Hamster Kombat and Telegram Game Craze Over? TON Activity Fizzles Out

Key Takeaways

• TON’s daily active wallets have declined 65% since the Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) airdrop.
• TON smart contract interactions are down 75% in the same period.
• Telegram and TON must expand beyond gaming to retain users.

Following the gigantic Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) airdrop, the Open Network (TON) has seen a steep decline in user activity.

Judging by the numbers, TON was standing on the shoulders of its tap-to-earn giants for the entirety of 2024.

TON Network Decline

It was widely understood that there would be an inevitable decline in TON network usage following Telegram’s superstar airdrops from the likes of Hamster Kombat and Catizen. But the drop-off seems worse than many had anticipated.

TonStat shows that since Sept. 30, the number of daily active wallets has tumbled from around 1.47 million to just 52,951 on Oct. 7. That’s roughly a 65% decrease.

Seemingly, players cashed out quickly and abandoned Telegram’s wallet altogether.

TON Daily Active Wallets. Source: TonStat

This coincides with Hamster Kombat’s Sept. 26 airdrop, which was rolled out over a few days.

Showing even greater signs of apathy, the on-chain wallet activations per day have declined by 75%, from 284,246 at their peak on Sept. 19 to just 70,704.

TON on-chain activations per day. Source: TonStat

These are critical figures as they represent the number of times users have engaged with smart contracts within the apps and games they are using.

This is notable as the Hamster Kombat snapshot was announced to take place on Sept. 20. With no more points left to farm for the airdrop, players quit.

Developers have fled TON. Source: Cryptometheus

Adding even more cause for concern, development around TON appears to have also fallen off a cliff.

As per Cryptometheus data , core and ecosystem developments are down massively, indicative of an even bigger problem facing TON: sustainability.

Play-to-Earn Burnout

Now that they have fallen out of favor with their  tens of millions-strong  communities, Telegram’s  P2E tap-frenzy games may struggle to capture those levels of participation again.

As Alvin Kan, COO of Bitget Wallet, explained to CCN:

“While airdrops can spark short-term interest, the decline in wallet activity shows the limitations of purely incentive-driven engagement. Users are more likely to return when there’s deeper value beyond one-time rewards.”

The P2E model and its success were always going to be based on whether or not players “felt” like they had received a sufficient reward for their time/money investment. As evidenced by the backlash against the Hamster Kombat/ Catizen airdrops, and the steep TON activity decline, disenfranchised players who were “in it for the money” are long gone. Kan adds:

“The airdrop mishaps have dampened trust, but future efforts should focus on creating smoother experiences while also expanding beyond short-term incentives”

Arguably, TON’s rampant 2024 successes weren’t driven by innovation but by novel addictive, mobile-based crypto games that acted as an on/off-ramp for fresh capital.

This is on an otherwise inactive and uneventful blockchain network that boasts very little in terms of utility.

Beyond the Airdrops

That’s not to say that TON isn’t working to innovate or develop utility on its network. Of course, any blockchain ecosystem aims to become self-sustainable through its myriad offerings.

Kan explains that TON “needs” to develop more “enduring financial ecosystems” within Telegram and give its users practical use cases. This includes building on social interactions with “tokenized communities or peer-to-peer (P2P) services.”

According to Kan, these layers of engagement keep users active and coming back for more.

But, with declining user and developer activity, TON will struggle to build out the decentralized finance (DeFi), exchange (DEX), autonomous organization (DAO), games, and other Web3 services it needs to attract and retain users.

Looking to the future, Kan thinks TON can make great strides in other areas, telling CCN:

“The long-term potential for TON lies in integrating financial services within Telegram, much like WeChat Pay and Alipay, which create seamless interactions between communication and finance.”

It’s a little paradoxical, though not impossible. Again, Telegram is used by almost 1 billion people . As shown by the record-breaking numbers of people that flocked to Hamster Kombat, it clearly has the potential to deliver crypto and Web3 to the masses.

That said, if its biggest draws end up being its biggest failures, its reputation and user activity may have already entered into an unfortunate doom spiral.