You’d be forgiven for thinking that Pixelverse is another upstart company trying to muscle in on the rapidly expanding world of Telegram crypto games—but there’s actually a lot more to it.

Indeed, Pixelverse’s PixelTap 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.

There’s a long way to go, but as with most things in this space, it could be worthwhile for interested parties to get in on the project early. Here’s everything you need to know about Pixelverse. 

What is Pixelverse?

Pixelverse is a cyberpunk gaming ecosystem that will eventually encompass multiple blockchain games across a variety of platforms. In its current state, there’s a Telegram game called PixelTap that has racked up tens of millions of players, and 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.

Pixelverse also plans to launch an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible layer-2 network for The Open Network, the Telegram-aligned network that it launched its token on.

It’s an ambitious plan, especially with a newly launched token. But with $13 million in total investment 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 PixelTap?

PixelTap is the first playable game within the Pixelverse, and 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 the Pixelverse token? 

Of course, there’s a Pixelverse token called PIXFI, which launched on July 18. It launched on Ethereum, though the Pixelverse team had previously said it would launch on TON, so that may be a future step still ahead.

It has 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.

Alongside the token launch, Pixelverse also revealed how the game's airdrop will work. PixelTap players will be awarded an NFT based on their in-game level, with Rare, Epic, and Legendary NFT holders able to claim an allotment of PIXFI tokens. The NFTs can be claimed starting July 25.

But holders who claim the token allotment immediately will only receive 10% of the total. If they want to get more of the allotment, or potentially the full amount, then they'll need to continue playing PixelTap and engaging with the Pixelverse dashboard over time.

“This innovative system rewards users for their actions similarly to how battle passes work in Web2 games,” the announcement reads, “meaning the more you utilize Pixelverse products, the more PIXFI tokens you will be able to withdraw.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor's note: This article was originally posted on July 3, 2024 and last updated with new details on July 18. This story has also been updated to clarify that the token did not initially launch on TON, despite Pixelverse's previous announcement on the matter.