Reported by Cointelegraph: As interest in Hamster Kombat declines, PAWS surges, outperforming the once-top Telegram Mini App.

Once a leading tap-to-earn game on Telegram, Hamster Kombat has seen a steep decline in its user base and engagement due to political backlash, bans and new competition.

Hamster Kombat boasted 300 million users in August, but as of Nov. 5, the game has only 41 million active monthly players — an 86% decrease.

Meanwhile, Paws, a newly launched Mini App on Telegram, has surged in popularity, reaching 20.5 million users in its first eight days, surpassing Hamster Kombat’s growth trajectory.

According to IntoTheBlock (ITB) data, on Sept. 27, active Hamster Kombat addresses peaked at around 772,330. Since then, user activity and token interest have waned, falling more than 36% in the past week.

Token price and activity plummet

Hamster Kombat’s challenges are reflected in its HMSTR token price, which has fallen nearly 70% from an all-time high of $0.01 on Sept. 26 to about $0.0022 as of Nov. 4, according to CoinGecko data. This decline correlates with lower network engagement and fewer daily active users.

This downward trend is reinforced by ITB’s active addresses ratio (AAR) chart — which calculates the ratio of active addresses to addresses holding HMSTR — revealing a 30-day low of just 0.34% active users.

Still, according to ITB data, the total addresses holding HMSTR have continued to increase, establishing a 30-day high of 3.5 million holders on Nov. 4.

Compared to the performance of other popular Telegram games, a pattern emerges, as seen with the Dogs (DOGS) token airdrop, which dropped from $0.0014 to $0.0004 between August and Nov. 4.

The DOGS AAR chart also shows a steady drop in activity alongside the token’s falling value, hitting a 30-day low of 0.27% active users on Nov. 3.

Scrutiny and volatility response

Hamster Kombat has faced criticism from Iranian government officials and has been hit with rumors of bans in Uzbekistan, which have since been proven inaccurate.

The Hamster Kombat team previously told Cointelegraph that its future plans include payment system integration, launching new games and including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as in-game assets.

One falls, one rises

In stark contrast to the fall of Hamster Kombat’s network activity and token price, the Paws Mini App saw over 11 million users join in the first two days alone.

A Nov. 4 announcement on the Paws Telegram channel said that 10 million wallets had connected to the app and it had one million followers on the project’s X account.