Amidst significant controversy, the highly anticipated Starknet airdrop for Ethereum's layer 2 solution has experienced immense demand, leading to the protocol's fully diluted market capitalization surpassing $20 billion.
Starknet developers initiated the distribution of approximately 700 million STRK tokens on February 20, out of a total supply of 10 billion. These tokens were allocated to reward various stakeholders, including individual Ethereum holders, liquidity providers, Starknet developers, users within and outside the Web3 ecosystem, as well as projects and developers. Within the first 90 minutes, a staggering 45 million STRK tokens were claimed, with the total claimed amount exceeding 220 million since then.
Participants have until June 20, 2024, to claim their remaining token balances. Despite the initial fervor among investors, the price of the STRK token has experienced a decline from its opening price of $7 on Binance to its current value of $2, although the protocol maintains a substantial valuation. Presently, the total value locked in the protocol stands at $57 million.
On the same day, concerns were raised by Yearn Finance developer Banteg, who alleged that Starknet developers included airdrop preemptors, also known as hunters, in their eligibility list despite prior warnings. Banteg stated that only data from squatters was utilized, while the renaming aspect was disregarded. Starknet developers confirmed that rebranded developers would not be excluded, sparking anticipation for further updates on the matter in the coming days.
Earlier, Yearn Finance developers had cautioned about potential issues related to the eligibility of wallet addresses for the STRK airdrop. Among the 1.3 million eligible addresses, it was estimated that over 700,000 addresses might be associated with duplicate or renamed GitHub accounts controlled by airdrop squatters.
The modus operandi of airdrop hunters revolves around earning profits by accumulating tokens from airdrops in anticipation of their future value appreciation. These hunters often employ scripts to consolidate numerous addresses into a select few. Notably, in March of the previous year, reports surfaced revealing that airdrop hunters had consolidated $3.3 million worth of tokens from the Arbitrum (ARB) airdrop, initially dispersed across 1,496 wallets, into just two wallets under their control.
