The TON ecosystem DOGS airdrop is coming soon, and its market value may surpass Notcoin, as top exchanges engage in a battle for users

Author: Frank, PANews

The TON ecosystem MEME project DOGS has recently become a hot commodity in the market, with several major exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Bitget, Bybit, and Gate.io competing to announce the upcoming launch of DOGS token trading. Among them, OKX and Bitget have even started pre-trading for DOGS early on. This situation is quite rare, especially since DOGS is a MEME project that was created just over a month ago. Many believe that DOGS is about to replicate the success of Notcoin, bringing considerable new users to major exchanges, which has triggered a rush among CEXs to list the token.

Abandoning Click Games, Telegram Users Directly Claim Airdrops

DOGS has been a dark horse in the TON ecosystem since July. Unlike "click games" such as Notcoin and Hamster Kombat, DOGS does not require user participation to earn points for airdrop shares; instead, it directly determines points through an algorithm based on metrics such as users' Telegram usage duration and activity.

This effortless airdrop has quickly attracted community attention, drawing over 10 million users to the community channel in less than 10 days. As of August 22, the channel's user count has exceeded 16 million, ranking fourth among global Telegram channels.

In addition to its unique airdrop calculation method, DOGS is also the fastest project in the recent Telegram ecosystem games to distribute airdrops. According to official announcements, the DOGS airdrop claim period will be extended until August 23, with the TGE and listing scheduled for August 26 at 12 PM UTC. In contrast, previously popular games like Hamster Kombat and tapsswap have yet to finalize their TGE dates even after months of user interaction. Hamster Kombat was even reported by Russian media to have internal conflicts within the team, and the subsequent exposé article was deleted.

According to official announcements, the total supply of DOGS tokens is limited to 55 billion, with 81.5% allocated to the community (no lock-up period), 10% for the team and future development (12-month lock-up period), and 8.5% for liquidity on CEX and DEX as well as listing-related activities.

Market Value Upon Launch May Exceed Notcoin

With the announcement of the token plan, major exchanges like OKX and Bitget have also launched pre-trading for DOGS. As of August 22, the pre-trading price on OKX was approximately $0.0032. Based on this price, DOGS' market value could reach $1.76 billion. If this market value can be maintained until the token is launched, it will exceed the approximately $700 million market value at the initial launch of NOT. This would place it directly among the top 50 cryptocurrencies by market value. According to official data, there are currently 43 million users eligible to claim the tokens, with the top-ranked user able to claim 23,787,023 tokens, worth over $76,000.

However, this price is not ideal for some DOGS holders. In addition to claiming through airdrops, users can also purchase DOGS using the built-in Telegram points, Stars, based on an exchange rate of 1 Star = 1 DOGS.

The price of 1 Star is approximately $0.01932. At this price, those who directly purchased DOGS using Stars have already incurred an 83% loss. However, the official team seems to offer some compensation to this group of early adopters; of the 81.5% allocated for airdrops, 73% will be given as regular airdrops, while the remaining portion will be used to reward traders, sticker creators, and future community members. The official direct sale of tokens has raised some questions within the community, to which the official response stated that 100% of the points earned from purchasing DOGS with Telegram Stars will be donated to charity, with specific charities selected through community voting.

Major Exchanges Pull Out All the Stops to Attract Users

This year, the mini-games in the TON ecosystem have shown the potential brought by Telegram's 900 million users. Following the successful launch of Notcoin on Binance in May, which attracted market attention, click-based mini-games like Hamster Kombat and tapsswap have successfully drawn large numbers of users, and the popularity of DOGS has sparked a listing frenzy among major exchanges. The main reason behind this may be the optimism about the new users brought by Telegram.

According to Colin Wu, "The listing of Notcoin brought in tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand new users for each first- and second-tier exchange, mainly from Russian-speaking CIS countries." In the current market, where hot topics are scarce, this level of user growth has become a significant factor that exchanges cannot ignore.

However, for click-based mini-games like Hamster Kombat and tapsswap, although user numbers have seen significant breakthroughs—Hamster Kombat announced that its user count has surpassed 300 million—the airdrop plan is still far from realization. The main reason is that the initial design did not impose restrictions on bot traffic, making it difficult to identify how many real users there are. The project team has repeatedly postponed the airdrop, stating that more time is needed to address technical issues.

Moreover, the market remains skeptical about users attracted purely through clicks, questioning whether these users truly have purchasing power and can bring real funds to the crypto market. This sentiment has also been confirmed by senior executives at exchanges.

He Yi, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, previously stated in an AMA, "We recently collaborated with some Web3 projects for cross-game cooperation, attracting 1.3 million users, but only 56 became trading users because they were mainly there to take advantage of the situation."

In contrast, DOGS' method of calculating airdrops based on the depth of Telegram user engagement is seen by the community as potentially bringing in a more valuable user base. In this regard, Mike, founder of GoPlus, commented on X, "The DOGS airdrop corresponds to the depth of user TG usage; users do not need to click repeatedly, just check their TG to receive the airdrop. Through this simple and direct method, the distribution of DOGS holders is more aligned with the distribution of core TG users, meaning those who hold more tokens are more likely to be real TG users. When these users go to Binance to sell tokens, Binance can assess whether TG is an effective new user acquisition channel, thus deciding on the level of support for TG or the TON ecosystem in the future."

Perhaps for these reasons, exchanges have high expectations for DOGS. In addition to simply listing the token, most have launched special activities to attract users. Binance has introduced an event to obtain DOGS tokens through staking BNB and FDUSD, while OKX launched DOGS pre-trading futures as early as August 5. Bitget has initiated a total of 13,600 TON token forwarding activities. Bybit is offering 150,000 DOGS to new users who make deposits. In the face of such competitive dynamics, Gracy from Bitget stated in the community, "The traffic for DOGS is really huge," and "It seems Binance can't sit still either."

Currently, 20 million users have connected their wallets, and 43 million users are eligible for the airdrop. As of August 22, DOGS officials announced in the community that over 8 million verified users have requested to deposit their $DOGS directly into exchanges and Telegram wallets. Previous data from Notcoin indicated that 11.5 million users held the token. DOGS seems poised to break this record, and given this excellent opportunity for user acquisition, it is understandable that various exchanges are eager to act.