Telegram Game Catizen Postpones Airdrop After Community Backlash

Catizen, a tap-based game on Telegram, said on Tuesday that it is delaying its CATI token airdrop, initially slated for July, following backlash from its community.

On July 22, the gaming platform donated $100,000 to the animal rights non-profit organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

“We have received feedback from the community regarding PETA’s past actions of euthanizing animals,” Pluto Studio, the company behind Catizen, said on Monday. “In response, we have confirmed with PETA that all donations from Catizen will be used exclusively for feeding, vaccination, rescue, and adoption assistance.”

The team has not specified a particular reason for the delay but cited issues such as the need to “secure leading exchanges, ensure sufficient liquidity, provide trading options, and determine the listing price.”

Currently, there is no revised timeline for the airdrop, which is set to be launched on The Open Network (TON), the Layer 1 blockchain affiliated with Telegram. Pluto Studio plans to distribute 43% of the CATI supply via an airdrop to players.

Pluto Studio claims that Catizen has around 25 million players, with 1.4 million on-chain players, 19 million on-chain transactions, and 1.8 million Telegram Premium players.

Data from Dune Analytics indicates that the game’s deployment on Mantle, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, has generated 3.6 million on-chain transactions, with a daily average transaction count of 20,000. Daily transactions peaked at 181,887 on April 28.

On July 23, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov praised Catizen for introducing millions of users to Web3.

“Catizen introduced millions of people to blockchain, because it uses TON-based smart contracts for its in-game rewards. Their team also built tools for other developers to easily launch their games on Telegram and TON. Well done, Catizen team,” Durov wrote.

In Catizen, players engage in simple puzzle games where they combine and upgrade virtual cats in a cat-themed café to earn tokens.

The delay of Catizen’s token launch comes as another major Telegram-based game, Hamster Kombat, is also postponing its airdrop plans. Originally planning to launch its token in July, Hamster Kombat’s developers shared on Monday that they are still working out the details to deploy the large-scale airdrop.

Telegram-based crypto games began to gain traction earlier this year, kickstarted by Notcoin, which attracted 35 million players and achieved a market capitalization of $1.6 billion within just two months after its launch in May.