into Launchpool, integrating task centers, short dramas, e-commerce, and various business flows. The ultimate goal of Catizen is to overcome common issues faced by many Web3 GameFi projects, such as strong cyclicality and Ponzi schemes.
TON Innovators: What challenges did you face in integrating all these technologies into a GameFi product? What was the development process like?
Catizen: During the development process, especially in the beta testing phase, we faced several operational challenges. Fortunately, the TON Foundation provided significant support, helping us quickly resolve these issues. This assistance allowed us to refine Catizen, ensuring seamless integration with the TON blockchain and Telegram.
TON Innovators: Your new Launchpool has attracted a lot of attention. How does this relate to your project’s development plans?
Catizen: Catizen’s development plan is divided into five stages, each with different focuses and strategies. We are currently entering the second stage:
Stage One: Catizen primarily expands its user base through airdrops and strengthens user education to encourage wallet registration and activation. The main goal is to educate Telegram users on how to use cryptocurrency wallets and participate in transactions to convert them into TON users.
Stage Two: We are launching Catizen Launchpool, where users can stake in-game assets to mine tokens. These tokens can be exchanged for our governance token $CATI. This stage also introduces a social collaboration model to increase mining efficiency. In this stage, Catizen evolves from a single game to a modular gaming platform with Launchpool functionality, helping users understand DeFi principles.
Catizen has achieved significant success in the first stage, expanding its user base. 10% of Gaming Bot users have become TON wallet users, and over 50% of users have become Web3 users (PocketFi users). Catizen is now entering the second stage – LaunchPool, where players can stake in-game assets to earn $wCATI tokens. On April 27th at 13:00 UTC, Catizen updated the Launchpool feature, allowing users to mine $wCATI by staking Fish Coins or Cat Coins. In this distribution, 60% of the airdropped wCATI is allocated to players staking Cat Coins, while 40% is allocated to players staking Fish Coins, with a total of 8.4 billion wCATI available during this time.
To ensure fairness and prevent players from abusing multiple accounts, we have set participation thresholds for Launchpool mining:
Fish Coin Pool (40%): Players must stake at least 1,000 Fish Coins to participate, which can be obtained through activities like completing beginner tasks or inviting friends.
Cat Pool (60%): Participation requires a Cat level of at least 110, with higher levels receiving more rewards.
TON Innovators: How does the TON blockchain specifically benefit Catizen? Why did you decide to build on TON?
Catizen: First, the TON ecosystem has tremendous potential, as mentioned earlier, PocketFi could bring groundbreaking innovations to Web3. The integration of built-in wallets and bot programs in Telegram, along with the thriving TON ecosystem, increases the possibilities of this innovation. Second, when our team joined the TON blockchain, the foundation was very proactive in providing expert guidance and financial support for technical integration and market promotion. Additionally, many leading projects within the ecosystem warmly welcomed our collaboration proposals, which was very beneficial for newcomers.
Finally, like us, the vast early community of the TON ecosystem is confident about the future. Unlike other ecosystems, we found that the early TON community was mostly actively promoting us. They were eager to discuss and support our project’s development, provide suggestions, and help spread information, which is quite rare in other blockchain ecosystems.
TON Innovators: Can you talk about your community? What role do they play in the development and evolution of Catizen?
Catizen: At launch, Catizen’s Telegram announcement channel has attracted over 900,000 subscribers. Initially, our project garnered widespread attention from the native early TON community and successfully attracted a group of users interested in airdrops through in-game guidance. Over the past month, we have collaborated with numerous projects within the TON ecosystem, realizing that this is an essential way to build a high-quality community.
Furthermore, at TOKEN2049 and the TON DAY event at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival in early April, Catizen was highlighted as a successful case multiple times in TON’s official speeches. This multi-layered exposure is crucial for attracting new users. Our team works hard to meet the community’s needs, continuously refining and improving our product to ensure a seamless transition from promotion to exposure, user acquisition, retention, and community growth.
In the future, the community will play a core role in the development of Catizen. Airdrops will make them holders of the $CATI token, sharing the benefits of the platform. This ownership will serve as proof of their stake in future returns from Catizen. Shared benefits with the community will include Launchpool, e-commerce features, and more content.
TON Innovators: What new features or expansions can Catizen players expect in the near future?
Catizen: We have discussed the initial and current focuses of the development stages: expanding the user base and promoting the Launchpool feature. The next third stage aims to transform Catizen into a Telegram gaming platform. We have signed agreements with 18 popular WeChat mini-games and plan to integrate them with Web3 features on the Catizen gaming platform. Additionally, governance token holders of Catizen will be able to mine tokens for subsequent games through Catizen mining pools.
TON Innovators: Do you think Catizen will have an impact on a broader blockchain and GameFi field beyond TON in the future?
Catizen: Catizen has already achieved multi-chain deployment and partnered with the Mantle Network. Our goal is to not only bridge Telegram and the TON blockchain but also serve as a bridge between the Ethereum ecosystem and TON. We intend to attract Ethereum users to Catizen, helping them realize the unique advantages of TON compared to other blockchains. We deeply understand the unique advantages of the TON ecosystem, which are at the core of our future development. In the future, we will conduct large-scale marketing campaigns on TON Catizen and plan to merge the Mantle Network ranking with the Catizen leaderboard in the TON ecosystem, preserving the advantages of early TON players as much as possible.
TON Innovators: Finally, what advice do you have for other developers looking to create gaming projects on the TON blockchain?
Catizen: We believe that actively communicating with TON Foundation members and participating in their activities is very beneficial. Through these activities, we have gained valuable resources like TON Hackerhouse and TON Gateway.
