The player count of Telegram game Hamster Kombat has fallen another 43% in the past month meaning that it’s down a whopping 277 million players since media outlets reported on its explosive growth back in the summer.

Today, Hamster Kombat’s monthly player count stands at 23 million, down 18 million since Protos’ report last month. As recently as August, the game claimed to have 300 million players.

CoinGecko indicates that volume for the token has also dropped from a 24-hour high of $1.5 billion on November 10, to around $52 million today — a nearly-97% decrease.  

The clicker game was supposedly going to release more playable content by the end of October as part of its “season 2.” However, this is yet to happen. 

The game’s roadmap indicates that the game should have “NFT mechanics” by now but again, this isn’t the case. In fact, the only recent development from the Hamster Kombat team (which is oddly not on the roadmap) is an announcement of a DAO. 

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses 86% of its users but gains 3,720% in volume

It claims, “The DAO will allow $HMSTR token holders to make decisions, vote, and determine the future of the ecosystem.” No other details, including a release date, have been provided. 

The game is one of Telegram’s “tap-to-earn” in-app games that utilizes the Open Network blockchain. The team behind Hamster Kombat chooses to remain anonymous and there’s no public company structure, names of employees, or HQ location. 

Another Telegram game, Notcoin, today announced its new “Earn” initiative that it says will reward users for simply holding tokens. 

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The post Hamster Kombat loses another 18 million players since November appeared first on Protos.

The volume of Hamster Kombat’s HMSTR token rose by 3,720% earlier this month, reaching almost $1.5 billion despite losing 259 million users from its player base. 

HMSTR’s volume increased seemingly out of the blue on November 9, jumping from $39 million at 00:27 GMT to $496 million by 14:03 GMT.

The following day, its volume jumped again to $1.49 billion, a mindblowing 3,720% increase in volume and an all-time high, despite the accompanying player loss.

Its price also shot up 125% from $0.002638 to $0.005954. However, HMSTR’s volume and price then fell to $160 million and $0.003931 over the next four days, an 89% and 33% decrease respectively. 

Read more: Hamster Kombat loses nearly 260 million players in just three months

Hamster Kombat volume surge during withdrawal freeze

What caused the sudden volume increase remains unclear. The only news from Hamster Kombat during the surge was an announcement that token withdrawals were no longer available. Across its YouTube and X socials, no other major news was announced.

News of Hamster Kombat’s season 2 was also unlikely to have caused it as this was already announced last October. It was supposed to launch by the end of October but the team still doesn’t have a concrete date. 

Bitcoin’s price change may have contributed to HSMTR’s volume surge as its price rose from $76,000 on November 9 to $80,000 by November 10. However, it only really began to shoot up in value on November 11 after Hamster Kombat’s volume had already started to drop.

Hamster Kombat does appear open about aspects of its volume. Yesterday, it announced that it had recorded a $1.3 billion 24-hour spot volume and a $4 billion 24-hour perpetual trading volume. It also claimed it has “11 million $HMSTR on-chain holders!”

Protos found its July monthly player base of 300 million had decreased 86% and lost 259 million players by November 4. Its monthly player count now stands at 52 million.

IntoTheBlock data shows the number of daily active addresses fell from roughly 700,000 in late September to just 20,000 yesterday. 

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The post Hamster Kombat loses 86% of its users but gains 3,720% in volume appeared first on Protos.

Hamster Kombat, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that boasted a massive 300-million-strong user base back in August, has reportedly shed 259 million players.

The game’s active monthly player count currently stands at almost 41 million and its token, which launched at a high of $0.009993 on September 26, has dropped by 76% to $0.002392 today.

Earlier this year, Telegram’s CEO described Hamster Kombat as “the fastest-growing digital service in the world,” and claimed it’s part of a new era of mini apps that would bring blockchain to the masses.

However, despite the promise of crypto riches, the game’s sloppily put-together AI art and tedious gameplay haven’t been enough to retain its once-strong player base.

Hamster Kombat’s chequered history 

Local media in Nigeria reported that many players were left feeling betrayed and cheated by Hamster Kombat’s token airdrop. Indeed, BeInCrypto reported that most users could only sell their HMSTR tokens for a single-digit figure despite months of grinding on the app. 

Hamster Kombat also frequently delayed this airdrop and disqualified many players unfairly caught off guard by its new anti-cheat system. In total, a reported 2.3 Million users were banned, and 6.8 billion HMSTR tokens were confiscated.  

Read more: Otherside got $450M from Yuga Labs but its latest game is ‘virtually unplayable’

The game even spooked governments. Iran’s military deputy chief claimed that it was distracting voters from its election and called it a “soft tool” used by the West to challenge Iran’s religious government. The chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee also called for a ban while branding the game a scam. 

More recently, on October 12, Hamster Kombat posted a disclaimer distancing itself from Gotbit which had just been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission and accused of offering “market manipulation as a service.”

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The post Hamster Kombat loses nearly 260 million players in just three months appeared first on Protos.

Crypto-clicker game Hamster Kombat has reportedly caused sales of electric massage devices in Russia to surge as players seek new ways to game its mind-numbing coin mining process.

Hamster Kombat launched in March 2024 and, according to its website, the idea is to “Make your way from the shaved hamster to the grandmaster CEO of the tier-1 crypto exchange.”

Along the way, you’ll apparently “Buy upgrades, complete quests, invite friends, and become the best.”

In reality, this translates to simply jabbing at an on-screen image of a hamster as fast as you can to collect coins.

However, despite these devilishly simple mechanics, the game is still apparently too taxing for many of its claimed 250 million players and increasing numbers are turning to electric massage guns to automate and speed up their clicking.

According to Russian news outlet Vedomosti, E-commerce site Wildberries said that sales of such devices almost tripled in June by 179% while rival retailer Ozon also saw a 33% rise in sales between June and July compared to 2023. 

Their popularity among Hamster Kombat devotees means that many of the guns are now even advertising themselves as a ‘quick pumping’ method to mine the precious coins.

Read more: Crypto trading hamster outperforms Bitcoin, Warren Buffett, Cathie Wood

Despite all of the game’s talk of crypto and coins, it isn’t yet ‘play-to-earn’ as users aren’t able to withdraw anything with real monetary value. Instead, they’re waiting on a promised airdrop, set to happen this month. 

Hamster Kombat also has its own unbelievably popular YouTube channel and news segments. One video reporting on FTX and PayPal’s stablecoin garnered 10 million views, while the channel itself has 33 million subscribers. It once managed 54 million views on a single video.

Read more: Web3 games that rose and failed in 2023

Another crypto-clicker game, Notcoin, rose to popularity earlier this year and employs gameplay mechanics that are nearly identical to Hamster Kombat. Indeed, a spokesperson told the Block that Notcoin helped inspire the game. 

Protos emailed Hamster Kombat to see what it plans to do about the rising use of massage devices to exploit the game’s mechanics and to find out more about the team’s refusal to share who is behind the Telegram-based phenomenon. We will update if and when we receive a response.

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The post Hamster Kombat players are exploiting the game with massage guns appeared first on Protos.