I built a working GameFi game on TON, solo.
Not a clicker. Not a tap-to-earn pyramid.
A real trading simulator with 8 ranks, 24
investment positions, weekly Arena tournaments,
NFT collection.
It's live in Telegram right now.
Built every line myself in 4 months:
โ Smart contracts (Tact)
โ Backend (Fastify + TypeScript)
โ Mini App frontend (React)
If you want to see what one developer can ship
on TON in 2026 โ check it out.
๐ฎ https://t.co/M0IwD7k4Sv
I'll post the building journey here. Follow if
you're into building, GameFi, or TON.
Real talk for a moment.
3 years ago I was working as a freelance dev.
Building blockchain projects for other people.
Made decent money. Hated every minute.
Every project I worked on had the same pattern:
โ Founder hyped a coin
โ Devs (me) built it
โ Token launched
โ 6 months later: dead
I told myself: if I ever build my own thing,
it'll be the opposite. Game first. Real users
first. Token last.
That's TCA.
It might not 100x.
It might not go viral.
But it'll be real.
And built right.
Thanks for following the journey ๐
$10 by EOY is realistic if Mini Apps adoption keeps
this pace.
But honestly โ I stopped guessing macro and started
playing the daily moves.
Built Pump or Dump into TON Capital Arena: one call
per day, long or short, winners split the pool.
More fun than copium charts ๐
@TONCapitalArenaBot
TCA beta update โ 7 days in:
๐ 37 active testers
๐ฎ 312 positions opened
๐ Top tester earned 24,000 TCA
๐ First NFT minted yesterday
Slow? Yes.
Real? Yes.
This is what organic growth looks like before
you do marketing.
Public launch in 2 weeks.
You can join the beta now:
https://t.co/M0IwD7k4Sv
๐งต What I learned building a working GameFi MVP
solo on TON in 4 months:
(no funding, no team, no audience)
1/
The biggest mistake new TON devs make:
Starting with token + whitepaper + landing page.
I started with the OPPOSITE:
โ Game logic first
โ Database second
โ Frontend third
โ Token contract LAST
Token took 2 days. Game took 4 months.
2/
Tact > FunC for solo developers.
I tried both. FunC is powerful but you'll spend
weeks fighting with low-level stuff.
Tact reads like TypeScript, has type safety,
generates FunC under the hood.
For 95% of GameFi projects, Tact is enough.
3/
Mini App > Standalone app for TON.
Telegram already has 900M users. They have
wallets (TON Wallet). They have notifications.
They have payments.
Building outside Telegram = fighting against
gravity.
4/
The hardest part wasn't code. It was economy.
I rebuilt token economics 7 times before
something worked:
โ Inflation control
โ Burn mechanisms
โ Player retention math
โ Anti-dump mechanics
Spend more time on economy than on code.
5/
The "boring" features matter most:
โ Daily check-in (+100 TCA)
โ Tasks system
โ Withdrawal limits
Players don't care about your fancy NFT
mechanic. They care that they can withdraw
without losing 50% to fees.
6/
Beta testing reveals what whitepapers don't:
โ Players want to tap, not read
โ They skip tutorials
โ They expect rewards in first 30 seconds
โ They abandon if first session is confusing
I redesigned onboarding 4 times.
7/
If you're a solo dev wanting to build on TON:
โ Pick Tact for contracts
โ Build Mini App, not standalone
โ Spend 60% time on economy, 40% on code
โ Beta test before token
โ Document your journey on Twitter
@ton_blockchain @stonfi_io @TONFoundation
Try the result: https://t.co/M0IwD7k4Sv
Day 124 of building TON Capital Arena.
Tonight's bug: yield calculation was off by
0.04% on Lv5+ positions. Took 3 hours to find.
Solo dev means there's no one to blame but you.
Also no one to thank when it works.
Tomorrow: deploying fix + finally hitting
50 beta testers ๐ฏ
Introducing PUMP OR DUMP ๐๐ฅ
Daily TON price call inside @TONCapitalArenaBot
Every day:
๐ Call PUMP if you think TON goes UP
๐ฅ Call DUMP if you think TON goes DOWN
Bet 1kโ10k TCA. Winners split the pool.
Most degen feature in TON GameFi.
Try it: https://t.co/M0IwD7k4Sv
#PumpOrDump #TON #GameFi
Not buying โ building.
Solo dev shipping TON Capital Arena: a GameFi
trading game that's already live in Telegram.
8 ranks, 24 investment positions, weekly Arena,
NFT collection. No token sale โ earn it by playing.
@TONCapitalArenaBot
Sometimes the gem isn't a buy โ it's a build ๐
Hot take that will piss off most TON GameFi devs:
Stop launching tokens before your game works.
Notcoin succeeded because of timing + Durov +
2 years of preparation.
You're not Notcoin. You don't have Durov's tweet.
Build the game. Get 1000 real players. Make
them WANT the token. Then launch.
That's why I'm doing TCA backwards:
โ Game live first
โ Token launches when economy proves itself
โ No promises, just gameplay
Boring? Maybe. Sustainable? Yes.