Telegram’s Hamster Kombat Launches L2 Mainnet Despite Losing Over 96% of Its Players

Key Takeaways

• Only 11.5 million of Hamster Kombat’s 300 million users played the game in the past 30 days.
• The HMSTR token has plummeted more than 85% since its launch in September 2024.
• Less than half of Hamster Network’s 8,964 accounts were active in the past 24 hours.

Hamster Kombat, the once-popular tap-to-earn (T2E) game on Telegram, has officially launched its Layer-2 (L2) mainnet, the Hamster Network, on the TON blockchain.

The move is part of the team’s broader effort to build its own gaming ecosystem, dubbed the HamsterVerse.

However, with less than 4% of its players remaining, poor TON network figures, and a declining token, the move may be too little too late following its controversial airdrop rollout.

Hamster Network, a Belated Expansion?

The Hamster Network went live on Feb. 25, 2025, positioning itself as a gaming-centric blockchain designed to handle high transaction volumes at low costs.

The network includes a native wallet, an asset bridge, and a decentralized exchange (DEX). According to the project team:

“All proof records from Hamster Network are posted to the TON L1 to ensure its safety and decentralization.“

To encourage adoption, the developers have rolled out in-game incentives and rewards, but early figures paint a bleak picture.

According to the network’s official scanner,  under 9,000 accounts have signed in to the network, with just 6,330 active today.

A Fading Player Base

It’s an odd situation for a game that once boasted over 300 million monthly users. Now, just 11.5 million players regularly log in to the app, a drop of over 96% since September 2024.

According to the on-chain tracker TON Stat, the number of monthly active wallets tumbled from 5.2 million to 3.1 million over the past 30 days.

Hamster Kombat players dwindle. | Source: Telegram

It reflects a broader post-HSMTR airdrop decline in user activity , which continues to demonstrate the push-and-pull effect that T2E games have on TON.

Indeed, the  obtuse dominance of Hamster Kombat and Catizen perhaps gave TON and its users a false sense of hope that the ecosystem was finally taking off.

However, the HMSTR airdrop was marred with controversies as last-minute token allocation tweaks, disappointing token earnings, and general apathy left players disenfranchised.

TON wallet activity is in decline. | Source: TON Stat

In addition, the HMSTR token has  slid 82.62% since launching in late September, which may not inspire players, new and old, to seek out its L2 “HamsterVerse” ecosystem offerings, which will leverage HMSTR tokens.

This is further evidenced by the fact that despite the Hamster Kombat L2 mainnet launch, the token continues to slide downwards. It is currently trading down 6.29% at $0.001695, with a market cap of $109.04 million.