‘Hamster Kombat’ Token Tops $1 Billion in Trading as TON Survives Massive Airdrop

Telegram game Hamster Kombat launched its long-awaited HMSTR token Thursday on The Open Network (TON), and while some players complained of smaller-than-expected airdrops feeling like “dust,” the token saw sizable trading action in its first day on the market.

HMSTR logged more than $1.2 billion worth of trading volume in its first 24 hours, per data from CoinGecko early Friday, putting it not far behind the 24-hour trading of top cryptocurrencies like Binance Coin (BNB), Dogecoin (DOGE), and XRP.

The token is currently priced at $0.0067, down approximately 18% over the last 24 hours and settling at a current market cap of about $430 million. That put it in the top 200 overall coins by market cap, though it’s notably below the $970 million market cap of Notcoin, the original game that kick-started the Telegram tap-to-earn craze earlier this year.

Along with the price of the token and the size of allocations, the other big question around the Hamster Kombat airdrop was whether The Open Network would be able to handle the strain of distributing the token to potentially over 100 million players.

That question was prompted in late August when the network stopped producing blocks—effectively shutting down—twice in a single week due to immense demand for airdrop claims for a meme coin called DOGS. The spurts of downtime bookended the announcement of the Hamster Kombat airdrop and token launch date.

TON Core developers even warned earlier this month that airdrops for games like Hamster Kombat and Catizen could lead to further network interruptions.

But there was no downtime with last week’s Catizen (CATI) token launch, and that was again the case on Thursday with HMSTR. In a statement provided to Decrypt by the TON Core development team, they described Hamster Kombat's airdrop as the "largest-ever airdrop in crypto's history."

"This massive surge in traffic has caused some third-party services to experience overloads, but TON network has generally remained stable, with blocks continually produced without interruption and network fees remaining fixed," they said, suggesting that "TON is probably the only blockchain that can withstand events of this magnitude."

"TON is making history," they added, "and we’re proud to be supporting a network which empowers communities, attempts the unprecedented, and offers users highly engaging projects."

Hamster Kombat is currently in the midst of a short “interlude season” that is expected to last for a couple weeks ahead of the launch of the game’s second full season of gameplay and rewards. Future plans for Hamster Kombat over the next year include expanding beyond its original Telegram mini app origins, launching more games, and offering another airdrop next summer.