Key Takeaways
- Hamster Kombat launched on March 26, 2024, reached 100 million players by May, and peaked at over 300 million by August.
- The team is hoping to build a gaming ecosystem using its new dedicated Hamster Kombat Layer-2 network on the TON blockchain.
- Hamster Kombat “Season 2” was scheduled to end on March 26, 2025 – no official update confirming this has been made public since.
- The game has lost more than 97% of its players.
Telegram’s play-to-earn (P2E) gaming megastar, Hamster Kombat, was the biggest thing to happen in Web3 gaming since Axie Infinity drawing. in hundreds of millions of players to its simple and addictive mobile gaming experience.
But after airdrop delays, overpromises, a disastrous HMSTR token allocation plan, and overall player disappointment, just a fraction of its players remain.
To definitively call the game a “disappointment” would be a fair assessment, though short-sighted, as Hamster Kombat’s legacy could pave the way for bigger and brighter things for the crypto and blockchain gaming sector.
Let’s take a look at what happened to Web3 gaming’s divisive and chaotic success story.
Meeting Demand
It’s relatively common for a crypto/blockchain/Web3 platform to underestimate just how popular it will be, and this brings teething pains for any startup, especially when it comes to scaling.
With plans to distribute 60% of its 100 billion HMSTR token supply to players, it was billed as the biggest airdrop in crypto history. Players, especially long-term ones, were enthralled with the earning potential.
When the HMSTR airdrop, originally set for July 2024, was postponed until Sept. 26, 2025, due to some technical challenges with the TON network and the increasingly gigantic scale of the token’s distribution – thanks to its 300+ million players – changes had to be made.
HMSTR Airdrop
Behind the scenes, undisclosed changes to the token allocation were being made. Then, when the Sept. 20, 2024 snapshot date was announced, the gameplay was altered to introduce a new diamond-based point system.
Then, when Sept. 26, 2024, rolled around, just 131 million players qualified for the airdrop. Troublingly, players were surprised to find they could only access 88.75% of their tokens and would need to wait 10 months for the remaining. 11.25% to unlock from their vesting period.
It’s hard to tell who the top earners were, but it’s safe to presume that, based on there being 131 million users, the average airdrop quantity of 458 tokens per player. The HMSTR token was trading at around $0.007 at the time, bagging players just $3.20 on average.
Based on community posts on social media, it appears that the majority of players received less than $8 in tokens, and a very small fraction received over $10.
Unfortunately for players hoping that the token would in some way rally in price, HMSTR has persistently slid in value and is currently trading at $0.0023.
Players Flee
At the same time as the airdrop, Hamster Kombat announced that it would be moving into “Season 2” in which it promises another airdrop, the creation of its own gaming ecosystem, and other ambitious plans for 2025. This has failed to inspire players to return.
After peaking at way above 300 million and averaging 80 – 100 million players a month, players abandoned the game in droves following the airdrop.
By the end of February 2025, more than 96% of the game’s peak player count had vanished with just 11.5 million monthly users recorded on Feb. 26, 2025.
- Hamster Kombat monthly users. | Source: Telegram
As of April 3, 2025, the game has recorded just over 7.67 million monthly users.
Hamster Kombat 2025
The downturn has done little to take the wind out of Hamster Kombat’s sails, as its 2025 roadmap is loaded with ambitious plans.
It kicked off the year with the launch of its very own network, the Hamster Kombat Layer-2, on top of the TON blockchain. This will be the technical foundation for its intended gaming-centric ecosystem.
So far, despite briefly displaying its Solana-surpassing capabilities, it’s yielded sub-par results and low adoption.
Aside from aiming to transition into a Web3 gaming platform beyond its Telegram origins, it’s introduced new game features and incentives as part of Season 2.
At present, things seem quiet over at Hamster Kombat HQ as the official X page is now regularly posting crypto news updates, and the game’s Telegram announcement channel, with over 40 million subscribers, hasn’t made a new post in two weeks, with just four being made throughout March 2025.
It’s unclear if devs are quietly stepping away from the project, or if just a few of the original staff remain to keep the lights on.
Moreover, its Season 2 airdrop was supposed to conclude on March 26, 2025, though, with no official announcement and the roadmap extending its goals into spring and summer 2025, it’s looking as though the sun may be setting on Hamster Kombat.
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