In the tech world, hitting 150 million users is an exclusive milestone. Only the most successful platforms achieve the feat, making the rise of Hamster Kombat one of the most intriguing stories in 2024.

It took Pokémon GO, a 2016 augmented reality mobile game, 33 days to get to 150 million users. It held the record until the summer of 2023, when Threads, Instagram’s rival to X, hit the mark in just six days.

Threads has set the bar incredibly high, but the recently launched Telegram-based game Hamster Kombat claims to be the third-fastest app in history to onboard and surpass 150 million users.

Sébastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox metaverse, tells Cointelegraph that the eye-popping growth of Telegram-based games is a testament to the speed of innovation and that games like Hamster Kombat are reinventing the approach to play-to-earn games:

“This is exciting and powerful. It shows how things move in this industry with the network effect of Web3. In weeks or months, they grow to unbelievable scales.”

The team behind the casual game describes its quirky title as a “crypto exchange CEO simulator” and not a “clicker” or “tapper” game. The game’s player base has grown exponentially over three months using various gaming and social mechanics.

The game’s goal, whether through diligent tapping or strategic management, is to earn as many virtual coins or points as possible. Users hope that their loyalty will be rewarded with future airdrops, similar to the rewards dished out by Notcoin, Hamster Kombat’s spiritual predecessor.

Cointelegraph played the game extensively to explore its curious and engaging approach to the idle game genre. These games are booming in popularity on Telegram because they leverage the app’s massive social graph to onboard millions of users in an incredibly short time frame.

YouTube Guinness World Record?

Hamster Kombat’s in-game mechanics are intrinsically linked to its YouTube content and social media platforms. As a result, its YouTube page alone is outpacing the subscription numbers of Mr Beast, the platform’s most subscribed-to channel globally.

Cointelegraph understands that the team has applied for a Guinness World Record as the first YouTube channel to gain over 10 million subscribers in one week (six days, 13 hours, and 15 minutes), among other subscriber-related milestones.

A YouTube expert told Cointelegraph that Hamster Kombat is currently earning $11 per 1,000 views in advertising revenue from its YouTube channel.

Since its inception on May 24 to June 26, the channel has amassed 473,709,858 views and earned $5.2 million. Ad revenue has increased daily, from as low as $100 in its first few days to significant spikes over the past month.

Data from Social Blade suggests that the channel has racked up an average of 21 million views per day over the past two weeks. This equates to $230,000 daily ad revenue payouts over the past 14 days.

What is Hamster Kombat? It’s not just a clicker game...

In Hamster Kombat, players start out as bald hamsters who have just signed a contract as the CEO of a cryptocurrency exchange. The base mechanic of the game is that of a clicker, where the player taps on their hamster avatar to earn coins.

The concept has existed for years but has seen a resurgence in popularity driven by similar viral Telegram mini app Notcoin, played by over 35 million players. Launched in Jan. 2024, Notcoin eventually carried out a token airdrop, and the NOT token now has a market capitalization of $1.5 billion.

However, Hamster Kombat’s approach is not solely focused on the clicking mechanic. While it is the primary way new players earn coins, users must spend their accumulated points to purchase upgrade cards for their exchange, such as licenses in new jurisdictions or listing new trading pairs. As a hamster exchange CEO, your avatar levels up as you climb the corporate crypto ladder.

Romani Aliev, strategy director at BDC Consulting and a Hamster Kombat player, says it’s more strategic and beneficial for players to use accumulated points to purchase upgrades for their exchange.

“It’s far more sophisticated and fun to think about how you will improve the income process than just tapping,” Aliev explains.

Exchange upgrades allow players to earn points passively while in-game and not actively playing. The tapping mechanic is also capped by an upgradable energy meter that refills, meaning you can’t just tap all day or install bots that do the work for you.

The various upgrades have tiers, which cost an increasing amount of coins. All these upgrades improve the player’s profit per hour, which Hamster Kombat recently announced as the key metric players should focus on ahead of a looming airdrop.

Given that the upgrades cost an increasing amount of in-game coins, users are incentivized to do what they can to accumulate coins as quickly as possible. This is where Hamster Kombat introduces missions that users must clear to earn bonus points.

Users can complete some basic tasks right from the start, such as following Hamster Kombat's X account, joining the game's Telegram group, and watching videos on their official YouTube channel. Watching these videos awards 100,000 coins each, which helps to quickly upgrade levels and increase hourly profit.

The game also rewards players for inviting their friends to play. Completing these tasks benefits users’ points tally while boosting the game’s social media presence and engagement metrics.

Hamster Kombat has over 46.8 million subscribers on Telegram and 30.2 million on YouTube as of June 28.

Influencers and websites share daily cipher and combo cards

Hamster Kombat’s approach to allowing users to earn more in-game coins to upgrade their exchange has interesting implications for the cryptocurrency sector and its own community.

Players can earn in-game coins for watching certain videos on Hamster Kombat’s YouTube channel. The channel features animated content categorized in a Learn and News section, touching on important topics specifically for Web3 newcomers.

Borget tells Cointelegraph that this approach could prove critically important in onboarding new users and educating them on the basics of Web3, cryptocurrency trading and blockchain technology

“It's great to capture new users in the space. Some of them will start learning the impact of Web3 or financial literacy. Through ownership, they can connect our wallet to other games, benefiting the broader ecosystem,” Borget said.

Other alternative features within Hamster Kombat allow users to earn more in-game points and are already becoming a viable means for community members to co-create content. It’s daily combo cards and cipher are two unique in-game features that reward millions of points.

For daily ciphers, players must successfully input a secret code by tapping Morse code on their screens to earn on million points. Meanwhile, players can receive up to five million points by purchasing a combination of three upgrades in the daily combo challenge. These codes and combinations are refreshed daily.

User-generated tutorials on social platforms like YouTube and TikTok that unveil these daily combos have been some of the most popular Hamster Kombat content in recent weeks. Several websites are also creating daily news articles sharing daily codes and ciphers.

This type of content could become a viable means for content creators and websites to earn money while fostering the community and providing a passive income stream.

Hamster Kombat airdrop

The success of Notcoin is being touted as a big reason for Hamster Kombat’s unprecedented growth in player numbers. Its developers announced that the Hamster Kombat token will be launched on the TON blockchain, while a date for the airdrop is yet to be confirmed.

It is speculated that players hope to be rewarded in a similarly lucrative token airdrop to that of Notcoin. Hamster Kombat players can now connect Telegram’s integrated TON wallet, with the in-game menu indicating that the token listing is underway. Players will have to complete specific tasks to participate in the upcoming airdrop.

Viral videos showing people from all walks of life playing Hamster Kombat suggest that many hope their Hamster CEO might pay them back in real life for the time spent clicking and upgrading their exchange.

Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, says that while there is potential to make money, these games don't always lead to “life-changing” economic windfalls. He also said that it’s not the primary purpose of the genre.

“I played Notcoin, my family played Notcoin. We had some fun with it I think I made about $10 in the airdrop. Okay, maybe I didn’t put hours into it, but that’s not what it is for us, right? It’s for fun and entertainment,” Siu tells Cointelegraph.

He also concedes that while there is a speculative allure to the game, users don’t have to pay to play.

“This is fun and entertainment, it’s a very different category. I look at this as not purely speculative but as marketing and advertising. If you want to promote a brand, whether it’s gaming, Hamster Kombat or Notcoin, the fact that you are willing to offer rewards, whose value might not be determined, is another element that makes it fun,” Siu explains.

Bots are a reality, but millions are playing

Screenshots shared on Hamster Kombat’s X account on June 24 show that the game has about 185 million daily users. However, this does not account for potential bot activities and duplicate accounts.

There are a plethora of online tutorials and resources that help users leverage auto-clicking bots to gain inhuman advantages. One downloadable auto-clicking bot claims to support up to 1,000 different accounts.

Selling Hamster Kombat accounts could also become a profitable side hustle. Some accounts on the gaming marketplace FunPay are listed at over $1,000. Hamster Kombat’s energy meter is just one way the game clamps down on those trying to game the system with automated clicking bots.

Inal Kardan, head of gaming at TON Foundation, says it’s “impossible” to determine the current number of bots on Hamster Kombat. The game isn’t onchain (though its roadmap includes ongoing onchain infrastructure development), making analyzing users’ activities even more challenging.

But a precedent set by Notcoin provides a ballpark figure. Kardan says estimates based on on-chain activity indicate that at least 50% of Notcoin’s reported 35 million players are real users, adding that many users opted to withdraw via centralized exchanges, which can skew the estimates even higher.

“To attract over 17 million verified, active users through organic growth and player engagement is a historic achievement,” Kardan tells Cointelegraph.

TON aims for GameFi throne

After launching in January this year, Notcoin paved the way for Telegram mini apps. Since the clicker game came into the spotlight, TON’s active daily user count exploded from 16,000 to over 600,000 on June 6, according to Token Terminal data.

The success of Hamster Kombat can attract millions more to the TON blockchain, which Kardan says will make the blockchain the “default” network for games:

"Especially for hyper-casual games — if you want millions of active and engaged users, TON is the best chain to achieve it."

The game’s success has helped TON’s native projects reach millions of new users worldwide, and Telegram mini apps are becoming a viable marketing option for them.