Hipo Gang: Tap-to-Earn on TON

Tap games promise rewards for clicks but rarely explain where the money comes from. Hipo Gang tried to be clearer: it is a Telegram game from the team behind the Hipo liquid staking protocol on the TON network. Its reward was tied to the HPO token. 🦛

Status first. The first season is over, and the developers have shifted attention to a new program where you stake TON and earn XP. Check current rules only in the official Hipo documentation.

What Hipo Gang is

The game was called the first DeFi tap game on TON. The idea: you play, earn coins and profit, and then receive an airdrop of the HPO token. That is the governance token of the Hipo platform.

A governance token gives a vote in protocol decisions, and holders may receive a share of the profit. But its price depends on the market, and it can fall.

How points were earned

• Taps. The basic mechanic: tap the screen and collect coins.
• TON ecosystem tasks. Staking, trading, providing liquidity, joining communities and events.
• Invitations. Friends brought bonuses, as in many games of this kind.
• Seasons. The game ran in seasons, and rewards were counted at the end.

Season one in numbers

Season one ran from July 24, 2024 to February 25, 2025. It drew about 4.04 million users and 925 thousand connected wallets.

The community allocated 13.8 million HPO tokens for distribution, but players received far less: about 5.87 million tokens were claimed, worth roughly 100 thousand dollars in total. For millions of participants those are very modest sums. 📉

What it means for you

Tap games are not a job and not a source of income. Few people reach a payout, and the main benefit goes to organisers who gather an audience and data. If you take part, treat it as an experiment.

Reviews on third-party sites include complaints that reward conditions changed along the way. That is the opinion of individual users, but it shows a typical risk of such projects. ⚠️

A useful habit: before investing time in a tap game, find the official report on the previous season. If the organisers honestly publish distribution figures, as here, that is a good sign. If there are no reports, better to walk past. 🔎

How to protect yourself

1. Enter only through a link from the project's official channel.
2. Do not pay for items or NFTs for the sake of a promised airdrop.
3. Connect a separate wallet with a minimal amount.
4. Never tell anyone your seed phrase and never sign unfamiliar transactions.

Scammers copy popular games and write private messages offering a "guaranteed airdrop". That is almost always a trap. 🔒

Who it is for today

People who want to understand DeFi and liquid staking on TON. Start with the project documentation and a small sum you can afford to lose. If you want a game for fun, other apps fit better.