The Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer is creating debate due to its ongoing airdrop event's restrictions on reward claims. Leandro Schlottchauer, a smart contract developer and CEO of Kuyen Labs, mentioned that the days of high profits from airdrop events are over, and the crypto community must adjust to this new reality.
Meanwhile, Mohak Agarwal, CEO and founder of the liquid staking protocol Claystack, criticized EigenLayer's surprise announcement of the airdrop event as an unsustainable long-term model. According to Agarwal, this approach may initially excite users but often leads to disappointment in the future. He noted that projects tend to start with a small initial airdrop supply, expecting user discontent, and then offer additional tokens to appease them.
EigenLayer, the second-largest decentralized finance protocol with a $15.67 billion locked total value, disclosed in an unexpected blog post on April 29 that only 5% of the initial token supply would be distributed to early users and outlined additional procedures.
Following the announcement, members of the crypto community criticized the airdrop event, particularly decrying the ban on such events in several countries. In response to these criticisms, the EigenLayer team declared on May 3 that an additional 28 million EIGEN tokens would be distributed to 280,000 qualifying wallets.
Despite the vibrant development in the crypto ecosystem, recent airdrop events have struggled to maintain initial interest. For example, the cross-chain messaging platform Wormhole distributed $800 million worth of W tokens to selected users on April 4, leading to a post-event valuation of $22 billion by completely diluted market value. However, the token's value has since dropped by more than 50%, trading at $0.6457 at the time of writing.
Similarly, the native token of the Ethereum Layer-2 network Starknet, STRK, lost 43% of its value following its airdrop event in February. Reports suggest that 701,544 eligible wallets were controlled by airdrop hunters who duplicated developer accounts on GitHub to claim STRK tokens.
