PixelTap is a tap-to-earn Telegram crypto game that's aiming to build a wider cyberpunk-themed gaming ecosystem, dubbed the Pixelverse.

The PixelTap game itself riffs on the Notcoin and Hamster Kombat premise, promising future riches from a slightly different variation on tapping the screen. However, Pixelverse’s plan for the future is much more ambitious, with aims to build a large-scale crypto gaming franchise.

What is PixelTap?

PixelTap follows the recent trend of tap-to-earn Telegram games. In this case, most of your tapping will be spent in the player-versus-player battles, where you take your upgradeable pet into combat against other players.

In battle, a section of your opponent’s pet will be highlighted, and you need to tap that section as quickly as possible to deal damage with each tap. After a few seconds, the zone changes, so you have to keep focusing on where you tap to make sure you are dealing damage and outpacing your foe on that front.

Partway through each battle, the frantic tapping stops—and you and your opponent both choose one corner of the screen to defend, and one to attack the enemy. If you defend the same square your enemy attacks, then you block the damage. But if they fail to block your attack, then you will deal massive damage and usually end up winning the fight.

Winning a battle will give you more in-game currency, which you can then use to further upgrade your pet, or even get new ones if you’ve decided your current one isn’t up to scratch.

Compared to some of the more simplistic Telegram games, it requires a lot more thought and features true PvP combat, which proves an actual challenge rather than just a time sink of mindless tapping. That’s a welcome improvement on most tap-to-earn games.

What is Pixelverse?

Pixelverse is a cyberpunk gaming ecosystem that will eventually encompass multiple blockchain games across a variety of platforms. It's led by Telegram game PixelTap, which has racking up millions of players, and will be followed by an upcoming browser-based game that’s described as a quest-based battler.

This browser-based game is where the real meat of the Pixelverse project will eventually appear, with PixelTap serving as a simple way to onboard people into the ecosystem while the main title is being developed. PixelTap is the tip of the spear, in other words, to get players interested.

There are promises of craftable digital collectables that you’ll be able to trade on a custom marketplace between players, a staking system for the Pixelverse token, and perhaps most importantly: a fun game to play, complete with quests, multiple realms and both player-vs-environment (PvE) and player-vs-player (PvP) combat.

It’s an ambitious plan, especially with a planned token launch on The Open Network (TON). But with a $5.5 million investment round earlier this year and advisors from the likes of Riot Games and The Sandbox, the team has resources to tap to try and deliver on those aims.

What is the Pixelverse token? 

Of course, there’s a Pixelverse token on the way, which will be called PIXFI and will launch on The Open Network.

It will have a total supply of five billion tokens and, once the browser game launches, will be used for a variety of things such as trading, crafting, and battling—although anything more specific than that has yet to be revealed.

PIXFI will serve as the game’s gas token and be used for all transactions within Pixelverse, plus there will be deflationary mechanisms in place to eventually reduce the overall token supply. As of July 2024, there’s no launch date for the token, but as we have seen from many similar games, a release date can arrive a matter of weeks before it launches.

And while it hasn’t been explicitly confirmed, PixelTap players are hoping for some share of the token via an airdrop, particularly since the game frames the combat as fighting for a share of the supply.