How Did Hamster Kombat Help Telegram Reach 700M+ MAU?
With $HMSTR now live on exchanges, we decided to explore how it drove Telegram downloads this summer.
— by Diana Levintova, Andrei Zubov
Tapping Into Success: The Impact Of Hamster Kombat On Telegram’s Growth
The day has finally come! All your friends who’ve been relentlessly tapping Telegram Hamsters are finally being rewarded—for all the taps, the dinner conversations they hijacked, and the constant requests to “just click on the link real quick.”
Today, on September 26th, Hamster Kombat, a viral Telegram-based clicker game, launched its token, $HMSTR, on several major crypto exchanges, including Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Bitget. Trading on Binance kicked off at 12 p.m. UTC, with available pairs such as HMSTR/USDT, HMSTR/BNB, and HMSTR/FDUSD.
Players who have participated in the game can claim their share of the 60 billion HMSTR tokens allocated for the airdrop. The exact amount received depends on each player's performance, determined through an in-game snapshot taken earlier on September 20, 2024. This event is touted as one of the largest airdrops in the crypto world. At the start of trading, the price of 1 $HMSTR token is $0.01.
But why are we even talking about it? Apparently, the rise of Hamster Kombat might have a much broader influence, including games, the crypto market, and the second wave of play-to-earn endeavors. However, its biggest impact seems to be on Telegram itself—boosting the messenger’s downloads, advancing its Toncoin integration, and expanding the Telegram Apps Center.
In this research, we want to answer several questions: - What is Hamster Kombat, and why does it have such a large audience? - How many users joined Telegram specifically to play Hamster Kombat? - How does the Tonkeeper app help track Hamster's success? - Are gaming and crypto becoming the new focus of Telegram’s strategy?
One more thing before we dive into the analysis: Telegram has grown so much that we’ve launched our own channel there! Be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss out on our latest articles and insights. Here’s your link.
The History of Hamster Kombat: Following the Success of the Notcoin Clicker
Hamster Kombat was launched on Telegram in late March 2024. The core mechanic is simple: players tap their phone screens (or more specifically, the “chubby hamster” on the screen) to earn in-game coins, which can be saved for future use or spent on boosts to enhance gameplay.
The game adheres to the classic Idle Clicker formula, where players can purchase upgrades that automatically generate in-game currency, reducing the need for continuous tapping. This allows for passive progression as players accumulate coins even when not actively playing, a key characteristic of the genre.
Idle Clickers have been a notable part of the mobile gaming industry for a long time, often recognized for their strong short-term Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) but struggling with low long-term retention because of slowing progression and repetitiveness. However, Hamster Kombat seems to have addressed these retention issues by incorporating play-to-earn mechanics—as greed is evidently a powerful driver for long-term engagement.
Though there is no direct data on retention rates, a strong indicator of Hamster Kombat’s success in this regard is its consistent Monthly Active Users (MAU) growth, which can be tracked directly on Telegram. The game has steadily expanded its player base, reaching over 110 million MAUs at the time of writing—an unprecedented achievement for Telegram. Additionally, Hamster Kombat boasts over 60 million subscribers in its official Telegram channel, setting yet another record.
The MAU metric has reached 100M users, which is more than 14% of Telegram's own MAU numbers. Just so you know, the MAU of Monopoly GO! in its peak month was 33M!
The path to this explosive success was laid by Notcoin. Launched in January 2024 and promoted by Pavel Durov, Notcoin was the first Telegram-based clicker to pioneer the tap-to-earn formula. Months of dedicated tapping eventually led many users to earn real money once the coin was listed on the exchanges.
Imagine how strong the FOMO was those days! Millions have started searching for similar opportunities. This demand fueled interest in games like Hamster Kombat, which offered comparable play-to-earn mechanics. With the growing user base and the backing by Pavel Durov, who saw firsthand the engagement that Notcoin generated, Hamster Kombat started its rise.
How Hamster Kombat Brought Millions to Telegram and Crypto
In June, Telegram saw 56.5 million downloads, showing a notable +45% month-on-month growth! But how can we confidently attribute this spike to Hamster Kombat and none other? Let’s have a look at the context.
Telegram has been on a wild run lately. Even before the launch of Hamster Kombat, the messaging platform garnered increased attention, partly due to its founder, Pavel Durov, giving his first interview in many years in April 2024. And it wasn’t just any interview—he spoke with Tucker Carlson, a well-known American TV host who has engaged high-profile figures like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Kanye West, among many others.
While Pavel Durov’s interview with Tucker Carlson might have boosted overall brand awareness for Telegram, it didn’t seem to have a significant impact on the platform’s downloads. Despite the promotion of Tucker’s new Telegram channel during the interview, download numbers remained stagnant in April compared to the previous month.
Apart from this interview, there were no major events or announcements that could have significantly influenced Telegram’s growth at the time. But is there another way to track the success of the game? Yes, by looking at the infrastructure surrounding it.
A major factor behind its popularity is the integration of TON blockchain wallets, allowing players to eventually earn real crypto rewards. The game’s airdrop feature also taps into this by asking users to connect their wallets to the TON blockchain in order to receive tokens through giveaways.
Users can either connect Telegram’s internal crypto wallet, available to any user, or choose Tonkeeper—one of the most popular Toncoin wallet apps. Looking at how Tonkeeper performed over the last few months can provide additional perspective on *Hamster Kombat*’s success.
As you can see on the dashboard, its download numbers have jumped up by 375%, growing from 3.6M to 19M users in June. This most likely means that at least 15 million people came to Telegram for Hamster Kombat specifically! Yes, some of them were bots, since many abused the system and even created mobile farms to maximize their profit, but still.
There is no denying that success is huge and, in many ways, defining for Telegram. Not only did *Hamster Kombat *bring millions to Telegram, but it also brought millions to the TON ecosystem, which is a huge step toward crypto adoption for Telegram.
By blending simple tap-to-earn mechanics with cryptocurrency rewards, these games attract millions of casual players to the world of crypto and DeFi. Pavel Durov, with his backing of the TON blockchain and support for games like Hamster Kombat, has positioned Telegram as a key player in merging gaming with real financial rewards.
Due to the success of all the hamster fun, the Telegram Apps Center is now flooded with play-to-earn clickers that promise lucrative airdrops to their players. This establishes Telegram as one of the central hubs in the Web3 gaming space.
Key Takeways
Let’s recollect the major facts that we’ve learned:
— Hamster Kombat has attracted over 110 million MAU and 60 million subscribers to its official Telegram channel, making it one of the most popular games on the platform. — The success of Hamster Kombat was fueled by the earlier success of Notcoin and strong support from Telegram as part of its larger Web3 adoption strategy; — Hamster Kombat has captured more than 10% of Telegram’s total user base; — The massive 375% increase in Tonkeeper wallet downloads confirms that Hamster Kombat was a key driver behind the surge in Telegram’s overall user growth.
While the future trajectory of Hamster Kombat on Telegram remains uncertain, the significant impact it has already made on the platform is hardly disputable. The question now is whether this tap-to-earn model will mature into a sustainable long-term business strategy—or gradually fade away like the initial wave of play-to-earn apps. Only time will reveal the lasting effects of this trend on gaming and cryptocurrency integration within messaging platforms.
One last thing: please, click on this Hamster link real quick… Just kidding!