Gemborn Whitepaper

#Abstract

Gemborn is a cozy idle gem-mining game that lives inside Telegram. Your mine digs on its own; every few minutes you collect its gold, upgrade your pickaxe and lift, hatch little gem creatures called Gemborns to dig with you, and fill a book of rare gems. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign up for: the game opens from a chat in about three seconds.

Gemborn is built around one idea: a game should be worth playing for its own sake. It has no ads, no fake timers and no pressure screens. Real-money purchases are optional, clearly priced and never required to progress.

Play also leads somewhere. Through Season 1, players earn an Airdrop Score for real, regular play: the gold their mine digs, the days they play, the gems they find, the friends they bring and the leagues they climb. At the end of the season the score decides each player's share of the $GEMB airdrop on TON.

This paper describes the game, its economy, the airdrop rules, the principles behind the token and the road ahead. It is version 0.1: the game is live and some numbers will still be tuned during Season 1.

#1. Why Gemborn

Telegram has become home to a new kind of game: one tap from a chat, playable in a minute, social by default. Many of the first games in this space taught players to tap a coin as fast as they can, filled the screen with ads and paid the airdrop to whoever had the most accounts. They grew fast and were forgotten just as fast.

Gemborn takes the opposite path:

• Beauty is a feature. Hand-crafted art, living animations on every screen, warm light, a world you want to come back to.
• Calm, not frantic. An idle loop with honest timers. Your mine works while you live your life.
• Fair to players. The airdrop follows real play: a mine that digs, days played, gems, friends and leagues. Bots and farms are filtered out.
• Built to last. Seasons, leagues, events and a growing world, not a one-month tap race.

#2. The world

Deep under the ground, inside precious stones, sleep the Gemborns: small creatures born from gems. When you dig and break a stone open, the Gemborn inside wakes up and starts working for you.

Gembo is the first of them: a small, round crystal creature with a faceted gem on his head, big eyes and a tiny pickaxe. He is your guide, he digs your mine and he celebrates every claim with you.

Gemborns come in six rarities, one for each kind of stone:

The mine goes down through five depths, each richer than the last: Topsoil, Stone Halls, Crystal Caves, Magma Vaults and the Ancient Core.

#3. How the game plays

#3.1 The core loop

1. Your mine digs by itself. Gembo and your workers fill the mine lift with gold at your mining rate.
2. Claim. When the lift is full, one tap sends it up and the gold is yours. A full lift stops digging until you claim, so coming back matters.
3. Upgrade. Spend gold in the Forge: a stronger pickaxe, a bigger lift that holds more minutes of mining, more workers and deeper, richer depths.
4. Find gems. Every claim has a chance to uncover a gem. Gems fill your Gem Book; every completed set of six gives a permanent bonus to your mining.
5. Grow. Each claim gives experience. Levels unlock ranks, depths and worker slots.

#3.2 Workers, slots and the bench

Up to six Gemborns dig in your mine at once. Slots open with your level (one at the start, then one more every five levels). Every Gemborn you own beyond your open slots waits on the bench. In the Forge you decide who digs: move workers between the mine and the bench, or swap a stronger one in.

#3.3 Eggs

Gemborns hatch from eggs. Eggs come from the Shop, the 7-day streak and friend milestones. Opening one is a small ceremony: tap the egg three times, it cracks, the light inside turns the colour of its rarity and the Gemborn jumps out.

The odds are always shown before you open an egg:

A pity rule guarantees an Epic or better within 50 eggs.

#3.4 Daily life in the mine

• Daily streak: a reward every day you come back, growing for seven days; day 7 brings an egg.
• Tasks: small daily goals (for example, ten claims or one gem found) and one-time tasks.
• Events: Lucky Vein windows several times a day pay double on every claim; Gem Rush weekends double the chance of finding gems.
• Notifications: only if you turn them on, at most three a day and never at night.

#3.5 Friends

Invite friends with your link. When a friend becomes a real player (three active days and level 5), you earn 10% of the gold they mine, and 2.5% from their friends, paid on top and never taken from them. Your friends also dig in your mine, with their photo over their heads. Milestones at 3, 10 and 25 friends bring Sapphire, Emerald and Ruby Gemborns.

#3.6 Leagues

Every week players are grouped into leagues of fifty by the gold they mine that week. The top ten move up, the bottom ten move down, and everyone earns a gold reward that grows with their place and their league. There are six leagues, from Quartz to Diamond.

#3.7 Ranks and achievements

Levels lead through six ranks: Digger, Miner, Foreman, Prospector, Gem Baron and Gemlord. Each new rank opens a deeper part of the mine or another worker slot.

Achievements (claims, gold mined, gems, workers, levels, friends, streaks, leagues) each carry two rewards: a Free reward for everyone and a bigger Premium reward for Gem Pass holders. Premium rewards wait: whenever a player gets the Gem Pass, every reward they already earned can be collected.

#4. Design principles

1. A reward in the first thirty seconds. No sign-up, no wallet, no forms. One tap wakes Gembo and the first claim is ready.
2. Every claim is a small celebration. Animation, haptics, sound and sometimes a gem.
3. Honest timers. You always know when your lift will be full.
4. One main button. On the main screen the biggest thing is Claim.
5. Offers, not traps. No fake countdowns, no aggressive pop-ups and no ads, ever.
6. Speed. The game opens in about three seconds and runs smoothly.
7. Few notifications. Only when you ask for them.
8. Beauty is a feature. Every screen has something alive on it.

#5. Economy

#5.1 One currency: Gold

Everything in the game is priced in Gold. Gold is earned by mining, from tasks, streaks, events, leagues and friends, and it is spent in the Forge and the Shop. The server records where every piece of gold came from:

• mined gold (from the mine itself),
• reward gold (tasks, streaks, leagues, achievements, events),
• purchased gold (bought with real money).

This record keeps the economy honest: every reward can be traced back to its source.

#5.2 What gold buys

• Forge: pickaxe levels, a bigger lift, Quartz workers, deeper depths and one extra worker slot.
• Shop: pickaxe tiers (Copper to Starborn), Lucky Lamp (double gem chance for 24 hours), Double Claim (the next 20 claims pay double), Dynamite (an hour of mining at once), Auto-Lift (the lift empties itself for up to 12 hours after your last visit) and eggs.

#5.3 Real-money purchases

Purchases are made with Telegram Stars, the payment method Telegram uses for digital goods in Mini Apps. Payment in TON through TON Connect is planned as a second option.

• Gold bundles: a faster way to get gold.
• Starter Pack: a one-time welcome bundle.
• Gem Pass (30 days): +25% mining, Auto-Lift for the whole month, double daily streak gold and the Premium track of achievements.
• Privileges: an extra worker slot before its level, a lifetime Auto-Lift, an XP Booster.

Every purchase is a shortcut, never a wall: everything in Gemborn can be reached without paying, only more slowly.

#5.4 No ads

Gemborn shows no advertising, now or later. The game is funded by optional purchases from players who enjoy it.

#6. $GEMB and the airdrop

#6.1 Seasons

Gemborn runs in seasons. Season 1 starts with the open beta and lasts about three months. During the season every player builds an Airdrop Score. At the end of the season a snapshot of all scores is taken and the $GEMB airdrop is distributed in proportion to them.

#6.2 The Airdrop Score

The score rewards real, regular, honest play. It is made of five parts:

The final formula is published at least two weeks before the snapshot. The game never presents the score as a promise of a fixed amount of tokens: a point is a share of the season, not a price.

#6.3 What grows your score

The mined-gold part grows with your mine. Everything that makes it stronger - a better pickaxe, a bigger lift, more and rarer workers, deeper depths - makes it dig more gold, and that gold builds your score. Coming back regularly, filling the Gem Book, bringing real friends and climbing the leagues add the rest.

#6.4 Bots and farms

A score is only worth something if it belongs to a real person. Gemborn protects it with:

• server-side game math: every claim is checked on the server, with Telegram's signed login data, the server's clock and rate limits; the phone only shows the result;
• a trust weight on every score, which rises with signals of a real person (Telegram Premium, a username and photo, account age, activity spread over many days) and falls for accounts that never play by hand;
• friend verification: a friend counts only after three active days and level 5;
• behavioural signals in the beta, such as many accounts on one device or identical claim timing;
• published exclusion rules: the rules for excluding accounts are announced before the snapshot.

#6.5 From score to token

1. Wallet: players connect a TON wallet with TON Connect from the Airdrop screen.
2. Formula: the final formula is published at least two weeks before the snapshot.
3. Snapshot: the date is announced in advance.
4. TGE: $GEMB is issued as a jetton on TON; eligible players claim their share and liquidity opens on TON DEXes (for example STON.fi or DeDust).

#7. Tokenomics principles

The exact numbers (total supply and the size of each allocation) will be published in a separate tokenomics document before the TGE, based on real data from Season 1. These principles are fixed now:

• Players first. The largest single allocation is for players: the Season 1 airdrop and future seasons.
• Liquidity at launch. A dedicated share provides liquidity on TON DEXes from day one.
• Team with vesting. Team tokens are locked and released gradually over time, so the team's success follows the game's success.
• A treasury for the game. A share funds development, future seasons and community rewards.
• Published before it happens. Every allocation, lock and release schedule is public before the TGE.

#8. Technology

• Telegram Mini App. The game runs inside Telegram on iOS, Android and desktop. No install, no separate account: Telegram's signed login data identifies the player.
• Server-authoritative. All game math (mining, claims, purchases, rewards) runs on the server, inside database transactions with the player's data locked and the server's clock. The client cannot change its gold, its timers or its odds.
• Payments. Telegram Stars through the official bot payment flow; every purchase is credited exactly once and recorded with its source. TON payments will be verified on-chain before anything is credited.
• Art and animation. Every character and scene is original art; characters and effects are animated with Spine skeletal animation, rendered on the GPU.
• Infrastructure. Hosted in Frankfurt (EU) behind Cloudflare, with nightly database backups.

#9. Roadmap

After the TGE: new seasons, new depths and Gemborns, guild play and more ways to play together.

#10. Community

• Play: @GembornBot in Telegram
• News: @gemborn channel
• X: @Gemborngram
• Website: gemborn.com

#11. Legal notice

This whitepaper describes a game and its plans. It is not an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy, any token, security or financial product, and it is not financial, legal or tax advice.

• $GEMB does not exist yet. Nothing in this document or in the game promises a token, an amount of tokens or any value. The Airdrop Score is a measure of play, not a claim on anything.
• Plans can change. The game, its economy, the airdrop formula, the tokenomics and the timeline may change, especially during Season 1. Changes will be announced in the official channels.
• Purchases are for the game. Items bought with Stars or TON are digital goods for use in Gemborn. They have no cash value outside the game.
• Eligibility. Taking part in the airdrop may be restricted by the laws of a player's country. Accounts that break the rules, including bots, farms and multiple accounts, can be excluded.
• Risks. Crypto assets are volatile and can lose all their value. Rules for digital assets differ between countries and change over time.

Before the TGE Gemborn will operate through a legal entity and will have the token and its distribution reviewed by legal counsel.