Notcoin carries a market capitalization roughly 4.5 times larger than Hamster Kombat's despite having attracted around a tenth as many players. As of September 2026 NOT sits near $50 million while HMSTR sits near $11 million, which inverts the ranking almost everyone expected in 2024.
Both tokens came out of the same eighteen-month window, both were Telegram mini apps that paid users to tap, and both airdropped to enormous audiences. The gap between them now is a useful lesson in what actually determines a token's value after the game ends.
The Numbers Side by Side
| Metric | Notcoin (NOT) | Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) |
|---|---|---|
| App launched | January 2024 | March 2024 |
| Token launch | 16 May 2024 | 26 September 2024 |
| Claimed players | 35 million+ | 300 million+ |
| Price (Sept 2026) | $0.0005036 | $0.0001754 |
| Market capitalization | ~$50.1M | ~$11.3M |
| Circulating supply | 99.43B of 102.45B | 64B of 100B |
| Supply circulating | 97% | 64% |
| CoinGecko rank | #448 | #1121 |
Figures are drawn from CoinGecko's NOT listing and its Hamster Kombat listing as of early September 2026.
The row that matters most is the second to last. NOT has 97% of its supply in circulation, so the market has already absorbed nearly every token that will ever exist. HMSTR still has 36 billion tokens outside the float, which is a persistent overhang for any recovery attempt. The full breakdown of how NOT reached that position is covered in the Notcoin tokenomics guide.
Two Approaches to the Same Idea
Notcoin was almost aggressively simple. One coin on screen, a tap counter, an energy bar, and a three-month mining window that closed on 1 April 2024. The mechanic was so thin that the project's own communications treated it as a joke, which is roughly where the name came from.
Hamster Kombat added structure. Players ran a fictional crypto exchange, bought upgrade cards that raised passive income per hour, and progressed through named tiers. It also ran in seasons, with a second season announced after the first airdrop, which was designed to keep engagement alive rather than closing the game at token launch.
On paper the deeper game should have retained more users and supported a higher valuation. It did retain more users. The valuation went the other way.
Why the Player Counts Misled Everyone
Three hundred million registered players sounded like the largest consumer application in crypto history. That figure counted Telegram accounts that had opened the app at least once, and the barrier to opening it was a single tap on a forwarded link. Notcoin's 35 million was measured the same way and is subject to the same discount.
Neither number told anyone what mattered, which was how many participants would still be there when the rewards stopped. The evidence since suggests the answer was similar in both cases and small in absolute terms. What separated the two outcomes was supply structure and what the token did afterwards.
Hamster Kombat's founders defended trading volumes and expansion plans as HMSTR declined through late 2024, pointing to the next season as the fix. Running a second season asked the same audience to grind again for a token that had already fallen, which is a difficult sell.
What Each Token Does After the Game
Notcoin's answer
NOT became the currency of an advertising marketplace. Projects fund reward pools in NOT to put campaigns in front of Telegram users, more than 200 have done so, and users stake NOT to raise their tier and claim a larger share. Advertiser budgets buy NOT from the open market, which is thin demand but recurring demand.
Hamster Kombat's answer
HMSTR stayed closer to being a game token, with subsequent seasons, in-app mechanics and community events as the retention plan. The token's value therefore tracks continued engagement with the game itself rather than payments from third parties.
The distinction is the whole comparison. Notcoin converted a captive audience into an inventory product that other companies pay for. Hamster Kombat kept trying to entertain the audience directly. Advertising has proven the more durable business in this instance, even at a small absolute scale.
How Traders Should Treat the Pair
Both tokens behave as high-beta Telegram and TON proxies, and they correlate closely during ecosystem-wide moves. That correlation makes a relative-value view more interesting than a directional one. When TON news lifts the category, the token with less locked supply and a live revenue-adjacent product has historically recovered further.
Liquidity is the practical constraint. NOT turns over roughly $36 million a day against a $50 million capitalization, so entries and exits are manageable. HMSTR is considerably thinner, and the spread cost of trading it in size is a real drag. Anyone forming a view on where NOT goes from here should read it alongside the NOT price forecast, which lays out the model ranges through 2030.
Position sizing deserves care in both. These are attention assets with fully or largely distributed supplies, no revenue accruing to holders, and a demonstrated capacity to fall 90% and stay there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Notcoin better than Hamster Kombat?
By market performance, NOT has held value considerably better: it carries roughly 4.5 times HMSTR's market capitalization as of September 2026 despite a far smaller player base. The main structural reasons are Notcoin's fully circulating supply and its pivot into paid campaign distribution, which creates ongoing token demand.
Which had more users, Notcoin or Hamster Kombat?
Hamster Kombat claimed over 300 million players against Notcoin's 35 million-plus. Both figures count Telegram accounts that opened the app rather than active users, so neither reflects retained engagement, and the token prices since have not followed the player counts.
Do NOT and HMSTR trade together?
They correlate strongly during TON ecosystem moves, since both are Telegram-native tokens with overlapping holder bases. NOT has substantially deeper liquidity, so the two diverge during quieter periods when thin HMSTR order books amplify individual trades.
The Real Lesson From Two Tap-to-Earn Tokens
The tap-to-earn cycle produced two experiments with the same input and different outputs. Both proved that Telegram distribution can onboard tens of millions of people into crypto wallets faster than any other channel available. Neither proved that those people stay.
Where the projects diverged is in what they asked the token to do next. Notcoin gave NOT a job that involved someone other than the players paying for it, and that job has kept a floor under the token through a two-year drawdown. Hamster Kombat kept the token inside the game and inherited the game's decay curve. For a trader, that difference is worth more attention than any player-count headline.
Take a position on the survivor: hold NOT on the spot market or trade the volatility with NOT perpetual futures on LeveX. More head-to-head token breakdowns are in Crypto in a Minute.