Trillions of 'Notcoin' Farmed in Telegram Meme Coin Game—But There's a Catch

What makes a game a game? For some, it’s playable characters and quests. For others, it’s cards. And for crypto traders, it can be as simple as a clickable button that lets you “collect” an untradeable, unreleased meme coin to climb an internet leaderboard—and potentially reap future rewards.

Notcoin is a meme coin that, for now, is just an idea. It may be minted on the TON blockchain in the future, but for now the project is more of an internet marketing plot than a real cryptocurrency. Notcoin is not currently being “mined,” so calling the Notcoin button-clicker app on Telegram a “mining game” is technically a misnomer.

“No one knows if or when Notcoin will be minted. No one knows if it will be worth anything or not,” an automated Telegram message reads when learning how to play the Notcoin “game.”

A statement from the TON Foundation—which supports The Open Network (TON), which was initially incubated within Telegram before the company backed out due to regulatory scrutiny—further confuses the issue: “Notcoin will soon launch a TON-based digital asset.”

The same press release then offers the conflicting disclaimer that: “There is no Notcoin token, and a Notcoin has no market value. Notcoin operates as an in-game virtual asset within Telegram’s Web3 ecosystem and does not function as a cryptocurrency.”