Ethereum scaling solution Starknet is being widely panned on social media after releasing the airdrop allocations<\/a> of STRK tokens on Feb. 14.<\/p>\n One possible reason for the backlash is a popular airdrop-checking tool called Wenser, which aims to help users qualify for airdrops by analyzing their on-chain activity. Based on previously \u2018leaked<\/a>\u2019 criteria, many users thought they would be eligible to claim STRK, but that turned out not to be the case once the official portal went live.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went from literally everyone on the timeline getting 5 figure STRK airdrops to absolutely no one at all rip,\u201d wrote<\/a> prolific NFT collector dingaling.<\/p>\n Naturally, many took to X to vent their frustrations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDo you hear that? That\u2019s the sound of thousands of Argent X wallets being removed from Chrome,\u201d quipped<\/a> laurence.<\/p>\n Indeed, Argent, a popular Starknet wallet, was forced to create a designated \u2018airdrop-vent<\/a>\u2019 channel in its Discord to prevent the server from being overrun by disgruntled users.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, some users, like open-source developer rati.eth were simply happy<\/a> to get tokens. The STRK distribution includes substantial allocations for web3 developers.<\/p>\n Jason Choi, the co-founder of venture firm Tangent, was one of the few to praise the airdrop mechanics.<\/p>\n \u201cUnpopular opinion: this is a good airdrop design and everyone who\u2019s mad just wanted free money for doing nothing,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Another focal point of the backlash was the revelation<\/a> that 1.3 billion STRK tokens allocated to the Starkware team and investors will unlock on April 15 \u2013 less than two months after the token begins trading.<\/p>\n In a call with The Defiant, Eli Ben-Sasson<\/a>, the co-founder and CEO of Starkware, the primary company behind Starknet, said that the team has no intentions of cashing out once token unlocks hit.<\/p>\n \u201cStarkWare, and many in the Starknet ecosystem, are going to be around, building, and committed to one thing only, which is making Starknet the rails to run the global economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Airdrops in crypto are often met with frustration<\/a> \u2014 users perform tasks, like using an exchange or buying an NFT, in the hope of receiving a future retroactive reward. The criteria and allocations don\u2019t become clear until later, at which point, if users don\u2019t receive tokens, they take to the internet to vent their frustration.<\/p>\n With the token yet to go live, it\u2019s not clear what the average airdrop will be worth, but with many crypto users receiving over $10,000 from other Layer 2s like Arbitrum<\/a> and Optimism<\/a>, expectations are high.<\/p>\n Aevo, a perpetuals protocol, shows prelaunch futures for STRK trading at $1.64. At that price, the airdrop would be worth roughly $1.1B, potentially making it the third-largest in crypto history after Arbitrum ($1.7B) and ApeCoin ($1.3B).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Ben-Sasson emphasized that the project received its first investment<\/a> of $6M over six years ago in January 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cThe early investors put their faith in the very first project on validity proofs way before anyone saw that this would be the end game of scaling blockchains,\u201d Ben-Sasson said.<\/p>\nTeam Token Unlocks<\/h2>\n
Billion Dollar Airdrop<\/h2>\n
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