Hamster Kombat, the leading tap-to-earn game on Telegram, announced Wednesday via its official channel that it will launch its long-awaited HMSTR token on The Open Network (TON) on September 26 and hold its airdrop for players on the same date.
The token was originally set for a July rollout, but was delayed due to additional planning needed for such a large-scale drop. Hamster Kombat has attracted more than 300 million players since launching this spring, the team said in July, and data from Telegram shows more than 80 million active players over the past month.
Hamster Kombat is a tap-to-earn game that's built around the core screen-tapping experience popularized on Telegram by Notcoin earlier this year, built within a "mini app" in the messaging app. Notcoin set the format and attracted 35 million players before launching this year's biggest gaming token to date.
But the anonymous team behind Hamster Kombat, which developed a crypto exchange CEO simulation around the tapping, has seen a vastly larger audience and increased hype around its upcoming token launch, which will reward players.
Wednesday's airdrop announcement comes just hours after The Open Network went offline for hours following significant network congestion Tuesday. A TON representative confirmed to Decrypt early Wednesday that the issues were tied to the token launch for a project called DOGS, but that the network is now working as normal.
Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.