With the Telegram ecosystem exploding in popularity, we’re seeing a resurgence of the GameFi narrative in the form of Telegram mini-apps. Thanks to a combination of addictive gameplay and high accessibility, these top mini-apps have managed to steal the limelight and gain millions of users overnight. One example of such a Telegram mini-app is Catizen. With close to 30 million users and a personal shout-out from Telegram CEO Pavel Durov himself, Catizen certainly shows promise in attempting to become the largest cat-lover community in the world.
Eager to find out what makes Catizen so popular? From breaking down Catizen’s mechanics to offering Catizen tips so you can maximize your vKITTY profit speed, here’s everything you need to know about the cat game that’s taking Telegram by storm.
TL;DR
Catizen is a popular Telegram game where players raise and merge virtual cats to maximize vKITTY per second.
Players are incentivized to maximize vKITTY earnings for potential future airdrops of the CATI token.
Catizen FishCoins are the game’s premium currency and can be used to accelerate players’ meta progression.
Catizen has amassed a growing user base that’s almost 30 million strong and prioritizes community feedback, as evidenced by changes to the CATI airdrop distribution.
Beyond the Catizen mini-app merging game, Catizen aims to become a broader platform with additional mini-games, TV shows, and e-commerce in mind.
What is Catizen?
While most Telegram players will only know of it as the cat-themed mini-app game with millions of players, Catizen is in fact a broader Web3 social entertainment platform. With plans of eventually integrating mini-games, TV drama series, and e-commerce functionalities, Catizen aims to become the next big thing in the TON ecosystem as it rolls out features that help to lay the foundations for these exciting Catizen ecosystem ambitions.
Given that the rest of these features have yet to be integrated into the Catizen platform, we'll be referring to the Catizen game for the remainder of this guide.
What is the Catizen mini-app game?
The Catizen mini-app is a play-to-earn puzzle game that involves owning and caring for virtual cats within your virtual cat café. Play-to-airdrop is Catizen’s mantra as players are incentivized to upgrade their cats and maximize their vKITTY profit per hour in hopes of potential future CATI airdrops. With endearing feline visuals and a simple cat-merging gameplay loop, Catizen has enthralled almost 30 million users and captured the hearts of cat lovers worldwide.
How does Catizen work? Understanding Catizen's merge gameplay
In essence, Catizen is a puzzle game, where players attempt to maximize the amount of vKITTY they’re earning per hour by merging and upgrading their virtual cats. When new players load up the game, they’ll be presented with sixteen empty slots, which will be periodically filled up over time with virtual cats.
By merging and combining these cats, players increase the overall vKITTY profit per hour. vKITTY acts as the game’s main currency and can be used to purchase other virtual cats under the ‘Feed’ menu. Here, players can find cats of different levels and vKITTY speeds. It’s ultimately this cat-merging gameplay that differentiates Catizen from many of today’s top Telegram mini-app games that focus on the tapping mechanic for progression.
Besides upgrading cats, Catizen players can also progress through the game by engaging with Catizen’s in-game purchases by accessing the ‘Shop’ menu. It’s here where players will discover all sorts of options to purchase FishCoins — Catizen’s premium currency. FishCoins essentially allow players to save on the time required to progress through the game, since higher-level cats with faster vKITTY speeds may be purchased with this premium currency option.
How to earn FishCoins
Fortunately, Catizen gives you the chance to earn FishCoins without splashing the cash. By accessing the ‘Earn’ menu, players will uncover a whole host of tasks and achievements that’ll reward them with bonus FishCoins for completing them. This can range from daily logins and retweets of Catizen posts to achieving a certain level of vKITTY profit speeds and referring a specified number of new users to play Catizen.
Top Catizen tips to maximize vKITTY speeds
While Catizen’s initial plan was to award CATI airdrops according to the total amount of vKITTY earned by players, the Catizen team took into account community feedback and made vKITTY speed the primary criterion for CATI allocations. To help new Catizen players along, here are some top Catizen tips to help boost your overall vKITTY profit speed per second.
1. Get Auto as soon as possible
If you’re intending to maximize the rate at which you’re earning vKITTY, you’ll want to hoard as many FishCoins as possible. This is because of the Auto function that automates the entire game for you. From merging cats automatically to collecting periodic airdrop bonuses on your behalf, the Auto function optimizes your gameplay so you can adopt a more hands-free approach when it comes to progressing in the Catizen game.
At the cost of 3,900 FishCoins, players will have to keep up with the various tasks and achievements in order to reach this amount without forking over any additional cash.
2. Explore the Feed menu
Don’t have enough vKITTY to buy cats at your current level? Rather than idly wait for enough vKITTY to process your purchase, you can access the ‘Feed’ menu to discover free cats that’ll cost you nothing to buy and add to your virtual cat café. This can be especially helpful if you’re close to upgrading to the next tier but lack the vKITTY funds necessary.
3. Calculate the value of your buys
Free cats aside, you can also do some quick math and run the calculations necessary to gauge if it’s worth purchasing two cats at a lower level. Using the example above, if the level 52 cat costs 830,847ab vKITTY and the level 51 cat costs 276,949ab vKITTY, it’d make sense to purchase two level 51 cats instead since merging them would give you the original level 52 cat you intended to purchase.
4. Snag those airdrop bonuses
One of the ways the Catizen game keeps you glued to your screen is the random airdrop bonuses that pop up from time to time. These come in the form of cartoon Pepes, Doges, and yellow birds that’ll occasionally appear in your virtual cat café. Clicking them presents you with the airdrop bonus feature shown above, where you can select from the various reward options. These options proportionately increase in value as you spend more as a player.
5. Take advantage of seasonal promotions
Although it’s unnecessary to spend in Catizen to progress further in the game, the game does make it attractive to do so thanks to its value-for-money in-app purchases.
With the recent Stray Cat Love Gift campaign, Catizen Foundation has pledged to donate 50% of their proceeds to feeding and saving stray cats around the world. As such, players will be rewarded for splurging on in-app purchases during this campaign period. If you’re someone who wants to expedite the growth of your virtual cat café and don’t mind spending a little extra, making purchases during these seasonal promotions can certainly help you to maximize your returns.
Bonus: four free cats daily
Did you know you’re entitled to four free cats every day? As a lesser-known Catizen tip among players, check the ‘Shop’ menu once a day. That's where you’ll find the option to claim your daily bonus and have four virtual cats given to you for zero cost.
CATI tokenomics and utility
Though Catizen already has a few in-game tokens that range from vKITTY to xZEN, it plans to convert its existing in-game system to a standalone CATI token in the future. As previously mentioned, CATI will be the tradable token that’s linked to the Catizen mini-app game. With play-to-airdrop, users who participate in any aspect of the Catizen game will be entitled to some form of allocation for the CATI token airdrop.
With plans for a thriving ecosystem, Catizen players might wonder what CATI tokens will be used for. Utility-wise, Catizen Foundation mentioned that CATI will be used in the following areas on top of its existing Catizen mini-app game.
Catizen launchpool
Game center and trading bot
Short video platform
Open task center
E-commerce platform
We’ll dive into Catizen’s long-term plans in a later section when we break down the project's roadmap.
CATI token distribution
While details about CATI are still scarce, the team has gone on record to mention that vKITTY profits per second will be the key criteria for measuring CATI allocation, and that the total supply of one billion CATI will be distributed as follows.
Airdrop/ecosystem: 43%
Catizen treasury: 20%
Catizen team: 20%
Seed round funders: 8%
Liquidity reserves: 4%
Strategic round funders: 3%
Advisors: 2%
What’s noteworthy is that the Catizen Foundation initially planned to airdrop 35% of CATI tokens to the community and ecosystem. However, with the increasing popularity of the mini-app game, the team made the conscious decision to boost this number to 43% to show appreciation for the overwhelming support towards Catizen. This ultimately highlights the Catizen Foundation’s commitment towards rewarding players for actively participating in their game and being part of the Catizen ecosystem.
Catizen roadmap: what lies ahead for Catizen?
Curious about the future of Catizen and the plans that the Catizen Foundation has in mind? With six total phases, the future of Catizen as an all-encompassing Web3 social entertainment platform looks promising.
With a dedicated team, a growing community, and a focus on innovation, Catizen has the potential to become a major player in the play-to-earn space. As the Catizen ecosystem expands, we can expect to see new games, features, and partnerships emerge. This growth could lead to increased demand for CATI, potentially driving up its value in the long run.
Here's a brief look at the Catizen roadmap.
Phase 1, education first: Catizen plans to create and feature educational content which will teach players about the basics of crypto.
Phase 2, Catizen Launchpool: Catizen Launchpool will encourage staking and decentralization efforts as players stake cat characters and invite friends to improve their CATI mining efficiency.
Phase 3, Game Center and trading bot: Catizen plans to release a Catizenbot trading bot that’ll allow players to trade crypto freely without having to navigate through cumbersome DEX user interfaces. Meanwhile, the Game Center will launch with more than 200 mini-games to keep Catizen players engaged on the platform.
Phase 4, short-form drama platform: By introducing short-form video content, Catizen plans to broaden its reach and engage fans of soapbox operas with their range of bite-sized drama content.
Phase 5, Open Task platform: While players are already seeing this in the ‘Earn’ menu of Catizen, the Open Task platform will take Web3 advertising to the next level by rewarding players with CATI tokens for completing various tasks.
Phase 6, e-commerce platform: As one of Catizen's most ambitious plans, Catizen Foundation is looking to launch an e-commerce platform that supports buying and selling of goods with CATI tokens as the main currency.
How to play Catizen with OKX Wallet
Wondering why all those virtual cats are wearing OKX hats? They’re part of the OKX Web3 campaign. To participate, make sure to play Catizen and link it up with an OKX Wallet. Doing so will allow you to gain bonus FishCoins when you verify and check in with your OKX Wallet. With 60 FishCoins daily and a $50,000 CATI token bonus at stake, don’t miss out by signing up for an OKX Wallet today.
CATI spot listing
Excitedly awaiting the CATI airdrop? The official spot listing for CATI will begin September 20, 2024. In the meantime, if you're bullish for the future for Catizen, make sure to keep an eye out for our CATI pre-market futures. For more information, check out our CATI trade and earn campaign to join the Catizen airdrop festivities.
Final words and next step
Catizen has emerged as a frontrunner in the Telegram mini-app space, captivating millions of users with its adorable cat theme and engaging play-to-earn mechanics. With a dedicated roadmap outlining exciting features and a growing player base that’s consistently breaking records, Catizen has positioned itself as a comprehensive Web3 social entertainment platform and an intriguing project to keep an eye on.
Fan of Telegram mini-apps? Make sure to check out our guides to Hamster Kombat and TapSwap for more Telegram gaming goodness.
FAQs
To start playing Catizen, you'll need a Telegram account. Once you have an account, you can access the Catizen platform through the Telegram app. Look for the Catizen bot and follow the instructions to get started.
No, there’s no upfront cost to start playing Catizen. The game is free to access and you can start earning CATI tokens without making any initial payments.
You can earn CATI tokens by maximizing your vKITTY profit per second. The more you play and upgrade your virtual cats, the more tokens you’ll likely earn during the upcoming CATI airdrop.
As mentioned, when the Catizen platform fully expands, additional use cases for CATI will emerge as ways to interact with the Catizen ecosystem.
Catizen is currently exclusive to Telegram. However, the Catizen Foundation has expressed interest in expanding to other platforms in the future.
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