The much-anticipated airdrop from ethereum/">Ethereum's layer 2 scaling solution Starknet appears to have attracted attention from airdrop hunters, potentially leading to an influx of opportunistic participants. As per a report from Yearn Finance developer Banteg on February 15, a significant number of individuals—1,854, to be exact—reportedly modified or eliminated their accounts following a blockchain snapshot provided for the upcoming Starknet airdrop on February 20. The Starknet Foundation intends to distribute 700 million STRK tokens from a total of 1.8 billion to approximately 1.3 million eligible wallet addresses, with 50% designated for protocol users.
However, insights gleaned from GitHub data, shared by Banteg, suggest that out of the aforementioned 1,854 altered accounts, a substantial portion—1,175—retained the same historical GitHub ID. Excluding these accounts from the airdrop snapshot would diminish the count of eligible wallets by 701,544, according to Banteg. Expressing resolve against such activities, Banteg emphasized the futility of squatting, asserting efforts to safeguard token distribution integrity against illegitimate claimants.
Airdrop hunters pursue token accumulation from airdrops with the expectation of future value appreciation, often leveraging automated scripts to consolidate numerous addresses into a select few. Notably, reports surfaced last March revealing that airdrop hunters had consolidated $3.3 million worth of tokens from the Arbitrum (ARB) airdrop from 1,496 wallets into their control.
Since its launch in December 2022, Starknet has amassed a total value locked (TVL) of $55 million, with the decentralized finance protocol Nostra constituting approximately 30% of this sum. Eligibility for the Starknet airdrop extends to a diverse range of entities, encompassing Ethereum individuals and liquid shares, Starknet developers and users, as well as projects and developers from beyond the Web3 ecosystem. However, it's important to note that individuals or entities in the United States or the United Kingdom, as well as citizens of countries subject to U.S. Treasury Department sanctions, are ineligible to claim the airdrop.
