As of November 28, 2025, according to CoinGecko data, the top GameFi token by market cap, $FLOKI, ranks 155th overall.

The once-thriving GameFi sector has seen significant market challenges. This reflects broader questions about trust and sustainability in blockchain gaming.

Yet this sector once showed remarkable promise.

Back in 2021, Axie Infinity's daily active users peaked at 2.8 million, with SLP token daily trading volumes exceeding $360 million. Stories of global players engaging deeply with the game spread throughout the crypto community. GameFi was seen as blockchain's most compelling use case for mainstream adoption, attracting significant capital and development interest.

But within a year, challenges emerged. Token values declined sharply, and player communities contracted. Over the next three years, similar patterns repeated across multiple projects.

In 2024, the Telegram gaming ecosystem brought renewed attention. Hundreds of millions of users engaged with games like NOTCOIN, DOGS, and Hamster Kombat, demonstrating Telegram's potential as a distribution channel. Catizen reached 35 million users, validating the TON ecosystem's technical capability to handle massive scale.

However, a challenge persisted: converting initial engagement into long-term participation.

On November 24th, a game called COC (Call of Odin's Chosen) launched with a different approach—the VWA (Virtual World Asset) mechanism, designed to make critical in-game economic data verifiable on-chain.

This represents an attempt to address blockchain gaming's fundamental trust problem through transparency rather than tokenomics alone.

I. The Trust Problem in Early Blockchain Games

The challenges faced by Axie Infinity and STEPN stemmed from a common issue: players couldn't independently verify game mechanics and had to trust project teams unconditionally. When confidence eroded, engagement collapsed.

Axie's system faced structural challenges. The game required continuous new player influx to maintain its economy. Entry costs reached thousands of dollars at peak, creating accessibility barriers. Token supply and consumption became imbalanced, leading to inflation concerns.

Behind these symptoms lay a more fundamental issue: critical game data lived on centralized servers. Players couldn't verify drop rates, reward calculations, or token distribution mechanisms. Trust was required rather than earned through transparency.

active Axie Infinity players

STEPN faced similar challenges despite attempting different mechanics. The project extended blockchain gaming into fitness contexts with lower initial barriers, but core data remained opaque. When engagement patterns shifted, players had no way to independently verify system fairness.

The limitation wasn't necessarily poor economic design, but rather that opacity made any economic model vulnerable to confidence crises.

II. The Telegram Gaming Wave: Scale Without Retention

2024's Telegram gaming explosion demonstrated something important: Web3 could achieve mainstream user scale.

From NOTCOIN to DOGS, from Hamster Kombat to Catizen's 35 million users, the TON ecosystem proved Telegram could serve as an effective onboarding channel. Within months, hundreds of millions of users experienced blockchain-based applications through simple, accessible interfaces.

This represented genuine progress. Low barriers, zero downloads, social distribution—Telegram mini-programs successfully introduced massive Web2 audiences to crypto mechanics. The technical infrastructure worked at scale.

The challenge that emerged was different from previous generations: how to transform initial engagement into sustained participation. Many projects saw users engage intensively pre-launch but activity declined significantly after token distribution events.

In 2024, TON games experienced explosive growth. Leading projects attracted nearly 10 million followers on X (formerly Twitter).

This pattern revealed a design challenge rather than a fatal flaw. When gameplay mechanics are minimalist and primary motivation is one-time rewards, long-term engagement naturally decreases. The question became: could games combine Telegram's distribution advantages with deeper gameplay that sustains interest?

Additionally, data transparency remained limited. Despite on-chain token issuance, internal game calculations and probability mechanisms often operated on centralized infrastructure. When distribution controversies arose, projects struggled to provide independently verifiable evidence.

The Telegram gaming wave succeeded in proving blockchain games could reach massive audiences. The next challenge was creating experiences worth staying for.

III. VWA: Bringing Transparency to Game Economies

On November 24th, COC (Call of Odin's Chosen) launched on Telegram. It's a Viking-themed strategy game with resource management and PvE mechanics, developed by a team with extensive experience in WeChat mini-games and incubated by Catizen for the TON ecosystem.

The technical innovation centers on VWA (Virtual World Asset)—a framework for making critical game economic data verifiable on-chain.

What VWA means in practice:

The system creates on-chain records for key economic events:

Deposit/withdrawal transactions
Resource generation outputs

In-game consumption events

Random number generation for loot systems
Economic parameter adjustments

Unlike traditional architectures where game servers are black boxes, VWA creates an audit trail. Every significant economic interaction generates a verifiable record.

Implications for players: Rather than trusting stated probabilities, players can verify actual distributions. Rather than believing announced burns happened, anyone can check on-chain data. Rather than accepting team claims about system fairness, independent auditors can review mechanics.

Implications for developers: Projects can demonstrate integrity through evidence rather than promises. Transparency becomes a feature rather than a vulnerability. Systems align with Web3 principles of verifiability.

This level of transparency is unprecedented in blockchain gaming. The shift is from "trust our claims" to "verify our data"—a fundamental change in the developer-player relationship.

VWA represents a technical solution to a social problem: how to build credible game economies when trust has been repeatedly broken.

IV. Technical Architecture and Game Design

Based on VWA's transparency framework, COC implements several architectural choices:

Verifiable Distribution Systems

COC establishes a fixed token supply of 210 billion, implemented via smart contract. The distribution heavily favors community allocation: 84% designated for player distribution through gameplay mechanics, with minimal initial team allocation.

The release schedule follows a halving model: 42% of total supply allocated to the first period, then systematic reduction over time. This creates predictable, verifiable scarcity rather than arbitrary team decisions.

Critically, all these parameters are on-chain and auditable. Players can verify the halving schedule is executing as documented. The 84% community allocation is enforced by smart contract rather than promised by the team.

Dual Participation Modes

The game offers two engagement paths:

Resource Generation: Players deploy ships for exploration, with periodic settlements. The system uses weighted probability mechanics for fair distribution. Approximately 90% of base output flows through this mechanism.

Challenge Stages: Players engage with PvE content, competing for pooled rewards formed from 10% of base system output. This emphasizes active gameplay rather than passive participation.

This design accommodates different player preferences—those seeking casual engagement can participate meaningfully, while those wanting deeper involvement have competitive outlets.

Importantly, both pathways are tracked through VWA. Players can verify their resource generation matches stated probabilities. Challenge reward distributions are transparent. The system can't be secretly manipulated.

Sustainable Utility Design

COC addresses a common failure mode: projects that launch successfully but lack resources for ongoing development.

The game allocates 18% of platform utility transactions to development funding. This creates alignment: the more the game ecosystem thrives, the more resources flow to content creation and technical improvements.

Additionally, the system implements several deflationary mechanisms:

36% of consumption permanently burns tokens to a verifiable address
36% redistributes to players through randomized reward systems
Time-decay withdrawal mechanics encourage longer-term participation

All these flows are verifiable through VWA. The black hole address balance is publicly auditable. Redistribution mechanisms can be independently checked. Withdrawal fee calculations are transparent.

Gameplay Depth

COC borrows from proven game design patterns: strategic resource allocation, upgrade decision trees, competitive PvE content. The Viking theme provides narrative context for mechanics.

The goal is creating engagement through gameplay quality rather than external incentives alone. Players participate because the experience is compelling, with blockchain elements enhancing rather than defining the experience.

V. From 0 to 1 Million: Validated Growth Potential

Before launch, COC's pre-registration exceeded 1 million users, suggesting market appetite for transparent, verifiable game systems.

The game's approach differs from simple clicker mechanics. Strategic depth, resource management, and challenge systems create gameplay complexity. Art direction and thematic execution aim for quality presentation.

The 18% development funding model addresses a common concern: many blockchain games lack resources for ongoing content creation. COC's structure attempts to ensure long-term support rather than relying on front-loaded funding.

COC defines itself as Play-to-Earn 3.0. This isn't a marketing concept, but a systematic answer to three core questions:

COC's architecture attempts to systematically address three recurring challenges in blockchain gaming:

How to create engagement beyond speculative incentives?

By investing in gameplay quality—strategic systems, progression mechanics, competitive content. The goal is player retention through experience quality rather than external rewards alone.

How to build sustainable game economies?

Through transparent, verifiable systems with built-in deflation mechanisms and development funding. Rather than relying on continuous growth, the model attempts internal value circulation.

How to earn player trust after repeated industry failures?

Through radical transparency via VWA. Rather than asking for trust, the system enables verification. Players can audit mechanics rather than accepting team claims.

These answers converge on a theme: sustainability through transparency and quality.

The approach prioritizes:

Deep gameplay mechanics for long-term engagement
Transparent economic systems for credibility
On-chain verification for accountability

From Axie to Telegram games, we've seen models struggle with opacity, minimal gameplay, or unsustainable economics. COC attempts to address all three simultaneously.

Bitcoin's four-year halving cycle

Conclusion: Transparency as Foundation

The blockchain gaming industry has demonstrated it can achieve massive user scale through platforms like Telegram. The TON ecosystem—through projects like NOTCOIN, DOGS, Hamster Kombat, and Catizen—has proven Web3 can reach mainstream audiences effectively.

The remaining challenge is converting scale into sustained engagement and rebuilding trust after multiple failed projects.

COC represents one approach: combining Telegram's distribution with deeper gameplay mechanics and transparent, verifiable economic systems through VWA.

Whether this succeeds depends on execution and market response. But the underlying principle—that blockchain games should leverage blockchain's core strength of verifiability—seems fundamentally sound.

The game launched November 24th with VWA systems operational. With nearly 2 million pre-registrations, market interest in transparent game architectures appears substantial.

For an industry that has struggled with credibility, transparent and verifiable systems may prove more valuable than any specific tokenomic design.

About COC (Call of Odin's Chosen):

COC is a Viking-themed strategy game on the TON blockchain, developed by a team with extensive WeChat mini-game development experience and incubated by Catizen. The project centers on VWA (Virtual World Asset) technology for creating verifiable, transparent game economic systems.

The game launched November 24, 2024, focusing on strategic resource management and PvE challenge mechanics.

For technical details, refer to the project whitepaper.

Links:

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/COC_Web3_News

Game Access: https://t.me/COC_Web3_bot

Call of Odin’s Chosen Telegram Game bot：https://t.me/COC_Web3_bot/coc?startapp=g_1048_48216207_69241db6e034d1a1d16418da

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.