'Eat Different Snake, Take Their Cash': Slither.io Solana Clone Goes Viral – Decrypt

Crypto degens have discovered a brand new recreation to gamble on, inflicting a Solana meme coin to surge to a market cap of practically $20 million because of this.

Noodle.gg is a crypto clone of fashionable free-to-play browser recreation Slither.io, the place gamers management cartoonish snakes that develop bigger with every enemy snake they devour.

Noodle’s blockchain twist is that gamers pay an entry charge in Solana, after which when a participant eats one other participant’s snake, in addition they get their cash. For those who die, then you definately lose the whole lot.

“This must be enjoyable. Eat different snake = take their cash,” the sport’s creator Alex Leiman wrote on X, previously Twitter, adopted by a Solana contract tackle. This publish shortly went viral, hitting over 1,000,000 views in lower than a day.

The Noodle (NOODLE) token has no present utility, successfully making it a meme coin with no underlying performance. Regardless of this, or possibly due to this, NOODLE skyrocketed to a peak market cap of $19.43 million inside 14 hours of its launch, because the snake recreation went viral. It has since settled at $14.4 million, based on DEX Screener.

Leiman has hinted at the potential of NOODLE changing into the token that’s wagered within the recreation, moderately than SOL itself.

The sport attracted 1,000 lively accounts inside two hours of its launch, based on Leiman, regardless of it solely being out there in 75% of U.S. states on account of “regulatory causes.” Inside its first day, the official Noodle X account stated, the sport had greater than $75,000 price of crypto move via it.

On-line reactions have been combined. Some appeared to benefit from the alternative to doubtlessly earn cash whereas taking part in an addictive recreation that reminds them of their childhood. Others, nonetheless, slated Leiman for merely copying Slither.io, moderately than creating a novel recreation.

“Most ‘innovating Web3’ merchandise are simply lazy Web2 clones with crypto slapped on,” pseudonymous X consumer Cremedupepe posted. “No originality, simply copy-paste and buzzwords. Additionally, how the hell do you even money out?”

To exit the sport, gamers should maintain down the Enter key for 3 seconds with out dying. This takes you to a recreation over display screen displaying your earnings for the sport. It seems that gamers are then in a position to money out by offering a Solana tackle and the way a lot SOL they want to withdraw.

It’s price noting nonetheless, based on the phrases of use, the platform reserves the correct to limit cash-outs. This contains time-based limitations, minimal play time necessities, or momentary holds at Noodle’s discretion. Plus, if Noodle catches a consumer dishonest, then their total stability shall be forfeited.

This isn’t the primary crypto recreation to go viral on account of its skill to generate cash for its customers.

Final month, Summary-based crypto mining simulation recreation Bigcoin caught the eye of degens. On this recreation, gamers purchased in-game miners that earned them BIG tokens—impressed by how real-world Bitcoin miners work—which might be used to improve their in-game rigs to earn extra BIG.

It was a serious, albeit short-lived success as its token grew to a $66 million market cap in three days—however then crashed 83%, based on DEX Screener. Trade observers labeled Bigcoin a “Ponzi recreation” that relied on new gamers flowing capital into the sport.

Fairly than taking this as a warning to cease or seeing the tag as a derisive one, some hungry degens continued their search to seek out the subsequent Ponzi recreation to gamble on.

Tons of different non-Ponzi video games have carried out crypto as a technique to earn. Final 12 months, the Telegram tap-to-earn wave amassed a whole lot of thousands and thousands of gamers that tapped away at their telephone screens within the hopes of getting a worthwhile token airdrop. 

More often than not, nonetheless, customers complained in regards to the dimension of their airdrops, and the craze pale after a couple of frenzied months.

Edited by Andrew Hayward