Are users really boycotting Starknet (STRK) after the infamous airdrop?

After Starknet's controversial airdrop on the evening of February 20, an "airdrop hunter" was recently discovered to have collected more than 1.4 million STRK (equivalent to 3 million USD) from 1361 wallet addresses.

According to Lookonchain's findings, on the evening of February 20, after Starknet opened the airdrop claim, one wallet address collected a total of 1,432,800 STRK (about 3 million USD) from 1,361 wallets eligible to receive the airdrop.

However, the incident is raising many opinions in the cryptocurrency community because the possibility of an ordinary "airdrop hunter" receiving that much STRK seems unbelievable. Because Starknet's airdrop allocation rate prioritizes programmers and project staff, while setting very high airdrop standards for the community.

Some people even suspect that this is not an airdrop hunter but actually a hacker, possibly taking advantage of scams when someone claims an airdrop to steal money. However, the possibility that this is a programmer who has made countless contributions to the project is also very feasible.

As Coin68 reported, Starknet announced plans to airdrop 700 million STRK tokens to contributors. The project has received countless criticism for being too "biased" towards the programming team, while ignoring supporters who have long joined the network.

Even the highest contributor, miners, did not receive an airdrop, while the spell editing dev team also received 1,800 STRK.

Since then, the community started talking about "boycotting" the project because the airdrop was not as expected, similar to the previous Sei Network. According to data dated February 20, wallets operating on the Starknet network have plummeted 90%, losing 202 thousand active wallets to less than 25 thousand wallets, according to Starkscan.

At the time of listing on Binance, the STRK token started at 5 USD, but continuously declined to the current price of 2 USD. Shows the "price dumping" mentality after a series of project fuds.

As reported, Starknet will conduct an airdrop of 700 million STRK tokens for users and members who contribute early to the project. The time to open the airdrop claim portal is 07:00 PM tonight, February 20, 2024 (Vietnam time), right before the listing of a series of exchanges including Binance.

However, besides those who are eagerly looking forward to the airdrop, there is also a group that is upset with Starknet's distribution plan. They not only objected to the harsh criteria set by the project, but also criticized Starknet for "explicit bias" towards the developers. Even programmers who only perform a simple spell check are eligible to receive 1,800 tokens.

From here, activity on the Starknet network began to slacken. From 226,576 daily active addresses, even reaching a peak of 386,000 wallets on July 28, 2023, there are now less than 25,000 wallets, according to data from Starkscan.

The number of active wallets on Starknet decreased by nearly 90% compared to last week. Source: Starkscan

Trading volume also plummeted. February 14, 2024 is the network's busiest day, with 122 million USD in trading volume. However, this number decreased by half yesterday to below the 61 million USD mark.

However, the total assets locked (TVL) on Starknet remained unchanged. The protocol is anchoring $71 million in assets. While many members were unhappy with the airdrop criteria, it seems that not too many actually left the protocol.

Another controversial point in Starknet's airdrop announcement is the STRK token unlocking schedule. According to the plan, the project will unlock 13% of the token supply for the development team and investors in April 2024, just 2 months after the airdrop event.

This amount of tokens could be worth up to more than 2.15 billion USD, potentially creating enormous selling pressure. In the most recent interview, CEO StarkWare - the developer of Starknet - admitted that its token allocation mechanism is not the same as other projects, but the project still maintains the same plan.

In related developments, stemming from Starknet's airdrop criteria, many users have flocked to "spam" the GitHub channel of projects that have not issued tokens such as LayerZero, zkSync and Scroll in the past week.

​Starknet unlocks 13% of the total STRK supply just 2 months after the airdrop

As reported by Coin68, on February 14, the layer-2 solution on Ethereum, Starknet, announced details of the airdrop event of 700 million STRK tokens for early users and members who have contributed to the development process. of project. The airdrop date is February 20, 2024.

However, many crypto users, after learning that they did not meet the conditions to receive the airdrop, turned to criticize Starknet for setting too high standards, as well as "excessively" favoring the programmers instead of the developers. Early users spent hundreds of dollars but received nothing in return, while developers only needed to make small contributions such as fixing spelling errors to receive an airdrop.

The conflict intensified when someone pointed out STRK's token unlocking schedule. Accordingly, in April 2024, just 2 months after the airdrop, Starknet will release up to 13% of the total token supply to the development team and investors, meaning that the circulating token supply at that time will be reduced. will increase 3 times.

Based on STRK's current early trading price, the above tokens will be worth up to 2.15 billion USD. Unlocking tokens too early has caused many people to worry that there will be enormous selling pressure.

Normally, the tokens of the project and investors will be locked within 1 year from the time of token issuance (TGE), to reduce selling pressure as well as confirm long-term commitment. However, in the case of Starknet, the project chose the TGE time in November 2022, when STRK's smart contract is deployed. In November 2023, Starknet announced to postpone the token unlocking time for investors and teams to April 2024 because the token was not ready then.

However, the cryptocurrency community felt "cheated" because of Starknet's above TGE calculation, saying that the project was not transparent and clear. By timing TGE so long ago, Starknet essentially shortened the waiting time for tokens to be unlocked, resulting in investors and projects being able to receive funds just 2 months after the airdrop event.

Amid the tension, many people have "dug up" a statement previously made by a Starknet developer, claiming that the project does not owe users anything but must constantly ask for airdrops, and at the same time call them are "beggars". The director later had to post an apology to the community for his impulsive statements.

Another user pointed out that StarkWare has raised capital of up to 225 million USD at a valuation of 8 billion USD in the past, but still needs to push up the unlocking schedule for the development team.

​In an interview with Decrypt, CEO Eli Ben-Sasson of StarkWare (Starknet developer), admitted that STRK's allocation mechanism is unlike common projects in the cryptocurrency industry. Even so, the CEO refused to change the allocation plan to appease the community. He said:

“The unlock schedule for the development team and investors is an area where we do not follow the usual standards. But at Starknet, the way we build is different from other projects and therefore evaluate things from a different perspective.”

Mr. Ben-Sasson said having a long lockup period is designed to increase credibility in the developer behind the airdrop. But there are still other factors that represent that trust, and the StarkWare CEO is confident that what Starknet has done in the past has affirmed the seriousness and what the project can achieve in the long run. term.

Mr. Ben-Sassnon added:

“Let's directly address the most prominent issue right now. What people are worried about is whether the developers of StarkWare and Starknet will continue to accompany the project and build it wholeheartedly in the next 3 months or 1 year. Let me make this official statement, as CEO of StarkWare, that the sole goal of StarkWare's 150-person team going forward will be solely to continue expanding Starknet.”

The CEO also gave the example of himself resigning his professor position at a famous university in Israel to work for StarkWare, and has no intention of returning to his old job.

Regarding the scenario where investors in Starknet will sell tokens as soon as they are unlocked, Mr. Eli Ben-Sasson believes that sooner or later it will happen. Starknet has decided to shorten the token unlocking time because it believes that investors deserve to be rewarded for supporting the project from the early days, as well as not placing too much risk on the project team taking advantage of it. Token allocation mechanism for private gain. He concluded:

“There should not be any unnecessary delay in token unlocking as we are confident that we will continue to be with Starknet for a long time.”