Digital player cards from a mobile football game found a second home on January 22, 2025. Koni Stack, the platform built by the team behind the Polkadot wallet SubWallet, launched Football Rivals, a Telegram mini-app that lets owners of NFL Rivals player cards from Mythical Games use them in a separate, stats-based competition on the Mythos Chain.
Historical news event: 2025-01-22. Retrospective report prepared November 2026.
Football Rivals isn't a full football simulator. It's a quick card game that runs inside Telegram, so players don't need to install another app. Koni Stack's announcement, distributed through Chainwire, pitched it as proof that digital items owned by players can work across "two different player experiences across two different platforms."
How Football Rivals plays
According to a PlayToEarn walkthrough published on January 27, 2025, the game is free to play and built around turn-based events that vary in difficulty, number of rounds and the stats they focus on. Players build a team of cards for each event. In every round, they face one opposing card and pick a card of their own that beats it on that round's listed stats, such as strength or acceleration. Faster picks earn bigger time bonuses, and a card can't be reused in the same event.
Event scores add up to a weekly leaderboard. PlayToEarn reported that the top 100 players each week shared MYTH, the Mythos Chain token, at the time of writing: 1,000 MYTH for first place, 500 for second, 100 for third, and 5 each for places 6 to 100. Points also came from daily rewards, gameplay tasks, weekly challenges and social quests.
Those numbers were platform rules at launch, not guaranteed payments, and only a small share of players would earn meaningful rewards. The game also ran only on mobile devices, not desktop.
One card, two games
The link between the two games is the NFL Rivals card. NFL Rivals is Mythical's mobile American football game, and its player cards are digital items owned by players on the Mythos Chain, a gaming network that runs as a parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem. The press release said NFL Rivals had more than 6 million active players.
New Football Rivals players started with 6 free cards, according to PlayToEarn. To use their NFL Rivals collection, players linked their Mythical account, and more cards could be bought on the NFL Rivals Mythical Marketplace. Players could also sign in with a Telegram account alone.
That's the part that made Football Rivals interesting. Web3 games often promise that players "own" their items, but ownership only matters if those items can do something somewhere else. Here, a different developer built a second use for cards that players had already earned or bought.
John Linden, CEO of Mythical Games, said in the January 22 announcement that "this mini-app shows the power of web3 and the ability for one group to build extended value for players through interoperability."
The limits matter too. A token doesn't turn a player card into a character in every future sports game. Interoperability still depends on another team deciding to build something, and on the original publisher letting it.
Telegram as a distribution channel
Telegram mini-apps grew quickly during the 2024 and 2025 crypto gaming wave because players can open a lightweight game inside an app they already use. Koni Stack sells exactly that: a "mini app-as-a-service" kit that lets developers build Telegram apps with little code. Messaging apps have been trying to bring crypto to their users for years, as Cryptomorrow noted when Line launched its own in-app token in 2018.
Hieu Dao, CEO of SubWallet and Koni Stack, said the launch "not only demonstrates the scalability of Mythos and Polkadot but also opens up a new avenue for further application of blockchain technology."
The press release also predicted that Football Rivals would bring "millions" of new users to the Mythos and Polkadot ecosystems. That was a company forecast, not a result. Telegram games can rack up large sign-up numbers that don't always turn into regular players.
Why it mattered for Mythical
For Mythical Games, the experiment extended the reach of the NFL Rivals collectible economy without asking new players to learn wallet terms before they make their first pick. It came during a busy stretch for the company's sports games, which later included the worldwide launch of FIFA Rivals in June 2025 and a plan with World to add proof-of-human checks to its sports titles. Mythical was also building non-sports games on the same chain, such as the Pudgy Party mobile game.
Calling Football Rivals a new NFL title from Mythical would misread it. It's a compact Telegram game built by a partner, using existing sports collectibles. Its significance is the test, not the token ticker: if players enjoy using an owned card in more than one game, ownership becomes a visible feature instead of a slogan.
Frequently asked questions
What is Football Rivals on Telegram?
Football Rivals is a free-to-play Telegram mini-app launched on January 22, 2025, by Koni Stack. Players use NFL Rivals player cards in short, stats-based events and compete on a weekly leaderboard.
Do you need NFL Rivals cards to play Football Rivals?
No. According to PlayToEarn, new players started with 6 free cards. Players who linked a Mythical account could use the NFL Rivals cards they already owned.
What rewards did Football Rivals offer?
At launch, the weekly leaderboard paid MYTH tokens to the top 100 players, from 1,000 MYTH for first place down to 5 MYTH for places 6 to 100, according to PlayToEarn.
Who made Football Rivals?
Football Rivals was built by Koni Stack, the platform from the team behind the SubWallet wallet, using its Telegram mini-app kit. It works with NFL Rivals assets from Mythical Games on the Mythos Chain.
Sources
- Koni Stack press release via Chainwire, carried by Decrypt (January 22, 2025)
- PlayToEarn, Football Rivals launch report (January 27, 2025)
- Mythical Games
- Mythos Foundation
Featured image: Koni Stack via Chainwire
Frequently asked questions
What is Football Rivals on Telegram?
Football Rivals is a free-to-play Telegram mini-app launched on January 22, 2025, by Koni Stack. Players use NFL Rivals player cards in short, stats-based events and compete on a weekly leaderboard.
Do you need NFL Rivals cards to play Football Rivals?
No. According to PlayToEarn, new players started with 6 free cards. Players who linked a Mythical account could use the NFL Rivals cards they already owned.
What rewards did Football Rivals offer?
At launch, the weekly leaderboard paid MYTH tokens to the top 100 players, from 1,000 MYTH for first place down to 5 MYTH for places 6 to 100, according to PlayToEarn.
Who made Football Rivals?
Football Rivals was built by Koni Stack, the platform from the team behind the SubWallet wallet, using its Telegram mini-app kit. It works with NFL Rivals assets from Mythical Games on the Mythos Chain.
Last updated NOV 9, 2026
