Nostra founder David Garai stepped down as CEO of the Starknet-based DeFi project less than two weeks after the NSTR token airdrop.
“I have resigned as CEO of Nostra,” Garai posted on X. “I will be back after a brief hiatus for the first time in four years. Stay tuned for my future plans.”
The Nostra app is backed by developer Nostra Labs and allows users to lend, borrow, exchange, and connect cryptocurrencies. Garai claimed that over the past two and a half years, Nostra has become the largest and most profitable protocol on Starknet, with annual revenue of $2.5 million and a total locked value of over $180 million. According to DeFi Llama data, Nostra’s current TVL is $153.4 million, hitting a high of $221.4 million just before the airdrop.
Garai said Richard Thomas-Pryce, Tempus Labs’ head of product, will take on the “day-to-day leadership” role at Nostra Labs. Tempus Labs is the company’s legal entity, according to its website.
“Under the leadership of (Richard Thomas-Pryce), Nostra (and its 12 full-time developers) will continue to develop Nostra Earn’s soon-to-be-launched suite of Super Apps and STRK liquid staking. We are well positioned to be a leader,” Gerai added.
Jerai’s resignation comes just 11 days after the Nostra token airdrop.
Gerai’s decision comes just 11 days after Nostra’s NSTR token was activated, and some community members questioned the timing of Gerai’s resignation. Gerai responded that “he did not sell a single token.”
According to CoinGecko, NSTR has a total supply of 100 million tokens and a current market cap of $9.6 million. 100% of NSTR tokens were unlocked at launch, and 11% were airdropped to the community in a token generation event.
According to Nostra, an additional 25% of NSTR’s total supply has been allocated to the project treasury, 14% to future airdrops, 26.2% to investors, and 23.8% to the team. The TGE allocation had no vesting period, which the project described as “the fairest cryptocurrency launch.”
Nostra’s token fell about 4% immediately following Gerai’s announcement before recovering slightly. NSTR is currently trading at $0.0967 per CoinGecko data.
NSTR/USD price chart. Image: CoinGecko.
“Starknet will have its time, and significant upgrades will come to accelerate the network and make it more mature,” Gerai concluded. “It’s a good time to be cautiously optimistic. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished and what lies ahead.”
The Block has reached out to David Gerai and Richard Thomas-Pryce for comment.
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