Telegram-Based Hamster Combat Announces September Token Launch

Hamster Kombat, the tap-to-earn game on Telegram, said it will issue its token and distribute HMSTR via an airdrop to users on Sept. 26.

The news comes after the project delayed its initially planned July rollout, the team wrote on July 29. Users can access the airdrop section of their Hamster Kombat app to find out which items will play a role in the distribution of tokens.

Since it launched on March 26, Hamster Kombat has been a wild success. Numbers vary, but the Telegram group show about 80 million monthly users, and the team has said it surpassed the 116 million mark faster than some of the largest platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

However, observers claim the numbers are inflated, especially since there’s no way to verify in-game how many active players there are–beyond the amount that appear on the Telegram group.

Founder of Primitive Ventures, Dovey Wan, said Hamster Komnbat’s growth is driven by “industrial farming.” She said rather than “tap-to-earn,” the dApp’s gaming model should be called “tap-to-fake.”

News of the airdrop comes days after Telegram’s CEO and founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France on a series of charges that include distributing child pornography, drug traffickers, and the use of “cryptology” without government approval.