7 Lessons Learned from the Starknet Airdrop

As of writing, the Starknet blockchain boasts over 8 million active addresses and has processed more than 100 million transactions. Yet, despite around 5 million users actively engaging with the network before the official snapshot, 80% failed to qualify for the airdrop due to a singular criterion. 

In mid-February, the Starknet team announced the token listing of STRK, which occurred on February 20. Over 800,000 individuals received 500 tokens, valued at $1500 at the time of listing. However, one of the conditions for receiving the reward was possessing a minimum of 0.005 ETH in the account at the snapshot moment. This requirement led to a significant number of users being excluded from the airdrop.

Particularly peculiar was the requirement that ETH had to be specifically held in the wallet. This meant that even if a user contributed a million dollars in liquidity to a decentralized exchange but had only 0.004 ETH in their balance, they would not receive anything. The decision by the Starknet team has sparked a wave of discontent within the cryptocurrency community, yet it remained unaltered.

Therefore, we've compiled 7 insights to better understand the dynamics behind future airdrops.

The necessity to hold 0.005 ETH was not the sole condition for eligibility. The comprehensive list of criteria impacting the reward allocation was as follows:

• Engaging with the network across three distinct months leading up to the snapshot date;
• Executing 5 or more transactions within the network;
• Accumulating a total trading volume exceeding $100.

These criteria are straightforward and predominantly relate to the wallet's activity level. Thus, engaging actively within the network is a key factor influencing the distribution of upcoming rewards.

Just like with Starknet, other potential candidates for airdrops (such as Orbiter, Linea, zkSync, and Scroll) are introducing numerous social tasks and quests. These could involve participating in activities on platforms like Zealy, Guild, Galxe, the project's official Discord, or possessing a Galxe Passport or Gitcoin Passport, among others.

There is an ongoing debate online about the potential impact of such social tasks on future airdrops. Reviewing examples from Optimism, Arbitrum, and Starknet drops, it becomes evident that on-chain activity was the deciding factor for allocating rewards. This trend is expected to persist, relegating social quests to a supportive role, possibly as a bonus multiplier for the drop.

The baseline allocation of STRK tokens per wallet was approximately 500, yet some users found themselves receiving between 3000–6000 coins. Notably, GitHub developers and users who engaged extensively with smart contracts (through deployment, updates, and proposals) were among those who benefited significantly.

Prior to the airdrop, the Starknet team had announced exclusive incentives for blockchain specialists, indicating a trend likely to persist. For example, the Scroll project, through its Twitter, recently unveiled special reward programs targeted at developers. This announcement led to Scroll's GitHub being flooded with thousands of spam proposals.

Creating a personal GitHub repository and linking it to a wallet is a straightforward process, and such simple measures could act as leverage for potential token distributions.

Starknet set engagement over a three-month period as a criterion. But what constitutes a quarter in this context?

The zkSync Era network has been operational for nearly a year, and Arbitrum Nova for around a year and a half. Likewise, Linea and Base, launched in 2023, could potentially establish drop criteria of 4, 5, or more months of network usage, which would be a logical step in combating multi-accounting.

In such networks, it is advisable to perform several transactions per month, or better yet, at least one transaction per week. Another theory suggests that the criterion for future airdrops could be the number of active days, thereby disqualifying users who execute a large volume of transactions within a few hours.

Currently, LayerZero boasts over 8 million active addresses. Scroll has about 3 million users, and zkSync Era has 5 million. If these crypto projects initiate an airdrop, they will have to decide whether to broaden the distribution to more traders or increase the reward amount for each individual trader.

In any case, many will be filtered out, especially given that the criteria for airdrops are not disclosed in advance, allowing the crypto project to determine how many wallets will be eligible for rewards. Hence, the primary strategy is to engage in varied activities across different accounts to diversify the risks of ineffective efforts.

An analysis of Starknet's statistical data reveals a distinct correlation between trader activity and retroactive airdrops. Before the snapshot announcement at the end of last year, the network's average daily trading volume exceeded $300 million. However, post-December 2023, this volume rarely climbed above $100 million, with an exception around the listing event on February 20.

Starknet timed its listing impeccably. Bitcoin hit a two-year high, trading volumes are consistently strong, user numbers and overall market liquidity are growing, and new projects are debuting on exchanges to great acclaim.

Hence, the coming 2–3 months could see the introduction of new projects and the allocation of airdrops, proving advantageous for both traders and projects alike.