Hamster Kombat's First Snapshot Controversial, Community Outraged by New Airdrop Criteria
Hamster Kombat recently announced details of the HMSTR token airdrop results but quickly caused controversy in the community due to many shortcomings in the criteria and transparency in the allocation.
The popular tap-to-earn game on Telegram Hamster Kombat recently announced details of the Season 1 airdrop results to serve the token launch on September 26. Contrary to the community's expectations, the latest announcement received a lot of disappointment and dissatisfaction from the majority of players.
Big question mark in token allocation to users
According to the latest announcement from the Hamster Kombat development team, players cannot immediately receive the entire amount of HMSTR tokens they have accumulated. Specifically, only 88.75% of the tokens will be able to be claimed on the first day. The remaining tokens, equivalent to 11.25%, will be locked and will undergo a vesting process lasting up to 10 months, with all HMSTR expected to be withdrawn in July 2025. This makes many people feel like they have been "cheated" because this detail has never been revealed before.
In addition, many players said that they spent nearly half a year experiencing the game, but only received a few dozen to a few hundred HMSTR tokens, a number too small compared to the announcement of dedicating 600 million tokens to the token community. This is even more disappointing when the price of the HMSTR token is predicted to fall to around 0.001 USD when listed - meaning that after 4-5 months of "dedication", they only earned less than 10 USD.
"Turnaround" to change airdrop criteria, number of people eliminated from airdrop far exceeds announcement
Not only that, the discontent also comes from the fact that many players were eliminated from the airdrop due to the last-minute rule change. Initially, the project believed that Points Per Hour (PPH), the score that players achieved through regular participation in the game, was an important factor.
However, close to the time of taking snapshots to synthesize data, Hamster Kombat suddenly introduced a new anti-cheat system based on collecting keys, although the project had previously affirmed that keys were not required to receive airdrops. Those who did not meet this new requirement were eliminated, despite spending months increasing PPH.
Notably, some players who cheated with multiple accounts or used tools to automatically collect keys were still eligible to receive tokens, making many people feel unfair. X account @Airdropakd shared:
"There are many players who were disqualified from the airdrop without cheating. Hamster Kombat needs to address this situation, you guys made a wrong decision for the community."
The project announced that out of over 300 million players, only 131 million qualified to pass the qualifier, with 2.3 million being "banned for cheating". However, many speculated that in fact up to 65% of players were disqualified from the chance to receive HMSTR tokens, causing a wave of outrage.
Notably, the project did not provide any specific evidence other than the short announcement "Cheating is bad",
Is the warning coming true?
As the furor over Hamster Kombat’s airdrop grew, an X account named @Cryptowithkhan posted a warning to users in July 2024, saying that the expectation of the biggest airdrop in history from Hamster Kombat was just an illusion and advised everyone to look at the reality of the airdrop situation
In addition, this account emphasized that one of Hamster Kombat’s main sources of revenue comes from YouTube and advertising money, leading to the project collaborating with many famous KOLs and influencers to attract users to participate and promote the game.
@Cryptowithkhan also accused Hamster Kombat of betraying the community by allocating most of the airdrop tokens to YouTubers and influencers, instead of real players. At the same time, these YouTubers and influencers were criticized for taking advantage of the community's trust, weaving dreams of iPhones and Lamborghinis to attract views and followers, thereby helping the project earn huge profits from its YouTube channel.
Launching "Interlude Season" to retain users
After announcing the snapshot, Hamster Kombat announced entering a new phase called "Interlude Season".
This is a transition period between season 1 and season 2 of the game, where the development team continues to retain players by encouraging them to participate in collecting diamonds. According to the development team, these diamonds will bring certain advantages in season 2. However, these efforts seem to be not enough to maintain interest, as an atmosphere of doubt and disappointment is covering the entire project.
As the HMSTR token launch date approaches, Hamster Kombat needs to face major challenges in rebuilding trust from the community. The controversy over the token allocation and their true value is seriously affecting the reputation of the project. Can Hamster Kombat overcome these difficulties and continue to develop, or is this just a gimmick!
