Recently, HashKey Group officially announced a collaboration with the Telegram game Catizen, and the two parties will cooperate on the gamified DeFi experience and joint HSK airdrop activities. This signifies HashKey’s further investment in the TON ecosystem following the “DejenDog” game. Why does HashKey value the TON ecosystem? How will HashKey’s partnership with Catizen change the current Web3 GameFi ecosystem? What market appeal and business value can be expected?
Following the investment, HashKey Group announces Catizen as its first Web3 partner
On August 19th, HashKey Group announced a partnership with Catizen, making Catizen its first Web3 partner. Leveraging its globally licensed exchange HashKey Global, HashKey will provide a more compliant and reliable digital asset service to Catizen’s global community of 29 million members. The two parties will focus on the TON ecosystem to offer a unique Web3 gaming experience to global players and digital asset users, collaborating to build the next generation GameFi products and global digital entertainment infrastructure.
This announcement comes after HashKey Capital’s investment in CatizenAI’s launch platform Pluto Studio in July this year, reaffirming the collaboration between HashKey and the TON ecosystem.
The scope of this collaboration will also include gamified experiences in digital finance, joint HSK airdrop activities, animal protection, and social responsibility, further optimizing the product matrices and service capabilities of both parties and continuously expanding the global communities of Catizen and HashKey. The two parties will closely monitor global trends in the digital entertainment and attention economies. HashKey Group will also provide compliance guidance and advice for Catizen and its other products, as well as technical support for blockchain infrastructure operations, supporting Catizen in bringing more excellent products to the TON ecosystem and global players, further driving the application of blockchain technology in the global digital entertainment sector.
Catizen dominates Telegram games, creating an innovative Web3 modular consumption platform
CatizenAI is a new game center platform created by the Web3 game publishing studio Pluto Studio based on previous experience, featuring an online cat breeding game in a metaverse environment.
According to official sources, within less than 150 days of its launch, Catizen has amassed over 29 million users globally, with a peak of 3.5 million daily active users (DAU), over 1.8 million on-chain users, and more than 2.1 million Telegram Premium users. According to the data website Statista, the most recent count of Premium Users on Telegram in 2024 was 5 million, indicating that over 40% of Telegram’s premium user base are members of the Catizen community.
As the benchmark product for the next generation of GameFi, Catizen is the first casual nurturing game in the TON ecosystem to surpass similar products in terms of completeness and user experience. It significantly reduces the gap between regular gamers and Web3, accelerating the widespread adoption of Web3 on a global scale. As a Telegram-native mini-app, Catizen offers players an extremely convenient way to play — simply launch the bot on the Telegram messaging platform to start playing effortlessly. New players receive a beginner-level kitten, and if you have two kittens of the same level, dragging them together upgrades them to a higher-level cat, enhancing their ability to earn coins.
In the Catizen game, community players have adopted over 4 billion cats in their own cat cafes, an astonishing number equivalent to five times the global population of real cats. This place is not only a paradise for cats but also a place where players establish deep emotional bonds with these adorable creatures and earn vKitty coins as rewards, which can help them level up their cats faster.
The team plans to further integrate diverse functional modules such as PocketFi, gaming bots, short videos, and e-commerce to build a Web3 modular consumption platform. This strategic vision not only demonstrates the Catizen team’s keen insight into future industry trends but also showcases their innovative thinking and expansion capabilities in the blockchain gaming field.
The significant impact of the collaboration between HashKey and Catizen
HashKey Group is a well-known blockchain and fintech company headquartered in Hong Kong, dedicated to driving innovation in the blockchain industry and promoting the adoption of digital assets and decentralized technologies. HashKey Group’s key features include a focus on blockchain technology, digital assets, and financial services, providing a range of products and services, and ensuring a secure environment for customers. With top-tier influence in the crypto industry, it operates globally.
In the strong wave of digitalization, Web3 technology is gradually permeating every aspect of our lives, redefining the boundaries between consumption and entertainment. Riding this wave of transformation, the collaboration between HashKey Group as a top-tier compliant enterprise globally and the TON game Catizen not only strengthens the global communities of Catizen and HashKey but also optimizes the product matrices and service capabilities of both parties. This collaboration aims to build an innovative Web3 consumption platform that integrates gaming entertainment, social interaction, and consumer experience, providing users with an immersive new experience. It aims to bridge the gap between ordinary players worldwide and Web3, accelerating the widespread application of Web3 globally.
Looking ahead, the vision of HashKey and Catizen extends far beyond gaming and social realms. HashKey is deepening its collaboration with the TON Foundation, actively expanding diversified businesses, and planning to launch more new products and services in the future. These new offerings will integrate with gaming and social businesses, providing users with richer and more differentiated experiences. Compared to traditional Web3 platforms with single functionalities, HashKey’s diversified operating strategy within the TON ecosystem undoubtedly enhances its market competitiveness and innovation. They are poised to lead the innovation wave of Web3 technology, creating more value and premium experiences for users while driving progress and development across the industry.
The importance of HashKey’s layout in the TON ecosystem
TON (The Open Network) originates from a blockchain project developed by Telegram, initially designed to support high-speed transactions in a decentralized network. Over the years, TON has evolved from a conceptual project into a blockchain platform with a complete ecosystem and active community. The TON ecosystem includes decentralized applications (dApps), smart contracts, cross-chain bridging, extensive community governance, and market applications.
In recent years, the development speed of the TON ecosystem has been remarkable. Especially in 2024, the total asset scale on the TON chain reached 11.4 billion USD, growing over 15 times from the beginning of the year. Additionally, the daily active user count in the TON ecosystem has surpassed that of Ethereum, demonstrating its advantages in user conversion and ecosystem stickiness. Notably, the number of non-zero addresses on the TON chain has exceeded 39.5 million, almost 10 times the growth since the beginning of the year. These data points indicate that the TON ecosystem is rapidly expanding and has become a significant player in the cryptocurrency market.
The TON Foundation’s official website showcases nearly 1000 applications covering various fields such as decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, social media, and utility applications. Through these projects, the TON Foundation demonstrates its leading position in blockchain technology and drives innovation and ecosystem development.
HashKey is one of the largest full-stack crypto platforms in Asia and globally. For any crypto user looking to engage in the crypto ecosystem, HashKey offers comprehensive services from fiat on-ramps, primary and secondary market investment trading, Web3, staking, asset management to ETFs. In the fourth quarter, HashKey will also launch a public chain, forming a full-stack crypto ecosystem platform. Furthermore, HashKey is expanding robust partnerships globally to provide users with a more complete and secure Web3 infrastructure platform. The most significant dark horse ecosystem this year, TON Network, is one of HashKey’s strategic partners.
In April this year, the TON Foundation collaborated with HashKey Group to provide a more convenient fiat currency exchange channel for Telegram wallet users and explore ways to support early-stage projects in the TON ecosystem.
Livio Weng, Chief Operating Officer of HashKey Group, stated, “By simplifying the fiat currency exchange experience, they hope to make cryptocurrencies a seamless part of daily life, driving accessibility and innovation in the TON ecosystem.”
In May, HashKey Exchange launched Toncoin (TON) on its crypto trading platform, opening up deposit and withdrawal services. The exchange also provided a reward pool of 20,000 HSK for investors. The platform’s launch led to an increase in TON trading volume, even significantly boosting the price of TON.
In July, HashKey introduced the platform coin HSK’s only official airdrop channel – the Telegram mini-program “DejenDog,” where users can earn game points HIT by playing the “Big Golden Dog” game, which can be used to redeem HashKey Eligible HSK rewards. Through this channel, HashKey aims to further expand the depth of cooperation between HashKey and the TON ecosystem, bringing traffic to HashKey to enhance its visibility and attractiveness.
Subsequently, HashKey not only strategically invested in CatizenAI’s publishing platform Pluto Studio but also announced Catizen as HashKey Group’s first Web3 partner, indicating HashKey’s positive confidence and expectations for the TON ecosystem.
The deep cooperation between HashKey and TON stems from the recognition of the ecosystem value of Telegram itself. On one hand, Telegram’s vast user base provides a fertile environment for HashKey’s prosperity, while on the other hand, HashKey provides comprehensive security, compliance, and financial safeguards for the TON ecosystem, helping projects achieve higher security standards and user trust. The deep collaboration between both parties contributes to the development of blockchain technology.