‘Hamster Kombat’ Airdrop and Expansion Highlighted in This Week’s Crypto Games News, Alongside $47 Million Gaming Scam – Decrypt

The crypto gaming space is abuzz with activity. From exciting new game releases to token airdrops and a whirlwind of events, it’s a whirlwind of information to keep track of!

Fortunately, the GG team at Decrypt has got you covered. If you’re looking for a quick summary of the latest happenings in crypto gaming, look no further than This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup brings you the biggest news from the past week, as well as some interesting tidbits you might have missed. We also highlight a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Hamster Kombat airdrop: The highly viral Telegram mini-app Hamster Kombat unleashed its HMSTR token on The Open Network (TON) last Thursday. The tap-to-earn game garnered over 300 million users, with 131 million eligible for the airdrop—although 2.3 million were disqualified for cheating.

However, not everyone was satisfied with the “free money.” Some players deemed their HMSTR reward as “dust” as its token value plummeted to as low as $0.006—despite pre-market trading forecasting a price of $0.095 the day before the airdrop. Nonetheless, traders flocked to the drop, with over $1.2 billion worth of trades occurring within the first 24 hours. TON upheld its performance, notwithstanding concerns.

Prior to the airdrop, Hamster Kombat unveiled its roadmap for the upcoming year. The anonymous team intends to roll out NFTs, develop and release new games, and notably transition away from Telegram exclusivity.

Their initial move in this direction involves creating a progressive web app (PWA) for iOS, Android, and desktop—PWAs function like regular apps. Down the line, the team aims to shift away from the PWA and integrate Hamster Kombat directly into desktop games.

$47M gaming scam: Binance collaborated with Indian law enforcement to apprehend four individuals suspected of duping victims out of $47.6 million and subsequently laundering the funds. This scheme was linked to the Fiewin online betting and gaming app, which falsely promised users easy profits but trapped their funds, preventing withdrawals.

The investigation uncovered that the app froze accounts after accumulating substantial funds, then transferred them through various cryptocurrency wallets to complicate tracking. Despite this, Binance’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) supplied technical expertise for tracing fund movements.

ICYMI

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week we believe are worth a weekend read:

Edited by Andrew Hayward