Hongguo, which has a monthly activity of 368 million, no longer needs “wool users”?

Produced by Radar Finance Text | Ding Yu Editor | Meng Shuai

Users’ “making money by watching dramas” on Hongguo will soon become a thing of the past.

On October 21, the official account of Hongguo Short Drama released the “Announcement on Hongguo Short Drama’s Plan to Offline the Gold Coin Function”, which plans to phase out the gold coin function.

Specifically, Hongguo Short Drama is expected to no longer provide the gold coin function to new users from November 1, and the gold coin function will be completely offline before the end of December.

Radar Finance has learned that at present, Hongguo Short Play, which has only been established for three years, is already a super App with a daily activity of 168 million and a monthly activity of 368 million.

However, judging from various recent actions, Hongguo seems to be taking the initiative to expose the “short drama prosperity” that he personally created. Since the beginning of this year, while tightening the gold coin model and adjusting payment-related rights and interests, it has also continued to “swipe a knife” at creators.

Many creators of Hongguo short dramas said that after Hongguo canceled the guarantee for small and medium-sized producers, the broadcast revenue has also shrunk significantly compared with before, making it increasingly difficult for them to make profits.

However, new challengers have emerged. Tencent recently launched the Green Bubble short drama, which is expected to integrate the 427 million WeChat mini program short drama users and launch an impact on Hongguo’s short drama dominance.

Some analysts believe that Hongguo’s offline gold coin model is a landmark move in the short drama industry from subsidizing customer acquisition to content competition. Although the gold coin model can quickly increase user activity data, it has spawned a large number of “wool users” and ineffective playback, and the cost-effectiveness of customer acquisition continues to decline.

The aforementioned people further pointed out that the platform proactively clears out low-quality traffic and returns retention logic to the short drama content itself, which is also in line with regulatory guidance on online earning gameplay. It may face user fluctuations in the short term, but will be conducive to improving the quality of the industry in the long run.

Hongguo offline gold coin function, users “watching dramas to make money” will become a thing of the past

According to the announcement released by the official account of Hongguo Short Drama on October 21, the gold coin function will be offline in two stages.

Starting from November 1, 2026, newly activated users on or after that day will no longer receive the gold coin function and related entrances, but existing users will not be affected and can continue to use it normally.

Before December 31, 2026, the gold coin function will be completely offline for all users, and the issuance of gold coins will stop.

Hongguo also promised in the announcement that the gold coins and cash balance rights that users have obtained will not be affected. Before the gold coin function is adjusted, the platform will continue to remind you through page notifications and other methods, and leave sufficient time for gold coin exchange and cash withdrawal.

The withdrawal of the gold coin function marks the end of the “earn gold coins by watching dramas” model of Hongguo short drama that has lasted for nearly three years.

Tianyancha shows that the main operating company behind the Hongguo short drama is Beijing Bimoliuxiang Technology Co., Ltd. The company was established in 2021 and is 100% wholly-owned by Beijing Douyin Information Service Co., Ltd.

Two years after the company was established, the Hongguo short drama officially entered the public eye in August 2023. At that time, in order to attract more users, the Hongguo short drama launched a gold coin mechanism. Users could accumulate gold coins by watching the drama, signing in, and completing tasks, and the gold coins could be exchanged for cash in proportion.

Public rules show that the exchange ratio is about 33,000 to 1, that is, 33,000 gold coins are exchanged for 1 yuan. There are tiered thresholds for withdrawals such as 0.3 yuan, 15 yuan, and 30 yuan.

According to Beiqing.com, some short drama practitioners pointed out that the gold coin mechanism is ostensibly to “gather wool” for users, but in essence it is to help the platform increase time. Hongguo’s advertising accounting logic is that the longer users watch, the more advertising exposure, and the advertising revenue received by the platform will be distributed to the producers based on effective playback and viewing time.

Some people in the industry believe that the withdrawal of the gold coin function means that Hongguo must change the focus of competition from “who is better at making money” back to “who is better at making dramas.” “If you remove the gold coins, the short-term data will be ugly, but the users who remain are the ones who really pay for the content. This is good for people who are serious about drama.”

It is worth noting that some users reported that Hongguo had previously closed the large-amount withdrawal channel for gold coins. At the same time, the gold coins in some people’s accounts had been cleared, and some people had repeatedly failed face recognition when withdrawing cash. This shows that before the gold coin function is withdrawn, its redemption experience may have been tightened.

There are also voices that believe that supervision is another driving force for the offline function of gold coins. Starting from September 1st, the “Measures for the Development and Management of Micro-Short Dramas” will be officially implemented, clearly requiring platforms not to use algorithmic models that induce users to become addicted or over-consumption. Hongguo chose to announce the offline gold coins more than a month after the management measures were implemented. The timing may not be a coincidence.

According to the “Kechuangban Daily” news on October 23, recently, Hongguo short drama has officially launched two anti-addiction “rest reminder” and “sleep reminder” mechanisms.

Among them, the “rest reminder” is triggered after the user has watched the drama for more than a certain period of time, and the “sleep reminder” is for users who are still watching the drama late at night. At present, the reminder mechanism is gradually covering more users.

It is understood that Hongguo’s short drama will also launch a “time management” function in the future, allowing users to set the interval of rest reminders and the time of sleep reminders.

Studying under Tomato Novels, Byte opens up the “internal circulation” of Tomato series

In fact, the gold coin model of the Hongguo short drama is following the path of its “master” – the Tomato novel.

Public information shows that ByteDance launched Tomato Novels in early 2019, focusing on the “free reading + advertising” product model.

At that time, users not only did not have to pay to read books, but they could also get gold coins and withdraw cash based on the reading time. But while users are reading, Tomato will insert ads to earn revenue.

With its advantages in user acquisition, advertising, and negotiations with content output parties, ByteDance easily opened a gap in the paid reading market dominated by China Literature at the time. By 2020, Tomato Novels has become the largest free reading platform on the market.

Later, Byte copied and pasted this “Tomato Mode” almost exactly as it was on Hongguo. According to the Economic Observer, before Hongguo was launched, ByteDance made emergency internal adjustments and transferred employees from Tomato Novels to do short plays.

The two major applications that both belong to the byte system have even developed an “inner loop” model. Industry insiders said that most of Hongguo’s scripts come from Bytedance’s Tomato novels, and both are “siblings”, and both are under the responsibility of ByteDance Vice President Zhang Chao.

After Hongguo Short Play purchases IP from copyright parties such as Tomato Novels, it opens these IPs to short play creators and provides financial support and AIGC creation tool support for subsequent production.

However, since this year, many users have begun to complain about Tomato’s gold coin model.

According to the Black Cat Complaint Platform, some users reported that the Tomato Novel platform had problems such as “lowering account gold coin earnings for no reason”, “clearing gold coin balances for no reason”, and “false promotion of gold coin reward activities”.

Among them, a user filed a complaint in February saying that he found that the gold coin income of the Tomato platform continued to plummet for no reason. His feedback in the app has not been effectively resolved many times. This is an unreasonable reduction of the income of old users by the platform and infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

In response to this, Douyin’s official follow-up reply stated, “The number of gold coin rewards will fluctuate due to the impact of advertising revenue.”

When searching for the keywords “red fruit gold coins” on the Black Cat complaint platform, you can currently see many complaints submitted by users.

Occupying the leading position on the track, Red Fruit faces Green Bubble

With the support of Douyin and Tomato, Hongguo short dramas have grown extremely rapidly during the industry’s dividend period.

According to QuestMobile data, as of July 2026, the daily active users (DAU) of Hongguo short dramas have reached 168 million, with a year-on-year growth rate of 107%.

This number exceeds the combined daily active users of the four major traditional long video platforms “Aiyou Tengmang”, which means that Hongguo Short Play has completed the user accumulation journey of more than ten years on traditional long video platforms in just three years.

If we focus solely on the short drama industry, Hongguo is even more ahead. As of June this year, the monthly active users of Hongguo Short Play reached 368 million, a year-on-year increase of 73.7%, and its volume is ten times that of the third-place Hippo Theater.

As user growth approaches the ceiling, Hongguo Short Drama has entered a new stage of development. While cutting off users’ opportunities to “pick up wool”, it is also adjusting the income of creators.

In March this year, it was reported that Hongguo Short Drama has recently canceled the guarantee mechanism for some producers. The main ones affected are some small and medium-sized producers, and the top quality projects have been retained. Another market source said that Hongguo Short Drama’s move is to compress live-action short dramas and bet on AI live-action short dramas.

According to Blue Whale News, at that time, some small and medium-sized producers said that they were notified before the Spring Festival to “stop selecting scripts”, the guarantee mechanism was cut, and a new cooperation model has not yet been announced. “Even if it continues to be open in the future, I think the platform will only produce scripts at most, and the producers will invest on their own and be responsible for their own profits and losses.”

Time came to May. According to Sina Finance, the creator of the Youhongguo short drama had no choice but to say that the current revenue from 10,000 plays was only 5 yuan, making it impossible to make a profit.

During the same period, Hongguo is also exploring the “VIP payment” model. Its membership packages include weekly memberships of 8 yuan, monthly memberships of 30 yuan, quarterly memberships of 78 yuan, and annual memberships of 260 yuan.

In this regard, Li Liang, vice president of Douyin, said that Hongguo short dramas have successively introduced some film and television content. According to the compliance requirements of relevant film and television copyright owners and industry practices, a small number of these film and television contents require VIP permissions to watch. The ad-free membership service is only a voluntary option to satisfy users’ differentiated experience. There will be no mandatory charges, nor will it change the core model of users watching dramas for free.

However, Li Liang also emphasized that whether it is an ad-free VIP service or a very small amount of film and television content that requires VIP to watch, these are features that have been available on Hongguo since February 2024 and are not new moves in the near future.

While Hongguo’s skits are frequently throwing out various moves, its competitors are also launching new challenges.

Recently, Tencent quietly launched the Green Bubble Short Drama free mini program within the WeChat ecosystem, which aggregates live-action short dramas, AI short dramas and comics, using a free plus advertising model.

As a lightweight mini program, the Green Bubble short drama is embedded in a complete closed loop of the WeChat ecosystem: the homepage of the WeChat mini program has a special area entrance, the video account supports mounting jump links to episodes, and QQ browser will also show up recommendations when searching for relevant drama titles.

QuestMobile data shows that as of February this year, the number of WeChat mini program short drama users reached 427 million, a year-on-year increase of 59.9%, exceeding the overall user size of the independent short drama App of 335 million. This means that a very high proportion of domestic users watch short dramas on WeChat.

Some analysts pointed out that the previously scattered mini programs did not have a unified influence, but after WeChat officials personally gathered traffic, Hongguo may no longer face scattered mini program competitors in the future.