Hamster Kombat, a viral Telegram mini-game, has concluded its first season with impressive numbers. Launched on March 26, 2024, the game reportedly has drawn in over 300 million players. According to Telegram statistics, the number of monthly users has surpassed 100 million in the last few days. 

As we observed earlier, 60% of the total $HMSTR token supply (60 billion coins) will be distributed after Season 1. Of this, 88.75% will be available immediately during the airdrop, while the remaining 11.25% will be vested and unlocked over a ten-month period following the token's listing. This airdrop design is expected to prevent rapid sell-offs and strengthen the token’s post-listing position. 

131 million players who qualified for the airdrop should expect to receive the much-anticipated $HMSTR tokens on September 26th. On social media, however, many users were unhappy with the amount of tokens they would receive. The reward for regular players ranges from 10 to 40 U.S. dollars (based on pre-trading rate of $0.01).

Many claim that the distribution of rewards was extremely uneven. The most significant payments were given to players with large referral numbers, while ordinary participants who spent almost half a year in the game and invited their friends and relatives received significantly smaller amounts. Some noted that “the sheer number of players means the math always lent itself to smaller numbers.” A large amount of holders, however, could help the token's value climb over time.

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Here is some math: our Observer was an ‘occasional’ player. She played the game over 100 days, upgraded around 1000 cards and earned 111 million coins. She hasn’t performed most Earn tasks (subscribing, watching videos, etc.), only invited one friend and hasn’t played third-party games to earn Keys (another type of in-game asset, more valuable than coins). She was awarded 202 $HMSTR ($20 at the current rate). The most important criteria was the passive income. Each friend invited (referrals) earned the player 4.6 tokens. Apparently, keys could also bring a high reward: 2 keys were awarded with 13 tokens.

Users were granted two options to claim their airdrop: on-chain deposits directly to their TON wallets and off-chain deposits to claim on exchanges. A quarter of qualified users haven’t chosen the withdrawal method before the deadline, but according to the team, they can still choose an on-chain option. Right now, it's unclear where these unclaimed coins will go.

The last week hasn’t been without challenges for some Hamsters. On the eve of Season 1’s termination, the team introduced a special ‘cheating is bad’ achievement. Since then, local chats have been full of ban reversal requests, claims of unfairness, and pleadings to return to the Hamsters’ ranks. The game’s creators revealed that after analyzing users’ behavior and statistics for months, they have banned around 2.3 million accounts for cheating. Later, the team shared that they had taken away 6.8 billion tokens from these players. Half were distributed among other players, and another half were burned.

The team repeatedly stated that this was not the end of the project. Another 15% of tokens will be dropped in Season 2, which they have promised will bring new features and gameplay mechanics. Before that, an "Interlude" period was launched to bridge the gap between seasons, teasing new developments and keeping players engaged. 

In the Interlude, the players can earn diamonds instead of coins. The mechanics remain the same: buy and upgrade cards to increase the passive income of your exchange, invite friends, and play promoted third-party games. Farming diamonds will give users advantages in the upcoming season. The Interlude is expected to last a couple of weeks. 

The project partners are also preparing for the airdrop. In the last few days, Binance, OKX, Crypto.com, and Wallet have launched special campaigns that allow users to earn an additional $HMSTR share.

All in all, the authors managed to maintain the hype and interest and provide a reasonable point-to-token transformation rate. Still, it is not clear how the project's tokenomics will work or what the utility of the HMSTR token will be.

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