Nigerians have been tapping their phone screens since March 2024 to earn “valuable” tokens. However, many of them have been left terribly disappointed after hours spent clicking, hoping to earn a lot of money.
From WhatsApp to X and Instagram, social media platforms have been littered with videos of people ranting about how these tap-to-earn projects dashed their hopes and dreams.
The latest in an admittedly short line is Hamster Kombat. After months of tapping and earning thousands or even millions of tokens and points, many were pained to find they had very little value.
One enthusiastic tapper who identified herself as Timileyin said she expected her over 200 points to be worth about $200, but, they were only a meagre $8.
Timileyin’s story is the same as many others who have participated in Hamster Kombat’s gamified campaign.
A pharmacist on X wrote, “I resigned from my job where I built a professional & unblemished career over the years in anticipation of a huge token from you, only for me to be rewarded peanuts. From where will I start now?”
So, what is it about these tap-to-earn tokens that get people excited only to get disappointed repeatedly?
What is Hamster Kombat and the tap-to-earn trend?
The trend was popularised by Telegram-based crypto games where people earn tokens by tapping their phone screens.
These games make it easy for people who are new to crypto to earn tokens.
Now there’s some simple maths involved here: easy onboarding = quick growth.
The only thing an interested player needs is the Telegram app, and with less than three clicks, they can launch the game and start generating tokens.
This is why Hamster Kombat got 100 million users three months after it launched in April 2024. It also gained one million YouTube subscribers in a day and 34 million after three months.
This rapid growth is not unique to Hamster Kombat. We’ve seen the same with TapSwap, another Telegram-based tap-to-to-earn crypto game that got many Nigerians clicking their phone screens.
TapSwap currently has over 55 million players, 22 million Telegram community members, and 6 million X followers.
As of July 2024, Telegram is reported to have 900 million active monthly users. This means the only barrier to entry is a smartphone that can run the app and an Internet connection.
With zero financial commitment and the promise of becoming a crypto millionaire, the tap-to-earn trend took off in Nigeria. Videos of people from different parts of the country employing creative ways to “automate” clicking went viral on social media.
However, most of these efforts have not yielded any fruit, and the question on many minds is why?
Are tap-to-earn crypto games a scam?
Given that players of these games have made zero financial commitments, the games cannot be referred to as scams. Timileyin, however, begs to differ. To her, she was robbed of her time, data, and energy.
With Hamster Kombat — which she played diligently — she did more than just tap her phone screen. There were other tasks assigned to users which could potentially earn them more points.
“You’ll be asked to click on a YouTube link and watch a video. Once you return to the app, you get bonus points for watching the video.”
While watching YouTube videos and tapping your phone screen seem harmless, there has to be something in it for the creators of these games.
One theory is that they created them to grow their YouTube channel and get views on demand. Millions of daily views equal massive revenue.
Another theory is that they genuinely are trying to build something worthwhile and are using tap-to-earn games to build a user base rapidly.
A huge user base means more money. If the token launches and there are millions of people holding and trading it, the tokens will increase in value, meaning the developers will have funds to work with.
This is similar to the plan Hamster Kombat supposedly has.
On September 12, 2024, Hamster Kombat released an 11-page whitepaper where it revealed plans to “grow beyond our beloved game. We aim to become a gaming publishing ecosystem that will expose the best game studios of different sizes to our audience.”
Even some earlier tap-to-earn games like Notcoin are evolving into other things. The OG tap-to-earn game revealed that it will launch a story-driven Web3 game.
Shady tap-to-earn crypto games
While people like Timileyin suffered bitter disappointments, it doesn’t necessarily mean Hamster Kombat was a scam. TapSwap, on the other hand, has red flags.
According to Nairametrics, one of these red flags is that it asked people to part with money in order to be eligible for airdrops. Airdrops are a method of distributing free tokens or coins to multiple wallet addresses, usually to promote a new cryptocurrency project and reward loyal users.
Requiring payment for airdrops is unusual in the crypto space, especially when it comes to tap-to-earn games.
The game has also promised — and failed — several times to launch on a blockchain. This means that people who have been tapping as far back as April do not know what all the coins they have generated will be worth.
Interestingly, Timileyin is also trying her luck with TapSwap, and despite the red flags and disappointments she has suffered with Hamster Kombat, she is determined to see its end.
“I’ll keep tapping; I might get lucky,” she said.
The downside to tap-to-earn games is its get-rich-quickly-with-crypto mentality from very low-level utility.
The upside, however, is that it might become a way of getting people interested in crypto projects, and by extension, the entire Web3 ecosystem.
Perhaps, it will evolve to become a Web3 onboarding technique where the incentive is not money, but the quality of service offered.
