It's tapping season, and if you haven't yet caught in on the frenzy, then you may be having FOMO- (fear of missing out ) right now. Well, not to worry, I'll help you answer all the possible questions you have starting with what everyone's being tapping and if it's the fastest way out of poverty. Let's get right into it!

Breaking Into Wealth at Times Means Becoming Delusional

This is a story inspired by the King of Cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin, for analogy even though Bitcoin didn't initiate the click-to-earn model for mining but a complex model called proof of work.

Some of the greatest inventions started by looking stupid. Imagine that in the year 2010, a college student was foolish enough to tap a computer keyboard at intervals to earn tokens of a particular coin for free, spending 180 days tapping continuously until the coin was officially listed on a public exchange for sale.

At the time of 'tapping,' it had no value, but as soon as it was listed on marketplaces (what we call exchanges) for trading, it was valued at $0.00099 per token, and the student successfully tapped 300 tokens. That means the value of the tokens was a meager sum of $0.90.

Now, that's not a lot of money, but it's fair to say the college student earned that amount for free since all they did was tap without paying anything (at least monetary-wise, but time and effort went in). Because it was so little, the student decided to forget about it, and 14 years later, one of those 300 tokens was valued at $69,000. So, the college student has made a massive profit just by tapping!

That was a risk- anything could have gone wrong. What if the coin crashed? It would have been a long-forgotten story but still worth a try anyway.

How Tapswap Became “No. 1”

Lately, you may have noticed #Tapswap consistently held the number 1 trend spot for about a week or more on X (still called Twitter). One might think at first that it is merely an engagement farming ploy to get Elon Musk’s money. After all, you've probably been misled by trends on the former bird app that turned out to be entirely different from the hashtag or keyword—clickbait. But there's more to Tapswap beyond a trending keyword. Let's first see how Tapswap became a trend.

Notcoin: The First Successful Click-to-Earn Telegram Token

In April 2024, a meme coin with intentions to launch in the next month went viral. It became the first “successful” play-to-earn token mining game. With an exciting reward system for referrals, news broke out that it would be traded on top exchanges like Binance and Bybit. This triggered a high level of FOMO, with a surge of new players trooping in to mine what they hoped would be maybe the next Bitcoin.

When it eventually got listed on major exchanges, many who had invested their time from November 2023 to May 2024 “cashed out,” earning up to $10,000. Some withdrew, while others who are knowledgeable in the crypto space decided to stake their tokens and hodl. Maybe, Notcoin isn't nothing after all.

Seeing that, everyone probably thought: “if I missed out on Notcoin, I shouldn't miss out on Tapswap.“ Now, you know why everyone is tapping their lives out with Tapswap!

What exactly is everyone tapping?

Everyone is tapping shit coins—coins people believe may help them make “instant riches.” People are mostly tapping for speculative purposes, and a high number of those tapping may not necessarily be interested in other utilities of the coin.

What Is Tapswap?

Tapswap, like Notcoin, is a play-to-earn token mining game on Telegram with rules and limits on how many tokens a user can tap per time based on their acquired level.

Is Tapswap a scam?

Currently, it's impossible to decipher; however, don't you think it's difficult to scam over 27 million people? Regardless, still DYOR - do your research.

Diverting here to say that it's important for crypto projects to outline their roadmap on their website for credibility and transparency. Worthy of mention is Hamster Kombat, which has over 16 million members on Telegram and became the largest Telegram channel worldwide a few days ago, with 25 million players currently. The team clearly outlined the project's roadmap which gives players insights into what they are tapping and why they should trust the project.

What is the value of Tapswap?

Like any other meme coin that is currently being tapped, such as Hamster Kombat, Dotcoin, MemeFi, etc., Tapswap doesn't have any official value pegged until it is listed on exchange platforms for trading. The team will determine the price for tokenomics - the token’s economics.

When will Tapswap launch?

Unconfirmed news says TAPS token will officially launch on the 30th of May 2024. The listing is expected to be sometime after the Taps Pool launch on May 30th. There could be a gap of weeks or even months between the launch and listing, as was the case with Notcoin.

What does that mean?

Mining Tapswap through tapping may end on the 30th of May 2024, but it will take a while for you to withdraw your earnings, stake, or hodl (a crypto term that means to hold your coins for a long period of time).

How do I know how much I've made from tapping?

It's quite impossible to know how much you've earned from tapping at the moment until the coin is officially listed for trading.

In the case of Notcoin, NOT tokens that were accumulated during mining did not directly translate to the same amount of $NOT tokens after launch. The actual distribution of $NOT tokens was determined by a combination of factors, like total tokens mined by all users, individual user’s share, and airdrop allocation. A similar approach may be followed through with Tapswap.

What other games similar to Tapswap can one play on Telegram?

Interestingly, other Telegram-based mining games exist with their distinct lores and features. You can find them by searching their names on Telegram and selecting the bot option. The list is probably endless, but here are a few:

• Hamster Kombat
• Dotcoin
• Yescoin
• Wormfare Slap
• Topcoin
• BunnyApp
• MemeFi Coin
• Catizen
• W- Coin
• PocketFi
• Vertus
• Fuel
• Blum
• Bonus
• Hot Wallet
• Onchain Coin

Crypto Projects Need to Evaluate Tapping

One thing that stands out in these tapping schemes is the ‘marketing strategy’ to grow a strong community by simply using a platform that is crypto native -Telegram, making onboarding much easier. Choosing to incentivize players through referrals helps the community to grow even faster.

Consequently, if Web3 projects use this strategy at the discovery stage of their marketing funnel without checking other factors, it may be difficult to get real users who are interested in the project aside those liquidating their tokens for ‘quick cash’ or staying to get rewards.

Hence, it paints the Web3 space as a get-rich-quick scheme. When rewards no longer exist or a good number withdraw their earnings, then the token becomes less valuable.

“As communities grow, though, there is a limit to what can be accomplished through extrinsic rewards”.

Culled from Web3 Marketing by Amanda Cassatt.

Another downside is, if tapping becomes more rampant, many players will find themselves following irrelevant pages and joining countless groups in a bid to earn rewards by completing tasks.