The game Hamster Kombat, which gained viral popularity worldwide, is still not listed on any exchange. Users are growing impatient with the ongoing delays. The listing, which would allow users to profit, continues to be postponed, despite the fact that Binance, the largest cryptocurrency platform, has already created a page for the HMSTR token, noting that the currency is not yet trading. Analysts believe the delay is due to the current market downturn. However, the prolonged listing has also brought to light several conflicts related to Hamster Kombat, with its creators allegedly attempting to leave their investors and partners with nothing.
The Origins of Hamster Kombat and Its Investors
In August, the number of Hamster Kombat players exceeded 155 million per month, just under six months after the game launched on Telegram in March. The concept of the app is simple: users “tap the hamster” or complete other tasks to earn coins, which, in theory, can be sold or exchanged on cryptocurrency exchanges. Earnings would become possible after the listing, meaning the game’s currency (HMSTR) would be included on a trading platform.
The story of Hamster Kombat began long before its appearance on Telegram. In early 2020, entrepreneur Eduard Gurinovich, then known as the co-founder of the international online car sales platform CarPrice, approached the IT holding AD.RU with a new idea. He proposed launching Arenum—a portal for mobile games and eSports—and was seeking investors.
AD.RU, with extensive experience in growing tech startups, saw Arenum as a promising idea. The company decided to invest $600,000 in exchange for an 18.6% stake, and the parties agreed to proceed.
By the summer of the same year, AD.RU became actively involved in the project, adding marketing to ensure Arenum’s viral reach, improving the product’s performance, and attracting more investments from its partners. As a result, Gurinovich and his team received over a million dollars for further development, and AD.RU increased its stake in the company to 25%.
The creators of Arenum were developing the project and paying themselves salaries, but by early 2021, it became clear that the project’s expenses exceeded its income. The team proposed using an Initial DEX Offering (IDO), creating their own tokens, and attracting funding through them. IDO is a form of crowdfunding for cryptocurrencies, allowing new projects to be listed on specialized exchanges. AD.RU supported the idea and used its marketing resources. As a result, Arenum raised $10 million from the IDO, which allowed the team to continue working and testing new products.
However, Arenum did not share profits with investors, explaining that the funds were being used for new games and testing hypotheses. This continued for another two years, during which the team sent reports to AD.RU. Finally, in the spring of 2024, the company launched the Hamster Kombat project, which went viral on Telegram within a few months, even catching the attention of Pavel Durov on his channel.
Revenues also increased, but not for the investors. In June 2024, Eduard Gurinovich unexpectedly distanced himself from Arenum, claiming that Hamster Kombat was not associated with the company, according to AD.RU’s CEO Anton Gorshkov.
“In June, I suggested meeting with Gurinovich to discuss our position in the project or our exit from it. The meeting was held in a rather strange atmosphere. First, he said, ‘Don’t worry, by autumn, there will be enough money for everyone.’ Then suddenly: ‘You have no connection to the project. Yes, we used the team, but the name is different.’ Yet AD.RU had been involved in the project for more than four years, not just with funding but also in developing the mechanics later used in Hamster Kombat,” Gorshkov noted.
How Hamster Kombat Is Linked to Arenum
Is Hamster Kombat really a product of Arenum? Until recently, nothing was known about the game’s creators, but at the end of July, Eduard Gurinovich publicly spoke about the project for the first time on his Telegram channel. Gurinovich wrote that he and his team had become the exclusive partners of Hamster Kombat in Russia.
“We bought the trademark rights and will be responsible for working with the local community. The project team gave us the right to officially register the Hamster Kombat trademark due to the growing wave of scammers worldwide. Additionally, we will be responsible for selling advertising for the Russian region. The project has a massive global audience (more than 250 million players in four months!) that is growing daily,” said the entrepreneur.
There is no direct mention of Arenum in Gurinovich’s public statements or in the information about the game.
Technical analysis revealed that Hamster Kombat was created using Arenum’s resources, and the game’s servers are hosted on the same platform as the company, meaning they consume its resources. During the registration of the project’s domain, hamsterkombat.io, the corporate email ap@arenum.games was used, which is associated with Alexander Pasechnik, the co-founder of the company. He is also the owner of the domain hamsterkombat.com, according to the analysis.
Entrepreneur Alexander Pasechnik is one of the eight shareholders of Arenum. This is confirmed by a certificate issued by the Ministry of Energy, Commerce, and Industry of Cyprus, where Arenum LTD is registered as a legal entity.
The other shareholders, according to the document, are Gurinovich himself, businessmen Alexander Zelenshchikov and Mikhail Babin, developer Artem Volftub, LLC Startech, and Savvas Zannetos, who resides in Cyprus. The eighth shareholder is AD.RU. So, establishing the link between the viral game and the investors is not difficult.
AD.RU’s CEO Anton Gorshkov added that Alexander Zelenshchikov’s wife also played an active role in Arenum’s operations. She served as the company’s COO, although she was primarily responsible for finances (CFO).
The holding plans to address the issue with Gurinovich through legal channels. “We have sent a pre-trial claim and naturally want to seek justice and protect our interests within the framework of the law and the courts,” Gorshkov stated.
Eduard Gurinovich’s Conflict with Influencers
AD.RU is not the only entity accusing Eduard Gurinovich of unscrupulous behavior. In August, ahead of the listing, one of the project’s partners, Nikita Anufriev—a cryptocurrency and marketing entrepreneur and YouTube blogger—announced his exit from Hamster Kombat.
Anufriev, who had served as the project’s marketing director, said the game needed advertising, so Gurinovich approached him for help, offering 25% of the revenue, shares, or team tokens in return. Anufriev took on the task of promoting the project worldwide, which helped attract hundreds of millions of users.
Moreover, as part of his duties, he facilitated partnerships between Hamster Kombat and the cryptocurrency exchange BingX, and helped the project secure agreements with several decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), including BingX Partner CIS, Fusion Dao, and Zero DAO. These organizations supported the game in over 200 blogs globally and collectively invested $450,000 in the project.
All agreements with more than 200 influencers were made directly with Eduard Gurinovich and Alexander Pasechnik under the conditions proposed by the project’s founders.
According to the DAO organizers, investing in such a project at an early stage with only 700,000 users was extremely risky, and the chances of a successful launch were slim. However, thanks to warm and friendly relations between the DAO leaders and the marketing director, an agreement was reached, and 200 influencers invested approximately $450,000 in the KOL round. Eduard was happy to accept the investments, explaining that they would be needed to pay for exchange listings.
After the funds were raised, the 200 influencers began promoting Hamster Kombat in unison, and the project grew exponentially. In the first month, the number of players reached 30 million, and in the second month, 100 million. As the project grew, Eduard began monetizing the traffic through advertising integrations with bookmakers, Yandex, and others, earning over $10 million.
The influencers and everyone involved in the project are convinced that without their active support, the project would not have achieved such success. Instead of gratitude for a successful business and tens of millions of dollars in advertising revenue, the founders decided to repay the early investors, which the influencers and any rational person would consider insulting. As a result, they went public to express their dissatisfaction.
The situation within and around the project appears to be heating up. “At the moment, I refuse to disclose the details of my exit from the project, but I may be forced to share information in the near future if nothing changes, to ensure the safety of users, influencers, and investors so that they can make calm and independent decisions,” Anufriev said.
Will Hamster Kombat Make It to Binance?
The chances of Hamster Kombat being listed on Binance amid corporate conflicts, issues with investors, co-founders, and more than 200 influencers worldwide remain uncertain. The game’s creators have not announced a listing date, but Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, has strict token selection criteria. These include, for example, “team commitment to the project,” “level of public communication,” and ethical behavior.
