The race to build the first true super app outside of Asia has been treated solely as a financial-services contest. Banks added budgeting tools, fintechs added stock and crypto trading, and exchanges expanded into cards, payments and lending. The model that produced Asia’s dominant super apps suggests otherwise, that finance is not the best starting point.
Looking at the success of super app WeChat, it won over consumers with communication before it ever touched savings accounts. Grab, a lesser known super app than China’s infamous WeChat, started in Malaysia with transport, to become Southeast Asia’s dominant super-app for ride-hailing, food delivery, and digital payments.
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Financial services became a part of the power of these apps because they were integrated with behaviors users already repeated every day.
Finance Was Never the Starting Point
The conditions are ripe for that formula to be applied more widely. Web3 has advanced today so that a wallet or stablecoin balance supports payments, trading, rewards, games, digital collectibles and other services.
According to Visa, stablecoin supply grew by more than 50% during 2025 to reach $274 billion, while adjusted transaction volume was on track to exceed $10 trillion. Its report also found that retail stablecoin transfers grew from approximately $500 million in 2019 to $70 billion in 2025. suggesting that these assets are moving beyond trading and into consumer payments, remittances and digital commerce.
The race to the next super app won’t be about getting the most financial products on one screen, but will focus on the behaviors that make users open their screen repeatedly. People open banking apps to check balances, but choose to return to apps and platforms over and over to watch sports, message friends, follow creators, play games and participate in communities.
That distinction in user behavior gives entertainment platforms an advantage many financial institutions lack because they control attention. Crypto can plug into an app and allow it to turn attention into an economic network by connecting participation, rewards and spending to a shared digital balance.
Telegram’s 500 Million-User Blueprint
Telegram offers a clear demonstration of this model. The messaging platform reported that more than 500 million users interact with Telegram Mini Apps every month to purchase products, access services and play games without leaving the application.
Telegram has also introduced a payment system through “Stars”, creator monetization tools and support for Web3 services built around the TON ecosystem. Its advantage is that payments and digital assets have been added into a platform that built out its usefulness to users through communication.
Coinbase Is Building From the Other Side
Coinbase has approached the same destination from the opposite direction. In 2025, it began transforming Coinbase Wallet into the Base App, an “everything app” combining social features, messaging, payments, trading and embedded mini apps. Users can post content, communicate with friends, trade digital assets, send USDC payments and access games or prediction markets without repeatedly moving between separate platforms.
The super app strategy expanded to crypto companies that understand trading alone is not sufficient. To become a daily consumer destination, finance must be connected to entertainment, identity and social discovery.
Entertainment Platforms Enter the Race
Online entertainment platforms are another route to the super app. Some newer contenders in the super app race are companies such as 1win, which already combine several of the behaviors that get users coming back daily a super app would need to manufacture from scratch.
The entertainment app has a robust offering of sportsbook and esports markets, games, social prediction markets and content, Telegram-native tools, loyalty rewards and digital payments. Its platform operates through one account and balance, supporting deposits and withdrawals in several crypto assets.
From Betting App to Token Economy
1win is planning to push further into the super app race by introducing a token, much like Telegram did. For the platform, it can deepen its ecosystem by turning rewards into an economic layer that extends beyond typical loyalty schemes.
Combined with its tiered VIP program, Betwave social prediction feature, and Telegram distribution, it may shake off its reputation as solely a gaming and betting platform. Instead it’s an entertainment environment in which payments, status, content, competition and digital ownership reinforce one another.
The Numbers Behind the Trend
The wider market suggests this is not a marginal use case. Research estimates that the number of active wallets grew from approximately 17,000 to more than 146,000 per month for gmabling platforms, and that prediction market activity monthly transaction volume increased from $1.2 billion in early 2025 to more than $20 billion by January of this year, with over 800,000 unique wallets participating each month.
These stats provide important data points for platforms trying to make the leap to super apps, because retention dynamics of super apps are built around frequency. A platform with recurring entertainment activity can introduce payments, tokens and rewards into an existing habit instead of asking consumers to develop an entirely new one. The line between entertainment, information and financial activity is becoming difficult to decipher.
Who Wins the Super App Race?
There are limits to this expansion, as the ability to combine services does not automatically make every combination responsible or legally permissible. Even so, the direction of travel is becoming clearer. The next consumer crypto super app will not look like a bank with games added to the menu.
It could very possibly look like a game, social platform or entertainment brand that grows a financial ecosystem underneath. Banks possess trust, licenses and capital, but entertainment companies possess attention, communities and daily engagement.
In an economy where a single digital balance can power spending, rewards, trading and participation, the platform that owns the user’s free time may ultimately have a stronger foundation than the institution that merely holds their money.
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