STRK, the native token of Starknet, is scheduled to begin trading on centralized exchanges later today after distribution claims opened for nearly 1.3 million wallets.
Once liquidity requirements are met, trading will begin on centralized exchanges including Binance, Bybit, Bitfinex, and OKX. Binance has confirmed that it will open trading for select pairs at 8 AM ET.
Starknet is an Ethereum Layer-2 network that leverages the ZK-Rollup solution for decentralized application scaling. The tokens will help decentralize and govern the network, according to the Starknet Foundation’s token offering plan last week.
“The STRK token was created to allow STARK-based scaling to occur in a more decentralized manner. The token design helps ensure that Starknet is run and governed by the community.” Diego Oliva, CEO of the Starknet Foundation, said at the time:
Trading will begin at 7 AM ET after airdrop claims for Starknet tokens open. The distribution includes 728 million STRK, or 7.28% of the total supply of 10 billion. Approximately 1.297 million wallets are eligible, taken from a November snapshot looking at transaction volume and interaction on the network.
Early adopters of Starknet and StarkEx, protocol guild members, Ethereum contributors including EIP creators and solo stakers, and open source developers outside of web3 will all be eligible to receive STRK tokens. Claims must be made by June 20th.
The STRK token has not yet launched, but its pre-launch price on decentralized derivatives exchange Aevo is currently trading at $2.09, giving it a fully diluted market capitalization of $20.9 billion.
Criticism of token unlocking
The distribution plan, especially the upcoming unlock event, has faced criticism from detractors.
Starkware’s core contributors and investors are set to receive over 1.31 billion STRK, or 13.1% of the total supply, with significant unlocks occurring within two months of the token’s launch, which has drawn criticism.
“Unlocking such a large amount of investor tokens in such a short time after the actual launch by masking it with a fake token creation event two years ago is predatory,” said the founder of Endless Clouds, known by the pseudonym Loopify. With The Block last week.
The first token generation event (TGE) took place in November 2022. Upon creation, the tokens were earmarked for governance purposes but were restricted from movement or trading. Despite a major token generation event occurring in 2022, there is widespread misunderstanding about the unlock schedule, which is likely to attract criticism.
Token allocations for core contributors and investors were initially scheduled to be unlocked after the one-year cliff in November 2023, following the TGE in 2022.
Because the tokens were not ready, this timeline was extended by five months until April 15, resulting in a significantly shortened gap between when traders could purchase the tokens and when investors could sell them at a discount on the open market. It is done.
At the time of the November snapshot, the 0.005 ETH holding requirement caused another backlash as numerous Starknet users were excluded from the provision. Despite the backlash, Starkware is sticking to its plan.
“1.3 million recipients will receive liquid tokens upon receipt. “Others who have invested effort and money to make Starknet possible will wait until April for the first third of tokens to be unlocked, with more tokens unlocked each month thereafter.” said Eli Ben-Sasson, Starkware Co-Founder and CEO.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet delivering news, research and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is an anchor LP of Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to provide objective, impactful and timely information about the cryptocurrency industry. Below are our current financial disclosures.
© 2023 The Block. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not provided or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.