STRK Surges After StarkWare Amends Airdrop Plan Following Investor Backlash

Updated: 23 February 2024

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The Starknet price surged after StarkWare amended its STRK airdrop plan in response to a backlash from investors triggered by its original token unlock schedule.

The original plan would have allowed some early investors to unlock 1.3 billion tokens worth more than $2.6 billion on April 15, prompting fears of a steep selloff.

Under the revised plan, 0.64% of tokens worth about $125.5 million will unlock on April 15, compared to more than 13% under the original plan.

After that, 64 million STRK tokens will be introduced to the circulating supply on a monthly basis until March 2025. That cap will then be increased to 127 million STRK per month for the following two years.

“We value this community and want to earn its trust by building great tech that embodies blockchain values and stands the test of time,” StarkWare said in a Feb. 22 post on X. “Under the new unlock plan, 580 million tokens held by early contributors and investors will be unlocked by the end of 2024, as opposed to 2 billion of those tokens under the previous schedule.”

Important update:

After listening to feedback from ecosystem friends and collaborators, we are changing the lockup schedule for StarkWare’s early contributors and investors to make it more gradual.

We value this community and want to earn its trust by building great tech that…

— StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) February 22, 2024

STRK Soars 10%

STRK surged more than 10% in the past 24 hours to trade at $2.06 as of 6:20 a.m. EST after the unlock was revised. It had plummeted almost 60% from a peak of $4.41 on Feb. 20 to trade below $1.90 after news of the April unlock surfaced.

Eligible wallets have claimed more than 436 million STRK tokens, amounting to 94% of the distributed token supply, according to Voyager data. DefiLlam data shows that the total value locked (TVL) on the Starknet network has surpassed $130 million.