Tap, tap, tap. Tapping for coins. Everywhere you look, you can find people tapping on their phones. They are not doing it just for fun, but because they hope to get crypto coins, which they can then exchange for cash. Yes, airdrops now give people the chance to determine how much of any given new crypto they can own.
The more you tap, the more you get. It could be a game, or some other interface. It is usually simple and fun. When something is fun and offers financial rewards as well, the result is usually that it becomes very popular.
But tapping your phone screen and getting a cash windfall seems too good to be true. Is it going to continue just like that? Should we all quit our jobs and start tapping? These and more we will attempt to answer.
Tapping For Coins: The Origins
Notcoin, which launched in May 2024, is usually referred to as the first crypto to reward its community members through tapping. It may be more accurately described as the first coin to become wildly popular for rewarding its community through tapping on a game.
To be honest, the idea is not a new one; as far back as 1985, gamers could collect coins in a game environment called Super Mario. The difference is that they could not cash out the coins they collected.
Now, crypto projects abound that require people to tap repeatedly on their phone screens, as a way of “mining” the coins. Why do they do this?
Tapping Is King
The goal of cryptocurrency developers is to create coins that will receive mass adoption. In order for coins to gain mass adoption, they need to build communities prior to launching. That means they need to build popularity from the ground up. Get people involved from the grassroots, at the earliest possible time.
Traditionally, this was done through airdrops, which often required people to share the message on social media and also to refer a few people.
Doing so usually meant that members were assigned coins at the time of launching. The coins could be kept, traded, or sold off for cash.
Tapping is a lot more fun. It is engaging and keeps the community members coming back every day. Besides, it draws in far more people than referring ever could. Some could give excuses and so refuse to sign up for referrals, but hardly anyone is going to refuse an opportunity to make money just by tapping their phone screens.
Tapping for coins is, therefore, the best way to ensure engagement with the community. Its fun nature means people are going to want to do it. Tapping for coins is also the best way to make a new crypto project popular. People will tell others via word of mouth, and in a short time, it will go viral. But why are people doing it? The money. That raises some questions.
Crypto—Money That Just Disappears?
Presently, there is a new crypto project being released every other week. They inundate our social media spaces. They often launch with a lot of pomp; attracting people in massive numbers and making gains in the short term. Usually, the coins soon lose all value, and plummet into nothing. In fact, most get forgotten after 6 months.
That translates into real losses for those who are left holding the bag.
Does tapping for coins change anything? It is yet too early to arrive at a conclusion, but it appears that tapping for coins is just another step in the evolution of crypto pump-and-dump schemes.
It draws people in, the coins become popular, they launch, trade for a few weeks, and then disappear into oblivion. Rinse and repeat—all over again, the trumpet sounds, and the kingdom comes.
Who Wins, Who Loses?
Presently, those who tap for coins seem to be the winners, especially if they sell off their coins as soon as they can. The losers are those who attempt to trade or hold on to the coins for too long.
The above conjecture is made with the belief that developers of all future tapping coins will faithfully pay their community members at launch.
That seems unlikely, as there will always be a Judas to spoil the fun. Not every tap-for-coins game will pay off eventually. Even when the coins launch, something could still go wrong.
As tapping for coins becomes more popular, we may see them launching every day, with the result that their value goes down drastically. That means when they launch, users may see them listed for $0.000000001. One could therefore spend a whole year tapping for $15. It is hardly worth the effort.
How To Choose Winners And Avoid Losers?
Choosing winners means going back to the basics. Crypto with groundbreaking technology and real-world use cases almost always rises to the top, while those that have nothing to offer usually get forgotten in a short time.
Therefore, it may be a good idea to spend a few minutes looking at the whitepaper of the crypto before you start tapping. The phrase, ‘This is the next big thing’ is common with every cryptocurrency that launches. Do not fall for this scam; it’s just a phrase to lure the unsuspecting you. Make sure it is worth it before you invest your time and effort. That way, even if the launch price is very small, there is still a chance of a rise in value as more people see the potential in the crypto, and start to buy in.
To avoid the losers, just stay away from shitcoins if you can identify them.
The bottom line:
Right now, tapping is the in thing. Many people have already made money from it, and it has already become popular. This will probably mean that many crypto projects will adopt this as a way to grow their communities and launch their projects.
This will inevitably mean that fraudulent projects will also jump in on the action. They will draw in people to tap their coins without any intention of doing anything to the benefit of their communities.
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