In the realm of technology, reaching 150 million users stands as a prestigious milestone, attained only by the most triumphant platforms. Thus, the ascent of Hamster Kombat emerges as one of the most captivating narratives of 2024.
Back in 2016, Pokémon GO, the augmented reality mobile game, achieved this feat in just 33 days, setting a record that endured until the summer of 2023. At that time, Threads, Instagram’s challenger to X, reached 150 million users in an astonishing six days.
Threads raised the bar significantly, but the Telegram-based game Hamster Kombat now asserts itself as the third-fastest application in history to surpass 150 million users.
Hamster Kombat boasts an impressive claim of acquiring 200 million users within three months. According to Hamster Kombat’s official source:
Sébastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox metaverse, emphasized to Cointelegraph that the rapid growth of Telegram-based games underscores the pace of innovation. Games like Hamster Kombat, he suggests, are reshaping the landscape of play-to-earn by introducing novel gaming and social mechanics.
Positioning itself uniquely as a “crypto exchange CEO simulator,” Hamster Kombat distinguishes itself from typical “clicker” or “tapper” games. Over the span of three months, its player base has expanded exponentially, leveraging diverse gaming and social dynamics.
Whether through persistent tapping or strategic management, the game’s objective remains consistent: to accumulate as many virtual coins or points as possible. Players anticipate future airdrops as a token of appreciation, reminiscent of the incentives offered by Notcoin, Hamster Kombat’s spiritual predecessor.
Cointelegraph’s extensive gameplay review revealed Hamster Kombat’s unconventional and engaging approach within the idle gaming genre, which is currently surging in popularity on Telegram.
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Notcoin’s explosive growth drives crypto adoption on Telegram
Could this set a new YouTube Guinness World Record?
Integral to its in-game mechanics, Hamster Kombat’s success intertwines closely with its YouTube content and social media presence. Notably, its YouTube channel has surpassed even MrBeast, the platform’s top channel globally, in subscriber count.
Within three weeks of its launch, Hamster Kombat amassed over 22 million YouTube subscribers, outpacing metrics set by MrBeast. According to Hamster Kombat’s official source:
A YouTube expert informed Cointelegraph that Hamster Kombat currently earns $11 per 1,000 views in advertising revenue from its YouTube channel.
Since its inception on May 24 to June 26, the channel has garnered 473,709,858 views and earned $5.2 million. The daily ad revenue has seen substantial growth, from as low as $100 during its initial days to significant spikes in the past month.
Data from Social Blade indicates an average of 21 million views per day over the last two weeks, translating to $230,000 in daily ad revenue over the same period.
What exactly is Hamster Kombat? More than just a clicker game…
In Hamster Kombat, players embark as bald hamsters freshly appointed as CEOs of cryptocurrency exchanges. The fundamental gameplay revolves around tapping on their hamster avatar to earn coins, a concept that has enjoyed a resurgence fueled by the viral Telegram mini-app Notcoin, which boasts over 35 million players.
Launched in January 2024, Notcoin later conducted a token airdrop, with its NOT token now commanding a market capitalization of $1.5 billion. However, Hamster Kombat diverges by integrating strategic depth beyond mere clicking. While tapping remains the primary coin-earning method, players must judiciously allocate accumulated points to purchase upgrade cards for their exchanges. These upgrades range from acquiring licenses in new jurisdictions to listing additional trading pairs. As players ascend the corporate crypto ladder as hamster exchange CEOs, their avatars evolve in tandem.
Romani Aliev, strategy director at BDC Consulting and an avid Hamster Kombat player, extols the strategic nuances of using accrued points to enhance exchange operations:
“It’s more gratifying and engaging to strategize enhancements to revenue streams, rather than mere tapping,” Aliev articulates.
Cointelegraph’s Hamster Kombat account has advanced to Level 7, generating over 308,000 points hourly.
Exchange upgrades enable passive point accrual even while players are offline, balancing the tapping mechanism with an upgradeable energy meter that refills over time. This prevents perpetual tapping or the deployment of bots to game the system.
Various upgrade tiers, escalating in cost, boost hourly profit, a metric Hamster Kombat has recently spotlighted ahead of an imminent airdrop.
Given the escalating in-game costs of these upgrades, users are incentivized to swiftly amass coins. Hamster Kombat introduces missions that users must complete to earn bonus points.
Exchange upgrades in Hamster Kombat empower CEOs to augment their hourly profit—a pivotal metric emphasized in the game’s forthcoming airdrop.
From the outset, users can undertake basic tasks such as following Hamster Kombat’s X account, joining the game’s Telegram group, and watching videos on its official YouTube channel. Each video watched awards 100,000 coins, facilitating rapid level-ups and profit increases.
Additionally, players receive rewards for inviting friends to join, augmenting both individual point tallies and the game’s social media footprint.
As of June 28, Hamster Kombat boasts over 46.8 million Telegram subscribers and 30.2 million YouTube subscribers.
Influencers and websites share daily cipher and combo cards
Hamster Kombat’s innovative approach to boosting in-game coin acquisition through daily ciphers and combo cards bears implications for both the cryptocurrency sector and its burgeoning community.
Players can earn in-game coins by watching designated videos on Hamster Kombat’s YouTube channel. This channel features animated content categorized under Learn and News sections, aimed at educating newcomers to Web3.
Borget suggests to Cointelegraph that this strategy holds significant potential in onboarding new users, fostering comprehension of Web3’s impact, cryptocurrency trading, and blockchain technology:
“Capturing new users is invaluable. Some will delve into Web3’s impact or financial literacy. By gaining ownership, they can connect their wallet across other games, benefiting the broader ecosystem,” Borget highlights.
Other unique Hamster Kombat features, such as daily combo cards and ciphers, incentivize community members to generate content collaboratively. These features reward millions of points.
YouTube tutorials and shorts by Hamster Kombat content creators garner over 100,000 views.
In the daily cipher challenge, players decode a secret Morse code sequence on their screens to earn one million points. Concurrently, the daily combo challenge enables players to amass up to five million points by combining three upgrades. These codes and combinations refresh daily.
User-generated tutorials on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, unveiling these daily challenges, have emerged as popular Hamster Kombat content in recent weeks. Numerous websites also publish daily articles featuring codes and ciphers, fostering community engagement while creating revenue streams.
Hamster Kombat airdrop
The triumph of Notcoin significantly catalyzed Hamster Kombat’s unprecedented player growth. Developers have disclosed plans for launching the Hamster Kombat token on the TON blockchain, although the airdrop date remains pending.
Enthusiasts anticipate a potentially lucrative token airdrop, akin to Notcoin’s. Players can now connect Hamster Kombat to Telegram’s integrated TON wallet, with the in-game menu signaling ongoing token listing preparations. Players must fulfill specific tasks to partake in the impending airdrop.
Viral videos featuring diverse individuals playing Hamster Kombat suggest widespread hope that their hamster CEO endeavors might yield tangible rewards beyond the game.
Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, acknowledges the potential for financial gain from these games but cautions against expectations of life-changing economic windfalls, stressing that entertainment remains their primary purpose:
“I played Notcoin, my family played Notcoin. We enjoyed it, though I only made about $10 from the airdrop. It’s about fun and entertainment, not just speculative investments,” Siu shares with Cointelegraph.
He acknowledges the speculative allure but underscores that participation doesn’t necessitate financial outlay:
“This is about fun and entertainment—it’s a distinct category. Whether it’s Hamster Kombat or Notcoin, these rewards, whose value isn’t guaranteed, add another layer of enjoyment,” Siu elaborates.
Bots pose a reality, yet millions play
Screenshots posted on Hamster Kombat’s X account on June 24 indicated approximately 185 million daily users. However, this figure doesn’t account for potential bot activities or duplicate accounts.
Source:
Hamster Kombat
Numerous online tutorials and resources provide guidance on leveraging auto-clicking bots to gain unfair advantages. One downloadable auto-clicking bot claims support for up to 1,000 different accounts.
Furthermore, selling Hamster Kombat accounts has become a profitable venture. Some accounts on the gaming marketplace FunPay are listed for over $1,000. Hamster Kombat mitigates this through measures like its energy meter, curtailing automated bot activities.
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No, Hamster Kombat is not illegal in Uzbekistan
Inal Kardan, head of gaming at TON Foundation, acknowledges the challenge of accurately gauging bot presence on Hamster Kombat, given its off-chain nature (though on-chain development is in progress). Nonetheless, he cites Notcoin’s precedent, where on-chain data suggests over 50% of reported 35 million players were authentic users.
“Attracting over 17 million verified, active users organically is a significant milestone,” Kardan tells Cointelegraph.
TON aims for the GameFi throne
Since Notcoin’s emergence in January, TON’s ecosystem has burgeoned dramatically. Token Terminal data shows an exponential surge in TON’s active daily user count—from