“Cats, cats, cats”: Mantle’s GameFi chief on the clicker boom and Catizen’s listing

In 2024 the total value locked of the Ethereum-based L2 Mantle Network exceeded $600m. Meanwhile, the Catizen mini-game on The Open Network (TON) and Mantle attracted investment from The Open Platform and Binance Labs, and its user base reached 26m.

ForkLog spoke with the head of gaming at Mantle, who goes by Geezee. He shared his views on Telegram clickers, discussed Catizen’s success and revealed details of the forthcoming CATI listing.

ForkLog: Hello, Geezee. Tell us about yourself. Why do you use a pseudonym?

Geezee: Hello! My name is Grant Zhang. People often asked me for grants, so I decided to work under a pseudonym.

I am a veteran of the games industry: I previously oversaw releases of League of Legends, Game of Thrones, Ragnarok, Transformers and TapTap. I worked on user acquisition — over my Web2 career I delivered more than 800m game downloads.

Fate brought me to Mantle, where I focused on building a reliable gaming ecosystem. We want to help more developers use Web3 in games.

ForkLog: Is the “CATS CATS CATS…” line in your X profile tied to Catizen?

Geezee: Yes! Mantle invested in this game a while ago. I took part in planning its campaigns as an adviser and, before a joint activity with Binance, changed the description to “CATS”. By the way, in June 2024 the exchange’s venture arm also backed Pluto Studio — Catizen’s publisher.

ForkLog: This mini-game runs on The Open Network and Mantle. How do the two blockchain ecosystems coexist in Catizen?

Geezee: TON is an excellent blockchain thanks to its tie-in with Telegram. Mantle is a layer two for Ethereum, with greater liquidity, monetisation potential and industry adoption. Users can choose whichever suits them or use the advantages of both ecosystems.

ForkLog: Mantle announced a partnership with Pluto Studio in April 2024. How has this cooperation developed?

Geezee: In fact, we invested in them back in February 2023. Since then we have helped build several products and launch Catizen, which in just five months reached more than 26m players. Our collaboration has been extremely successful.

At the moment Catizen is the best game on Telegram. I believe it will keep its lead.

ForkLog: Can you share the timing of Catizen’s token listing or how it will unfold?

Geezee: That is still confidential, but I can promise that users of Mantle and TON will have equal opportunities to obtain CATI tokens. The distribution criteria are the same regardless of the network.

In addition, we have very good relationships with centralised exchanges such as Bybit. Broad support from them can be expected.

ForkLog: Can you recommend other games on Mantle?

Geezee: We are extremely selective when choosing partner projects. Once cooperation begins, their teams get all the help they need: from refining tokenomics to gameplay advice.

Among the games supported by Mantle I can name Catizen, xMetacene, Ember Sword and Party Icons. We have high hopes for this group.

ForkLog: It seems that TON, paired with Telegram, is aiming to occupy the Web3-gaming niche. Do you consider them competitors?

Geezee: The gaming space in Web3 is still too small for competition. I prefer to think of The Open Network as a partner in popularising such applications.

I hope they manage to attract hundreds of millions of players to Web3 games. That would be very positive for the industry overall.

ForkLog: How do developers choose platforms for launching GameFi projects? What draws them to Mantle?

Geezee: Teams have different needs, so it is hard to single out specific criteria. That said, Mantle has a significant advantage: people here have experience in the traditional games industry.

We help resolve issues across the various aspects of launching GameFi projects and, thanks to strong ties in the crypto community, we facilitate their listings.

Escorting a project from idea to actual launch is what distinguishes Mantle from ecosystems led by investors. The latter can spot promising teams but are constrained when making decisions related to developing and releasing games.

ForkLog: How do you assess the current state of GameFi? Is the clicker boom in Telegram the much-vaunted “mass adoption”?

Geezee: Clickers often lead in emerging segments of the industry because of the low barrier to entry. As users become familiar with the technology, gameplay evolves and becomes deeper.

This, in turn, opens broad opportunities for monetisation. That is exactly what we and the Pluto Studio team have focused on.

We have achieved extraordinary success with Catizen, but we are not going to stop. Mantle has dozens of projects planned that will reflect new stages in the development of the GameFi industry.