People generally think the excitement around cryptocurrencies has ended. Even though there are still many crypto enthusiasts and NFT collectors, Silicon Valley has now shifted its focus to artificial intelligence. Because of this, you might not be aware that one of the biggest brands on social media right now is a cryptocurrency-based video game called Hamster Kombat.
According to our data, Hamster Kombat’s X account is the hottest page on the app, growing from zero to 10 million new followers in just three months. Meanwhile, its YouTube account is the fastest growing in history. In June, it gained over 20 million new subscribers, second only to MrBeast. Its fanbase is so active on Telegram that, last month, Telegram became the third most-downloaded app on Android. But what is this game, and why is it taking over social media right now?
Hamster Kombat runs inside Telegram on the app’s custom blockchain called TON (Telegram Open Network), which launched in 2019. Like many other crypto projects, TON faced legal issues, and in March 2020, New York banned TON’s crypto tokens (then called Grams) from being sold publicly. Telegram officially separated from TON in May, but because the blockchain was open source, it quickly restarted as “The Open Network,” still known as TON, and remains closely connected to Telegram.
The blockchain’s currency is now called TONCoin, with a market cap over $18 billion (more than Dogecoin’s market cap), and it powers many blockchain games and services on Telegram. The biggest of these is Hamster Kombat.
When Hamster Kombat launched in March this year, there was a big marketing push to all Telegram users, inviting them to join. Similar to how Threads’ close relationship with Instagram boosted user numbers, Hamster Kombat now considers nearly every Telegram user as a player, making it hard to know the actual number of active players (they claim 250 million). The game’s creator remains anonymous, leading to jokes in crypto media that it might be a CIA operation.
As for playing Hamster Kombat, it’s quite simple. You have a pet hamster, and you earn in-game coins by clicking on it, similar to the game Cookie Clicker. The goal is to click on the hamster to level it up until it becomes the CEO of a crypto exchange. It’s a very meta game.
But Hamster Kombat has one clever gameplay feature that is driving its massive growth on social media. Besides tapping on your virtual hamster to earn coins, the game gives you daily rewards for opening it every day. For example, if you log in for 10 days straight, you earn seven million coins. The app also includes daily challenges, most of which involve activities on other websites.
You earn coins for joining its Telegram group, watching its YouTube videos, following the game on X, and inviting friends to join. This large-scale, gamified behavior has led to huge engagement. For instance, Hamster Kombat’s latest YouTube video has 8.1 million views, and all the comments are the same phrase repeated: “Thanks to the Hamster Team for supporting our country.”
From the content on YouTube, it’s clear that many users are from India and Southeast Asia. Another clue is that many subtitles on Hamster Kombat’s YouTube videos are in Russian.
Right now, there’s no way to turn Hamster Kombat’s coins into real money or other cryptocurrency. But that will change soon. An “Airdrop” of $HMSTR tokens is planned for this month, which may explain why so many users are following the game’s accounts now. For those not familiar with crypto terms, this means there will soon be a way to connect your game progress to a crypto token you can trade. Users might get free tokens based on how often they play the game or how many in-game coins they have (the details are not confirmed yet).
Hamster Kombat is often compared to Notcoin, the first clicker game on Telegram, which launched in January and had its own Airdrop of NOTcoin tokens in May. It also runs on the TON blockchain and gave out over 80 million NOT tokens to players. Right now, one NOT token is worth about $0.016, which is decent for niche crypto tokens—Dogecoin’s token, DOGE, is worth about $0.12 at the moment. It’s important to note that Telegram’s crypto wallet isn’t available in the US, which means most of the game’s users and investors are not in America.
What makes Hamster Kombat more powerful than Notcoin or other popular crypto games like Axie Infinity or 9Gag’s Memeland is its additional gameplay feature. Besides clicking on a virtual hamster to earn in-game currency, which will eventually be linked to a crypto token, the game also rewards you for inviting friends. It pays you in-game currency to follow its social media accounts so more people learn about the game and do the same. It encourages you to watch its content and trick algorithms into promoting it further. This keeps everyone playing Hamster Kombat.
