Bored of Hamsters Already? Degens Are Now Betting Crypto on Snails, Rats and Rabbits

Capitalizing on the frenzy sparked by betting crypto on real-live hamster races, a number of other animal race betting projects–and their respective tokens–have popped up. In fact, there's now an entirely new category for them on Coingecko.

There are five members of the animal kingdom represented by tokens now listed on Coingecko. At the time of writing, they include: Hamsters (HAMS), two snail racing platforms dubbed Snail Trail (SLIME) and Snail Race (SNAILS); two horse races ZED Run (ZED) and Metaderby (DBY), Rabbit Race (RABBIT), and Rat Roulette (RAT). Marble Bet (MARBLE), is the only non-animal token present on the list.

The first of its kind, Hamsters, garnered quite a bit of enthusiasm from the crypto crowd last week when it launched what it calls the “world’s first live-streamed hamster race,” triggering a cascade of interest from degen gamblers–causing the native token HAMS to soar by more than 780%.

Much like some of the hamsters that can’t sustain their leads during some of the races, the HAMS token has not been able to maintain the gains it notched last week. The token has dropped 72% in the past twenty four hours, currently trading at $0.46.

Of the six remaining animal racing projects, only two others use real animals for gambling purposes.

The Rabbit Race, which has not yet activated its betting portal, announced today on Twitter their first race is coming soon. To calm the nervousness of animal lovers around the world, the team noted on Twitter that “Their health is our first priority, they stay grounded everyday, we’re feeding them Hay/Spinach/Carrots/Cucumber.”

The Rabbit Club token, RABBIT, has not seen much movement over the past 24 hours, changing hands at $0.07 — a modest 1.9% gain. But the same can’t be said for RAT, however, which has seen its token collapse 44% on the day, trading for $0.15, according to Coingecko. 

From rats to riches comes Rat Roulette, which consists of putting a rat in the middle of a moving roulette wheel. Each number has a hole in it. The rat then walks over and smells a number of holes — much like a ball would in a more typical roulette game — until it picks one and takes a dive.

It should be noted that the official RAT Twitter account explicitly mentions about “ponzinomics” — which refers to an investing scam which generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors.

The sudden frenzy behind these projects caught the attention of some high-level crypto players, including Coingecko’s co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Bobby Ong, who took the betting to the next level.

“This weekend I've bought Hamster, Snail, Rabbit, Marble,” he tweeted, adding that “I now have a collection of animals in my portfolio to race against each other to see who comes out ahead by Monday.” He sold all his positions early this morning “without any major gains,” according to his Twitter account.