Telegram tap-to-earn airdrops explained

A Telegram tap-to-earn airdrop is a game that runs as a Mini App inside Telegram: you tap, complete daily tasks and invite friends to grow an in-game coin balance, and the developer later decides how many real tokens each player can claim. The in-game balance is only a score until then, and Telegram says it is not affiliated with the developers who run these apps. Notcoin (NOT, trading from 16 May 2024) and Hamster Kombat (HMSTR, trading from 26 September 2024) are the best-known examples.

How a tap-to-earn game works

Telegram's Terms of Service for Mini Apps say Mini Apps "allow you to connect to third-party Service Providers" and use their services inside Telegram, and that those providers are independent: "We are not affiliated with any of these SP, and they operate independently of Telegram." Telegram's Mini Apps 2.0 update of 17 November 2024 let Mini Apps use the entire screen, "allowing apps to host more game genres", and added home screen shortcuts and subscriptions paid in Telegram Stars.

The games share a loop, which Hamster Kombat's own whitepaper (revision 0.3, dated 12 September 2024) describes: players "increase their coin balance, complete daily combos and ciphers, and get their daily rewards", and a referral system pays them for inviting friends. Binance's listing notice called Hamster Kombat "a crypto exchange CEO simulator P2E game built on the Telegram mini-app platform", P2E being short for play-to-earn, and described Notcoin as "a community token which onboarded users into web3 through a tap-to-earn mining mechanic."

The same whitepaper lists what Hamster Kombat's first airdrop would depend on:

• the overall game cycle: "did you just download it and forget about it or are you an active player?"
• community interaction and activity
• the friends you invited: "did you bring in bots? Or are these real friends you interact and play with daily?"
• achievements, wallet integration and reputation

None of these is a formula. The whitepaper also calls itself "in no way an incentive to invest" and says its plans "are subject to change".

What happened when the tokens arrived

Notcoin, May 2024

Binance announced on 9 May 2024 that it would be the first platform to list NOT, with trading from 16 May 2024 at 12:00 UTC, and gave the maximum supply as 102,719,221,714 NOT. Its notice warned that after the initial airdrop "more tokens will be airdropped to users continuously", and that users claiming through the on-chain airdrop or a wallet "may experience delay".

Hamster Kombat, September 2024

Binance announced HMSTR on 12 September 2024 with trading from 26 September 2024 at 12:00 UTC and a total supply of 100,000,000,000 HMSTR, adding that "any claims to offer this token for sale before the stated timeline are likely to be false advertising."

Four days before listing, the team posted its Season 1 results. As quoted by Decrypt (news report, September 2024), the post on 22 September 2024 said over 300 million people had joined since 26 March 2024, 131 million qualified for the airdrop, and "around 2.3 million were banned as cheaters". Decrypt reported that players could claim 88.75% of their allocation at launch, with the other 11.25% set to vest for 10 months, a detail it said "had not previously been communicated to players". It also reported complaints about the weight given to friend referrals and to keys, a late addition to the game.

The pattern matters more than the numbers: the conversion from game balance to tokens was published days before listing, part of it was locked, and millions of accounts were excluded. AirdropStop's Hamster Kombat page shows its status as we last checked it.

Is a tap-to-earn airdrop free?

Tapping costs nothing, but the costs are elsewhere.

• Your data. Telegram's Mini App terms say that when you interact with one, "it will automatically acquire your IP address", and that Telegram may share basic data such as your Telegram user id, public name, username and profile picture with it.
• Purchases. Telegram's July 2024 update says Telegram Stars "let you buy digital goods in mini apps". The Mini App terms say refunds are "subject to the applicable terms of the specific SP" and that "Telegram has no role in processing payments."
• Your wallet. Claiming tokens means connecting a crypto wallet. Hamster Kombat's whitepaper names "wallet integration" as an airdrop factor and mentions TON Connect, "an open-source protocol between wallets and apps". That connection is the step the scams below aim at.
• Your time. Months of daily check-ins, with no token amount promised in advance.

Fake games and fake claim pages

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center has warned about criminals creating fake gaming applications that they "advertise the apps as play-to-earn games offering financial incentives to players". Victims "see fake rewards accumulating in the app", and when they stop depositing, "criminals drain victim wallets using a malicious program victims unknowingly activated upon joining the game", then ask for "additional taxes or fees" to release the money. The FBI's tips:

1. Use a separate wallet for crypto games. The IC3 says to "create a unique wallet to use", which isolates your main holdings; a burner wallet is the same idea.
2. Check balances on a third-party blockchain explorer, not on the game's own screen.
3. Review and revoke permissions with a third-party allowance checker, because a token approval you granted can let an app move your funds.

The rules that apply to every airdrop apply here too:

• Open the game from the link on the project's own website or official channel, not from an ad, a group message or a direct message.
• Never type a seed phrase or private key into a bot, a Mini App or a "claim" page. A legitimate airdrop never asks for one, and a page that does is a wallet drainer or a phishing attempt.
• Treat any offer to sell you a token before its announced listing as false, as Binance's notice for HMSTR put it.

Airdrop scams and how to claim a crypto airdrop safely go through the checks step by step, and airdrop eligibility explains why games ban accounts they think are bots.

Tap-to-earn games on AirdropStop

AirdropStop lists four Telegram tap or mini-app games: Hamster Kombat, SnakeLite x SonicX and GPT Wars on TON, and SEED Combinator, which runs inside Telegram but launched its token on Sui. Each page carries a status checked against the project's own pages and the date of that check.

Key takeaways

• A tap-to-earn airdrop converts an in-game balance into a token claim at a rate the developer sets; Hamster Kombat published its allocations four days before HMSTR listed.
• Telegram hosts Mini Apps but says it is not affiliated with the developers who run them.
• Hamster Kombat's team said 131 million of its 300 million-plus players qualified and about 2.3 million were banned as cheaters; 11.25% of allocations vested for 10 months.
• Free to tap is not free of cost: Mini Apps receive your IP address and profile data, sell items for Stars, and need a wallet to claim.
• The FBI warns of fake play-to-earn games that drain wallets: use a separate wallet and never share a seed phrase.