- The rapid user growth of Hamster Kombat may be deceptive due to “industrial farming.”
- Incentives are driving the growth of click-to-earn games on Telegram, which raises questions about the authenticity of user engagement.
Hamster Kombat, a “tap-to-earn” game developed on Telegram’s blockchain TON, has amassed over 150 million users. Interestingly, it achieved 100 million subscribers faster than social media behemoths WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok.
Additionally, Hamster Kombat has over 20 million YouTube subscribers and 36 million Telegram users.
apps reaching 100 million users
WhatsApp: 3.5 years
Instagram: 2.5 years
TikTok: 9 months
Hamster Kombat: 72 days..116 millionbecause Hamsters are Power! 🐹❤️
— Hamster Kombat (@hamster_kombat) June 7, 2024
Questions Surrounding Hamster Kombat User Numbers
Despite this rapid increase, industry analysts remain skeptical. The quick rise is regarded as unprecedented, yet perhaps misleading.
Dovey Wan, the creator of Primitive Ventures, attributes Hamster Kombat’s user growth to “industrial farming.” She believes that the game’s model should be called “tap-to-fake” rather than “tap-to-earn.”
Wan believes that most consumer-facing dApps stats are likely inflated when incentives align with dApps and professional farms. This inflates the data, creating questions about the legitimacy of user involvement.
A Reminder for Scrutinizing dApp Stats
The inflated numbers linked with Hamster Kombat emphasize the need of carefully reviewing dApp and blockchain usage statistics.
Incentives might encourage users to create several accounts and interact primarily to get rewards. Hamster Kombat’s refusal to address these problems just adds to the mistrust.
Tap-to-earn games have quickly become popular on Telegram, with Hamster Kombat following Notcoin’s success. Notcoin, which debuted on May 16, rose from a market valuation of $700 million to a peak of $2.6 billion by June 4.
The surge of airdrop farmers has resulted in an increase in active wallet addresses on TON. Notably, on June 1, TON’s daily active addresses exceeded Ethereum’s, with 455,000 versus 434,000.
Hamster Kombat’s Upcoming TGE
Hamster Kombat is gaining traction because of its impending token generation event (TGE) in July.
Currently, game data is stored off-chain, and users register by joining the game channel on Telegram and pressing a hamster to earn coins. The goal is to acquire enough coins to generate more before the TGE.
Meanwhile, according to CoinMarketCap data, the price of the Telegram native token, TON, is approximately $7.51 at the time of writing, representing a 5.41% loss over the last 24 hours. However, it has remained bullish during the last seven days, with an 8.72% advance.
Besided that, a prior ETHNews report highlighted Telegram Stars, which enables in-app purchases of digital services such as e-books and courses.