decrypt.co
Telegram-based crypto gaming sensation Hamster Kombat claimed on Friday that it now has a player base larger than the population of Russia—over 150 million players.
That growth constitutes a 50% surge from just last week, when the game’s developers said they crossed the 100 million user mark. For some context, that would mean that almost one in five Telegram users have signed up for the game, which incentivizes players to grow a hamster’s imaginary crypto exchange by dangling real crypto rewards.
Those rewards will come in the form of an eventual token airdrop to players who have accumulated points within the game—which exists as a mini-app within Telegram, the popular messaging app, and doesn’t require any additional downloads. Last week, a Hamster Kombat team member hinted that the airdrop is currently planned for July.
It’s undeniable that the game is attracting huge amounts of interest within Telegram. Hamster Kombat’s announcements channel in Telegram is far and away the app’s most popular channel, with over 35 million subscribers.
The game’s YouTube channel currently boasts some 23 million subscribers, and its Twitter account has 7.7 million followers. Each account’s following has grown substantially even within the last week.
Hamster Kombat’s success has largely been fueled by that of its spiritual predecessor, Notcoin, another crypto-backed in-app Telegram game that won loyal devotees with a lucrative token airdrop to players.
Notcoin’s airdrop launched on May 16 to much fanfare; the token, NOT, has only grown in value since then, breaking past a $2 billion market capitalization last week. NOT is currently one of the top 60 cryptocurrencies by market cap, according to CoinGecko.
Toncoin, the native token of The Open Network (TON), Telegram’s favored blockchain, appears to have benefited from Hamster Kombat’s success as well. The token hit an all-time high price of $8.13 on Friday. It’s up over 26% in the last two weeks.
The flourishing first of Notcoin, and now of Hamster Kombat, appears to have attracted additional would-be successors. Yesterday, two additional Telegram-based games with token airdrop ambitions—Tapswap and Yescoin—announced plans to soon launch on TON.
Edited by Andrew Hayward