Telegram tap-to-earn recreation gamers bought thrilling information this week, because the builders of viral crypto recreation Hamster Kombat introduced that the HMSTR token launch is now set for September 26 on The Open Community (TON), following a delay from the unique goal of July.
However that announcement was couched by loads of much less interesting information across the community. Final weekend, Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France, prompting a value plunge for TON plus uncertainty across the Telegram-linked community.
After which on Tuesday, forward of the Hamster Kombat announcement, TON stopped processing blocks for hours resulting from surging demand. Service was restored in a single day… just for the community to repeat the feat on Wednesday and collapse for a couple of extra hours.
After months of rising momentum across the community and a TON value surge that also sits above 200% over the previous yr, the previous week’s occasions mark a one-two-three punch for The Open Community. And whereas the Hamster Kombat token date places an anticipated occasion on the horizon for supporters, it may additionally present a a lot bigger alternative for TON to crack beneath stress.
TON’s core builders put the blame for this week’s community congestion and downtime on sizable demand for DOGS, a meme coin supplied by way of an airdrop to 10 million customers of a Telegram app. DOGS briefly popped into the highest 100 general cash by market cap on Wednesday, with $1.8 billion in buying and selling quantity over the day before today—regardless of the community points.
The rise of The Open Community over the previous yr, on the again of growing integration inside Telegram itself and the success of Notcoin and subsequent crypto video games, has pushed extra site visitors than ever to TON. On Friday, builders stated on Telegram that the community set a brand new report with 1.1 million day by day customers—considered one of three such days this week with over 1 million customers.
A Hamster hazard?
That surging demand has taxed the community in unfamiliar methods, and TON couldn’t deal with this week’s stress take a look at from DOGS. However Hamster Kombat has a vastly bigger participant base, with the creators claiming 300 million gamers thus far as of late July, and the Telegram mini app itself exhibiting over 80 million month-to-month lively customers as of earlier this week.
Even when the variety of gamers desperate to go on-chain and declare the token proper out of the gate on September 26 proves to be a a lot smaller sliver of both determine above, that’s nonetheless doubtlessly tens of millions of customers prodding the chain to get their rodent cash and transact them. That’s not together with any exterior observers aiming to swoop in and purchase them up on exchanges.
Requested about this week’s points, a spokesperson for the TON Core growth group stated that it wasn’t only a matter of demand over the DOGS token, however demand amid points with chain operations. DOGS notched almost one million on-chain holders plus tens of tens of millions of transactions this week, they stated, however different variables led to the efficiency hitches.
“The problems this week had been primarily resulting from two key components,” they advised Decrypt. “Firstly, our advisable validator configuration contained errors, and secondly, some TON validators had been working on poor {hardware}. Initiatives are nonetheless figuring out one of the simplest ways to distribute their tokens at scale, and this exacerbated the problems attributable to these components.”
With reference to validators, or the node operators that safe the community and confirm transactions, the group stated that they’re engaged on enhancing a system that they are saying will push operators to run at the next degree—with out introducing centralization dangers.
“We’re enhancing the community’s decentralized penalty system to assist us higher determine and penalize underperforming validators,” they stated. “It will assist us to strengthen the community’s general stability as we proceed to onboard tens of millions of latest customers to TON and to crypto.”
Additional, as extra of those tokens—referred to as “jettons” on TON—are minted to giant audiences cultivated by Telegram mini apps, the devs stated they’re enhancing the tech to make such launches each practical and inexpensive for creators throughout token technology occasions (TGEs).
“We’re repeatedly updating the community as we be taught extra from the unprecedented numbers of customers these TGEs are reaching,” they defined to Decrypt. “We’ve lately developed a brand new TON Mintless Jetton know-how that can assist to ease community stress throughout future token technology occasions. This know-how will enable initiatives to distribute cash to lots of of tens of millions of customers at a price of beneath a greenback in community charges.”
A TON of gamers
Because the TON Core devs famous, how creators design their drops may also influence the community’s potential to deal with the load. Hamster Kombat missed its authentic July goal as a result of the nameless growth group stated it was nonetheless planning find out how to execute such a large declare course of, and dealing with the TON group to determine that out.
This week, the sport’s builders confirmed to Decrypt that they’re nonetheless “certainly working carefully with the TON group to make the airdrop occur and guarantee all gamers get their share as seamlessly as potential.” And given the dimensions of the participant base, it’s positive to be an enormous draw.
“We anticipate the TGE of Hamster Kombat to outcome within the largest airdrop in historical past,” the Hamster Kombat group advised Decrypt. “We’ve given lots of thought to the technical implementation, and that is the explanation we needed to change the date to September 26.”
The biggest instance to date of an airdrop on TON is Notcoin, the tap-to-earn affair that set the mould for Telegram crypto video games. It attracted 35 million whole gamers this spring, however then reduce the in-game earnings of lapsed gamers who hadn’t logged in for some time. It additionally supplied incentives for customers to stake (or lock) their tokens within the recreation for future advantages, relatively than withdraw them and add to the on-chain claiming rush.
Collectively, such strikes could have trimmed down the variety of gamers trying to declare and doubtlessly dump their holdings on day one. Hamster Kombat’s participant base is considerably bigger, nevertheless—and the builders aren’t able to spill the beans on how the declare will work.
They are going to be “sharing extra particulars on the technical resolution we developed within the upcoming weeks.” Nevertheless, it seems like they’re not planning to chop down what number of gamers will be capable of declare tokens, exterior of culling accounts they consider are tied to automated bots that attempt to recreation the system to achieve a bigger share of tokens.
“For the declare distribution, we needed to reward all gamers who participated,” they advised Decrypt, “so except for bots, each participant has an opportunity to obtain it, together with those who’re simply beginning within the recreation proper now.”
With solely about 4 weeks till the drop, the Hamster Kombat and TON Core groups are on the clock with regards to determining an answer. Maybe this week’s technical hitches will shine a lightweight on what to not do, however in the end, we gained’t know if the best-laid plans of blockchain builders will maintain up till the second of fact.
“The airdrop is unprecedented,” Hamster Kombat’s group added, “however we hope [it] shall be going easily.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
