Market Data 
Elon Musk-themed Telegram tap-to-earn game X Empire launched its long-awaited X token on The Open Network (TON) on Thursday, with some 6 million players purportedly eligible for the airdrop. But the token launched at approximately half the estimated pre-market trading price, and has only dipped further since then.
X launched at a price of about $0.000096 per data from CoinMarketCap and has been volatile throughout the day, dipping as low as about $0.00005 before bouncing up to a peak of $0.00013. It’s now down to about $0.00087 as of this writing.
Pre-market traders had been betting on the price of the latest Telegram game token launch on platforms like Bitget and Kucoin, with an average trading price of $0.0002 ahead of the token launch. But the real opening price was about half of that.
Pre-market trading lets people bet on the expected price for an upcoming token, though it can be risky—particularly if some of the tokenomics and airdrop details have yet to be confirmed.
Meanwhile, X Empire players have been griping about the size of their airdrops on social media, with numerous purported players claiming to have earned $10 or less worth of tokens for playing the Telegram-based crypto game over the last few months.
It’s the latest example of players being underwhelmed by a highly anticipated Telegram game airdrop and token launch, following other recent examples with Hamster Kombat and Catizen. All three games amassed sizable followings—X Empire claimed over 50 million players—but omitted many players, and some recipients were unhappy with their allotments.
The latest string of Telegram game airdrops may serve to reframe expectations for the next wave of emerging tap-to-earn games on the messaging platform.
The trend began earlier this year with Notcoin, which amassed some 35 million players and ultimately delivered the year’s biggest gaming token launch by a wide margin, with the NOT token peaking at a market cap just shy of $3 billion. But successive games’ tokens have failed to command similar peak valuations.
At its current price, X Empire sits at a market cap of just under $40 million—well below the $106 million of Catizen and $217 million of Hamster Kombat, let alone Notcoin’s $786 million cap.
The developers of X Empire have shared plans to launch various Telegram apps that will provide exclusive perks to holders, such as a news feed and a language learning app, and teased some other kind of upcoming announcement on Thursday via Telegram.
“One month until something big,” the team wrote.
