Hamster Kombat Faces Backlash For Excluding 57% Of Users From Airdrop

Hamster Kombat, the surging Telegram-based tap game, is facing heavy criticism from its users for its Season 1 airdrop allocations just days before its highly-anticipated drop.

On Sept. 22, Hamster Kombat revealed that more than half of its claimed 300 million users are not eligible for its Sept. 26 airdrop. The project said 131 million players will receive tokens during the Season 1 drop.

Hamster Kombat also announced that 2.3 million users were disqualified for “cheating” by interacting with the game using bots or multiple accounts in violation of its terms.

“Over 300 million people have joined Hamster Kombat since March 26, 2024,” Hamster Kombat said. “131 million qualified for the airdrop on September 26th and around 2.3 million were banned as cheaters.”

Hamster Kombat is a Telegram-based tap-to-earn game that allows users to earn rewards in exchange for completing various tasks. Despite claiming more than 300 million users, the project has also attracted players using auto-clicking bots. On GitHub, developers have created multiple Python-based tools for Hamster Kombat that allow players to automate all in-game tasks.

Three-quarters of HMSTR’s 100 billion token supply has been earmarked for the community, with 60 billion tokens set for distribution to wallets eligible for the Season 1 drop. Recipients can claim 53.25 billion HMSTR at launch, with the remaining tokens subject to a 10-month vesting schedule. The other 15 billion community tokens are set aside for Hamster Kombat’s Season 2 drop.

Other HMSTR allocations scheduled to unlock on Sept. 16 include 4% of the token’s supply for marketing initiatives, 4% for providing liquidity on exchanges, 3% to Binance Launchpool stakers, and 0.13% for partnerships and grants. The team will also receive 8% of the supply subject to a 12-month vesting schedule starting next month, while the 6% allocation for grants and partnerships will vest over four years.

Community uproar

The announcement has attracted backlash from many of Hamster Kombat’s players.

“Honest players who spent months grinding and playing fair are being punished, while real cheaters slipped through,” tweeted Keyur Rohit, a web3 influencer. “This isn’t right. We need answers, fairness, and a real chance to appeal these decisions.”

Akshay G, a Hamster Kombat player, claimed to have been unfairly disqualified from the airdrop.

“I’ve spent countless hours grinding in Hamster Kombat without ever using bots or cheating tools. To now be labeled as a cheater is both unfair and infuriating," Akshay told The Defiant. "Innocent players like myself are missing out on what we’ve rightfully earned, while actual cheaters are still getting rewarded.”

Other players expressed outrage over late changes made to Hamster Kombat’s criteria for airdrop eligibility.

On June 6, Hamster Kombat said that Points Per Hour (PPH) was the main criterion that would airdrop eligibility. However, in July, Hamster Kombat proposed changing the criteria to weight it in favor of “key” collection. The snapshot determining airdrop eligibility was taken on Sept. 21.

“Why are so many players getting disqualified over key collection when you said keys weren’t necessary for the airdrop?” said Pushpendra Singh, a crypto commentator. Singh said “many genuine players” lost eligibility as a result of the change.

Catizen airdrop disappoints

Hamster Kombat’s announcement came just days after Catizen, another booming Telegram game, similarly attracted pushback from its users after abruptly announcing a reduced token allocation for its Season 1 airdrop.

Catizen users were left frustrated after Catizen abruptly reduced its Season 1 community allocation to 34% from 43% just six days before the drop, with 9% of the community allocation redirected to Binance Launchpool stakers over two seasons.

TON Adoption Surges

The success of Telegram miniapps like Hamster Kombat and Catizen has propelled enormous growth for The Open Network (TON), a Layer 1 network integrated with Telegram. Telegram miniapps have enjoyed quick success by tapping into the messaging app's 1 billion existing users.

According to Colin Wu, tap-to-earn tokens Notcoin (NOT) and Catizen (CATI) are held by 1.15 million and 2.86 million wallets, respectively. Dogs (DOGS), a TON memecoin that recently triggered a seven-hour outage during its airdrop, is currently held by 5 million addresses. DOGS’ market cap is $492 million, while CATI’s is $160 million, and NOT’s is $778 million.

For comparison, 1.4 million users hold Shiba Inu (SHIB), Ethereum’s largest memecoin, while 284,846 address wallets hold Pepe (PEPE). SHIB and PEPE boast market caps of $8.57 billion and $3.38 billion.

BONK, the top Solana memecoin by holders, is held by 766,093 wallets and enjoys a $1.21 billion capitalization. Dogwifhat (WIF) ranks second with 181,422 wallets and a $1.72 billion market cap.

BNB Chain, the Layer 1 network from Binance, is looking to compete with TON for Telegram users. On Sept. 20, BNB Chain announced it had also integrated with Telegram.