How will TON cryptocurrency be affected by the latest listing of a popular game and the possible separation of blockchain from messenger Telegram
Since the beginning of 2024, tap-to-earn games in Telegram messenger, called “clickers”, have become a real trend. The Notcoin game gained viral popularity in Telegram, its creators built a successful marketing, and the referral system and support of Influencers. And then the support of the Telegram team helped it to quickly gain millions of players who “mined” coins, waiting for them to be listed on crypto exchanges in the future. Other apps, including Hamster Kombat, Catizen, and Blum, were able to replicate Notcoin's success. All of them managed to gain bases of tens of millions of users.
On September 26, the Hamster Kombat mini-application token (HMSTR), developed on the basis of the TON blockchain network, was released on crypto exchanges at a price of $0.01 per HMSTR.
According to the project team, the number of players exceeds 300 million. More than 131 million of them got the opportunity to participate in the eirdrop of the game mini-application from Telegram. This project was one of the last among the sensational “clickers” that managed to attract tens of millions of users. The excitement around these apps was so great that at the time of token listing on the TON blockchain exchange and the individual apps could not cope with the load.
Although the HMSTR cryptocurrency has already collapsed by more than 40%, the project remains one of the largest in terms of users not only in the TON blockchain but in the entire crypto market.
In September 2024, the TON blockchain ecosystem faced two important trends at once, which may have a significant impact on the future development of the project. The first important event is the detention of Pavel Durov in France at the end of August. And the second is the release on token exchanges of all major mini-apps, which attracted tens of millions of new users to the TON ecosystem.
Although the influx of new users has significantly increased the statistical indicators of TON network usage, the situation with Telegram founder Pavel Durov may contribute to separating the project from the influence of the messenger and its founder on the TON ecosystem. This may attract additional institutional capital, which previously viewed the blockchain's “dependence” on Telegram developments as one of the risks.
Now some global institutional investors may reconsider their investments in TON. And also attract more developers to create blockchain-based projects.
The importance of clicker games to the TON ecosystem
Despite the positive outlook, analysts have concerns that TON's success may be offset by the end of the “era” of clicker applications' popularity. Because the development of clickers was a very important stage for TON. And they turned out to be a tool for filling the ecosystem with liquidity and attracting new active users.
The number of daily active addresses in the TON network has grown from less than 50 thousand to 450 thousand since the beginning of the year, according to Bitget. The number of transactions per day has increased 12 times - from 100 thousand to 1.2 million. Despite the growth of these indicators, all “major clickers” are already traded on exchanges. Their total capitalization amounted to almost $1.5 billion, according to Coingecko data as of the end of September.
However, one of the latest projects that debuted on crypto exchanges in late September, Hamster Kombat, disappointed many participants even before entering the trading markets.
A very large number of players were left with no winnings at all due to the zeroing of their balance: some were rightly accused of using “cheats”, while others got on the zeroing lists by accident.
Another portion of users will be disappointed with the rewards, where players received an average of $10 to $60 for six months of daily participation in a variety of activities. Although such small rewards can shield the price of HMSTR from the pressure of sellers.
To some extent, clicker games benefit from the concentration of a small number of coins in the same hands, as it will prevent a mass sale immediately after listing. In the next two weeks after the start of trading we can expect a systematic decline in the coin price compared to the pre-market price and the first minutes of trading on the spot according to our experts.
Predictions for the future of Clicker Games and TON
The future fate of popular clicker games depends on whether they can retain active users and offer an experience that is comparable to the previous game scenario,.
For now, all clickers offer users is the ability to run advertising campaigns, allowing other projects to promote their games and solutions. And users get tokens for discovering these applications.
Tellingly, the level of active addresses in TON started dropping around the same time as the announcement of the listing on cryptocurrency exchanges of the last major “clicker game” - Hamster Kombat - in the ecosystem. According to intoTheBlock, between September 20 and September 27, the number of active addresses on the Network dropped by more than 20%, from 1.08 million to 784,000.
 According to many analysts, clickers have become a tool for the TON ecosystem to attract liquidity and new active users. Despite positive forecasts, experts fear that TON's success may be leveled by the end of the era of popularity of clicker applications. But at the same time, clicker games in TG will soon be able to interact with BSC and new capital may again go to this market $TON

#HamsterKombat #ClickToEarn