Starknet Token To Launch On Feb. 20

Starknet’s long-awaited STRK token is set to launch next week.

The Starknet Foundation, a non-profit that supports the Starknet ecosystem, will airdrop over 700M STRK tokens to 1.3M blockchain addresses on Feb. 20.

“This kicks off a new phase in making Starknet more decentralized and showing convincingly that the scaling trilemma can truly be solved – scalability, security and decentralization,” said Eli Ben-Sasson, StarkWare’s co-founder and CEO.

More than half of the allocated tokens will go to past users of Starknet, an Ethereum Layer 2 that leverages zero-knowledge technology and currently has $180M in total value locked (TVL).

Other eligible recipients include users of applications like dYdX, ImmutableX, Rhinofi, and Sorare — all of which used StarkEx, an early iteration of StarkWare’s scaling technologies.

Notably, ETH stakers are due to receive nearly a quarter of the tokens in what may be the first major airdrop for users securing the Ethereum network. According to a release shared with The Defiant, both solo stakers and users of liquid staking tokens (LSTs) prior to The Merge will be eligible to claim STRK.

The airdrop stands out in terms of its eligible recipients — these include non-blockchain developers who have contributed to open-source projects.

Diego Oliva, CEO of the Starknet Foundation, said that developers outside of crypto should also have a stake in the space’s future.

“This technology is new and potentially impactful for applications across industries, and many leaders in related technological spaces deserve to have a stake in what’s to come,” he said in a prepared statement.

VC Funding

StarkWare, the primary company behind Starknet, is one of the most well-funded projects in crypto, which makes the airdrop one of the most highly anticipated.

StarkWare first raised a $6M seed round over five years ago and has since raised over a quarter of a billion dollars in four subsequent funding rounds, according to CB Insights. The most recent round, a $100M Series D at an impressive $8B valuation, was completed in May 2022.

StarkWare launched Starknet’s alpha mainnet in November 2021. It has gone through many iterations since, culminating in spikes of activity like last September, when the anticipation of the airdrop reached a peak and throughput nearly surpassed that of Ethereum’s mainnet.

StarkWare minted 10B STRK tokens in July 2022, according to a post from the company. At 32.9%, a subset of entities called “Core Contributors,” which includes employees and consultants of StarkWare and other software development partners, control the largest allocation.

Looking ahead, the Starknet Foundation said that this allocation of tokens will not be the last. The non-profit refrained from using the word ‘airdrop’ but disclosed that there would be further ‘Provisions’ in the future.