TLDR:
- Hamster Kombat’s HMSTR token launched on major exchanges like Binance and HashKey
- HMSTR price plunged up to 43% within 24 hours of listing
- Many users received very small airdrop amounts, leading to complaints
- Technical issues and accusations of unfair distribution plagued the launch
- The hashtag #HMSTRSCAM trended as users expressed outrage
The highly anticipated launch of Hamster Kombat’s HMSTR token on major cryptocurrency exchanges has been overshadowed by a sharp price decline and widespread user dissatisfaction.
The token, which debuted on September 26, 2024, saw its value plummet by as much as 43% within the first 24 hours of trading.
Hamster Kombat, a popular tap-to-earn game on Telegram boasting over 300 million users, conducted its long-awaited airdrop of HMSTR tokens to 131 million qualifying players. The distribution represented 60% of the token’s total supply, with 60 billion HMSTR tokens allocated to users.
However, the excitement quickly turned to disappointment for many participants. Numerous users took to social media platforms to express their frustration, describing their HMSTR rewards as “dust” – a term often used in the cryptocurrency community to denote trivial amounts. Many complained that their allocations were worth less than $10, despite months of active gameplay and promotion of the project.
The token’s performance on exchanges further compounded the dissatisfaction. Upon listing, the price of HMSTR fell sharply, losing as much as 50% of its value within hours of trading.
According to data from CoinGecko, HMSTR’s price dropped from an initial $0.012 to $0.0087 in just 24 hours. As of the latest reports, the token was trading at $0.006911, representing a 43% decline from its initial value.
Technical issues also plagued the launch, with some users reporting difficulties accessing their tokens due to network overload. The project warned of “overwhelming demand” impacting users’ ability to trade the coin, which only added to the growing frustration within the community.
As news of the troubled launch spread, the hashtag #HMSTRSCAM began trending on social media platforms.
Users accused the project of unfairly disqualifying a large portion of participants from receiving tokens, while allegedly favoring influencers and YouTubers with larger allocations. These claims of inequitable distribution further eroded trust in the project.
Despite the controversy, some major exchanges have embraced HMSTR. Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, listed the token for spot trading and even opened futures trading with up to 75x leverage.
Binance also included HMSTR in its Super Earn program, offering holders the opportunity to earn up to 300% annual percentage rate for a seven-day locked period.
As of the latest reports, over 108,000 wallets hold HMSTR tokens, with a significant portion of the circulating supply held in a Binance hot wallet. This suggests that many players quickly moved to sell their tokens on the exchange, contributing to the price decline.
The Hamster Kombat team has stated that 15 billion HMSTR tokens have been reserved for the game’s second season, indicating plans to continue development. However, the immediate future of the project remains uncertain as it grapples with the fallout from its troubled token launch.
The launch of HMSTR has also put a spotlight on the broader challenges facing blockchain projects as they attempt to scale and manage sudden influxes of user activity.
The Open Network (TON), the blockchain on which HMSTR operates, faced its own challenges recently, experiencing two outages in a single week linked to the launch of another meme coin.
