Today’s Hamster Kombat token mint may cripple the TON blockchain

TON has announced that the blockchain validators should prepare for the Hamster Kombat token mint, which is set to significantly increase the network’s activity. Hamster Kombat has 100 million monthly active users and will start minting coins on September 26th at 10:00 UTC.

The Open Network (TON) blockchain is expected to experience an increased load during the Hamster Kombat game token mint.

TON has urged validators to avail themselves from September 26th to September 29th to follow the TonStatus channel on Telegram for swift communication and responses. 

TON validators advised to stay alert for urgency 

The announcement detailed that emergency actions may arise from today, prompting urgent validator responses. TON emphasized that any prompt requests to validators should be handled urgently. 

The announcement also urged validators to continuously monitor their hardware and the status of the validator in the given days.

Dear TON Validator

We would like to notify you that from the 26th of September 10:00 UTC we are expecting an increased load on the TON blockchain, as the Hamster Kombat game project with more than 100 million monthly active users will be minting coins on the blockchain, which is…

— TON Status (@ToncoinStatus) September 26, 2024

Hamster Kombat is expected to hold the largest airdrop in crypto history. The project has garnered more than 300 million total accounts. Active monthly users soared upwards of 100 million, and the daily active user count sits at 32 million. 

The mini-game also holds 55 million bound wallets, which begs the question: can TON handle the airdrop? 

TON has been rising steadily for the past year due to increasing network integration within the Telegram platform and the launch of crypto games. In August, TON experienced a major downtime, causing operational disruptions for seven hours.

Hamster Kombat to test the TON network 

Last month’s downtime was triggered by the launch of the memecoin DOGS, which caused an influx of traffic from airdrop winners. According to an announcement issued on August 28th, the network experienced more than 20 million transactions in two days. 

The downtime caused major exchanges such as Binance and ByBit to temporarily suspend withdrawals and deposits through the TON network. 

Hamster Kombat airdrop is expected to cause more transactions on the network than those caused by the DOGS memecoin frenzy. Supposing only a small portion of Hamster Kombat players decide to go on-chain and claim the tokens, that could still account for millions of users accessing the blockchain at once. 

The DOGS downtime prompted TON developers to announce plans to improve the network’s decentralized penalty system for the identification of underperforming validators. According to the developers, the improvements will bring more stability to the TON ecosystem.