伟大的仓鼠格斗游戏：一款病毒式电报游戏如何欺骗了数千名埃塞俄比亚人

一波社交媒体“影响者”推动了这一趋势，他们将自己定位为新兴、默默无闻的领域的自封专家。

The sight of city dwellers tapping away at their smartphones is hardly noteworthy in a metropolis like Addis Ababa. However, over the past few months, an unusually high level of attention has been directed towards these screens. Whether in taxis, service lines, or family gatherings, it's become common to spot several individuals engaged in relentless tapping on images displayed on their devices.

在亚的斯亚贝巴这样的大都市，城市居民敲击智能手机的景象几乎不引人注目。然而，在过去的几个月里，这些屏幕受到了异常高的关注。无论是在出租车、服务热线还是家庭聚会中，经常会发现几个人不断地点击设备上显示的图像。

At first glance, one might assume they're rapidly liking social media posts or playing an addictive game. But a closer examination reveals something quite peculiar: these people are busy at 'work.'

乍一看，人们可能会认为他们正在快速喜欢社交媒体帖子或玩令人上瘾的游戏。但仔细观察就会发现一些很奇怪的事情：这些人都在忙于“工作”。

Hamster Kombat, a viral Telegram sensation, promised lucrative payouts at some future date, leading many to enthusiastically recruit family and friends via links while playing the role of a 'CEO' on the Mini app. Users are labeled as CEOs as they perform various tasks (mostly tapping) to earn tokens on the platform. Hamster is easily the most popular among the hundreds of Play-to-Earn (P2E) games that have swept the globe over the past year.

风靡 Telegram 的《Hamster Kombat》承诺在未来某个日期提供丰厚的报酬，导致许多人热情地通过链接招募家人和朋友，同时在 Mini 应用程序上扮演“首席执行官”的角色。当用户执行各种任务（主要是点击）以在平台上赚取代币时，他们被标记为首席执行官。在过去一年风靡全球的数百款 Play-to-Earn (P2E) 游戏中，《Hamster》无疑是最受欢迎的。

The galloping hype came to a screeching halt a few weeks back as memes of disappointment replaced earlier pronouncements of financial wizardry.

几周前，随着失望的表情包取代了之前关于金融魔法的言论，狂热的炒作戛然而止。

Nahom Mekib, 30, flung his phone in a fit of rage on the late September afternoon that was set to be a joyous occasion. Over the past five months, the IT technician spent hours daily tapping on a chubby Hamster’s image as he awaited the pending payout. He was far from alone in his newfound obsession, as people from every social status, creed, and age group devoted hours to the plump pet.

9 月下旬的下午，30 岁的纳霍姆·梅基布 (Nahom Mekib) 愤怒地扔掉了手机，这本来是一个欢乐的时刻。在过去的五个月里，这位 IT 技术人员每天都会花几个小时点击一只胖乎乎的仓鼠的图像，等待待付款。他并不是唯一一个痴迷于这种新发现的人，来自各个社会地位、信仰和年龄段的人们都为这只胖乎乎的宠物投入了很多时间。

After hearing from a distant friend that sizable payouts were given out on a similar click-to-earn Telegram game (Notcoin), Nahom was expecting a few hundred dollars’ worth of tokens to flow into his crypto wallet.

在从一位远方朋友那里听说类似的点击赚取 Telegram 游戏（Notcoin）获得了巨额奖金后，Nahom 预计价值数百美元的代币将流入他的加密钱包。

“I feel duped,” he told Shega after receiving HMSTR tokens worth less than 1000 birr.

“我感觉自己被骗了，”他在收到价值不到 1000 比尔的 HMSTR 代币后告诉 Shega。

Thousands of Ethiopians echoed the sentiment as long hours of ‘work’ flushed down the drain for what was touted as a historic digital currency milestone.

数千名埃塞俄比亚人也表达了同样的观点，因为长时间的“工作”被吹进了下水道，被誉为历史性的数字货币里程碑。

A wave of social media 'influencers' contributed to this trend, positioning themselves as self-appointed experts in a nascent, obscure space. Content creators like Jason Peters, founder of Ethio Tech with JP, were among the online personalities who acquired significant engagement and authority on the topic from on apps like TikTok. Several others have also cultivated their respective followings with Amharic tutorial-like YouTube videos.

一波社交媒体“影响者”推动了这一趋势，他们将自己定位为新兴、默默无闻的领域的自封专家。 Ethio Tech with JP 的创始人 Jason Peters 等内容创作者是通过 TikTok 等应用程序获得对该主题的大量参与和权威的网络名人之一。其他几个人也通过类似阿姆哈拉语教程的 YouTube 视频培养了各自的追随者。

Unfortunately, most of these online personalities have chosen silence in recent weeks with the players having only themselves to blame.

不幸的是，最近几周，大多数网络名人都选择了沉默，玩家只能责怪自己。

What fuels a global tapping craze?

是什么助长了全球窃听热潮？

In mid-2018, Nikolai and Pavel Durov, the co-founding brothers of Telegram, introduced The Open Network (TON), a unique blockchain architecture enabling cryptocurrency functionality on the social media platform.

2018 年中，Telegram 联合创始人 Nikolai 和 Pavel Durov 推出了开放网络 (TON)，这是一种独特的区块链架构，可在社交媒体平台上实现加密货币功能。

As the easily accessible infrastructure caught some wind and issued tokens (digital keys), the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a restraining order. It forced later development responsibilities to be passed onto the NewTon foundation and an online open-source community. The SEC argued that tokens functioned like typical securities in capital markets, requiring a full disclosure process informing investors of the exact nature of the items being purchased. A dispute that presages subsequent developments in an emerging space significantly removed from traditional legal frameworks.

随着易于访问的基础设施受到关注并发行了代币（数字密钥），美国证券交易委员会（SEC）提出了限制令。它迫使后来的开发责任转移到 NewTon 基金会和在线开源社区。美国证券交易委员会认为，代币的功能类似于资本市场中的典型证券，需要完整的披露流程，告知投资者所购买物品的确切性质。一场争议预示着新兴领域的后续发展，明显脱离了传统的法律框架。

TON relaunched in 2021 to become a highly valued digital asset currently being traded at a little over five dollars. Driving the value of this digital asset is a comprehensive suite of tools that allow developers to create decentralized apps on Telegram. TON fuels transactions, enable governance, and establishes a stable infrastructure where a social gaming frenzy can blossom.

TON 于 2021 年重新推出，成为一种高价值的数字资产，目前交易价格略高于 5 美元。推动这种数字资产价值的是一套全面的工具，它允许开发人员在 Telegram 上创建去中心化应用程序。 TON 促进交易、实现治理并建立稳定的基础设施，让社交游戏狂潮得以蓬勃发展。

In 2023, Telegram launched the Mini Apps feature, which allows developers to create lightweight applications for gaming, shopping and the like that operate within the platform. By January it allowed the Mini Apps to integrate with the TON blockchain infrastructure unlocking new capabilities for the developers. More than half of Telegram's 950 million users are estimated to be interacting with at least one mini-app every month.

2023 年，Telegram 推出了 Mini Apps 功能，允许开发者创建在平台内运行的游戏、购物等轻量级应用程序。到一月份，它允许迷你应用程序与 TON 区块链基础设施集成，为开发人员解锁新功能。据估计，Telegram 的 9.5 亿用户中有一半以上每月至少与一款迷你应用程序进行交互。

Some of the mini apps on the platform became niche services in a short with a few like Hamster and Notcoin garnering worldwide appeal.

该平台上的一些迷你应用程序很快就成为了小众服务，其中一些应用程序（例如 Hamster 和 Notcoin）赢得了全球的吸引力。

The Hamster craze reached a global fever pitch in mid-June, prompting allegations by Iran’s military that it was part of the West’s “soft war” amid the country’s elections. The anonymous developers denied the election tampering claim via email in response to media inquiries.

六月中旬，仓鼠热潮在全球范围内掀起热潮，伊朗军方指责这是西方国家选举期间“软战争”的一部分。匿名开发商在回应媒体询问时通过电子邮件否认了选举篡改的指控。

What does TON have to do with Hamster?

TON 和仓鼠有什么关系？

As with most successful ideas, Hamster Kombat modified the tap-to-earn model from a viral sensation just a few months back. In an all-too-similar format, millions were tapping on a giant image of a coin with a triangle on it in hopes of reaping some final reward. Unlike Hamster, its predecessor NotCoin retained public confidence (a valuable asset in the speculative currency market) as it delivered on most of its initial value proposition.

与大多数成功的想法一样，Hamster Kombat 对几个月前风靡一时的点击赚钱模式进行了修改。在一种非常相似的形式中，数百万人点击了一枚带有三角形的巨大硬币图像，希望获得一些最终的奖励。与 Hamster 不同，其前身 NotCoin 实现了大部分最初的价值主张，保留了公众的信心（投机货币市场上的宝贵资产）。

Notcoin garnered nearly

Notcoin获得近