Tap-to-Earn Games Are Realizing Satoshi’s Dream

Love or hate games like Hamster Kombat, they're onboarding millions of users to crypto, says Ryan Gorman.

As Web3 continues to gain steam, one of the most interesting and unexpected developments has been the rise of tap-to-earn games. These simple, addictive games allow players to earn crypto rewards for completing tasks, such as tapping on the screen or collecting items.

While some may dismiss these games as frivolous or even harmful, they are actually playing a surprisingly important role in onboarding new users to crypto. In fact, some reports suggest that these games may be responsible for bringing millions of people into the Web3 fold.

One of the most striking examples of this phenomenon is the game Hamster Kombat, which has become wildly popular in Iran. The government has even accused the game of being a “soft tool” in the West's war against their theocracy, claiming that it distracted voters from casting ballots during a recent election.

However, there is likely a deeper force at play here. Iran is currently among the world's worst performing economies, with citizens facing very little prospect for employment and ever-rising prices due to draconic sanctions over the country's nuclear program.

This has led the country to embrace crypto at much higher rates than most. Iranians consistently rank among the top users of Tonkeeper and many other non-custodial wallets, as they try to find new and different ways to use money and protect the value of their earnings.

Even more surprisingly, though, is the rate at which the country has latched onto Hamster Kombat. Take, for example, this AP description of a recent afternoon in Tehran, the Iranian capital.

“Cab drivers and bikers tap away furiously on their mobile phones as they wait at red lights in the Iranian capital during an early June heatwave. Some pedestrians in Tehran are doing the same. They all believe they could get rich.”

For these people, wealth is relative to the West when you consider the currency has devalued from 32,000 rials to USD in 2015 down to 42,000 rials per dollar at the moment. Concurrently, the price of meat has soared 70% in the last year, and the cost of a rideshare taxi has doubled, according to the AP.

It's no wonder Iranians will cling to any opportunity to earn they can find, but they aren't the only group that has latched onto mini-apps with the promise of big rewards.

As long as video games have existed, they have been played by children. I played them while growing up, and still do – so do many of my friends. So did you or, if not you, many people you grew up with. And that’s where this becomes more compelling.

Many people I speak with – colleagues, partners, conference-goers – have anecdotally mentioned to me how much their children love Hamster Kombat. Some of these kids are as young as 11 and 12-years-old, and they played non-stop.

These kids, like many Iranians ferociously tapping away using all kinds of methods including, in some instances, a massage wand to optimize gameplay, likely do not know that crypto underpins the rewards and, ultimately the airdrop. But they do know that the top players will earn a windfall that would otherwise not have existed – whether they are in Iran, Iowa, or anywhere else in the world.

Yes, the rewards on offer are likely what enticed the more than 300 million people that played Hamster Kombat, and continue to play the countless other tap-to-earn games coming online each week, but this isn't really the point. All one needs to do is look at how video games overtook board games during the 1980s to understand what is happening.

For the first time in history, 300 million people are interacting with a Web3 platform, underpinned by crypto, and this spans all generations, backgrounds, and locations. And with younger generations becoming increasingly crypto-native, it's only a matter of when, not if, these platforms begin to overtake the incumbents.