STRK Token Drops as Nethermind, Airdrop Sales Surge

STRK has plummeted by around 60% due to the airdropping of millions of dollars’ worth of tokens by Nethermind and airdrop hunters.

Due to the airdropping of millions of dollars’ worth of tokens by Ethereum infrastructure firm Nethermind and airdrop farmers, the value of the two-day-old currency of the Ethereum layer-2 network Starknet has more than halved. 

CoinGecko data shows that Starknet’s (STRK) price dropped by around 60%, currently trading below $1.90 from a peak of $4.41 on February 20, when it was airdropped to certain blockchain users. After debuting on the market, the price on Binance reached as high as $7.70. However, it has since fallen 75.4% to less than $1.90 on February 22, in an X post, Lookonchain analysts reported that the price of $STRK has been declining since its launch.

Additionally, it revealed that Nethermind had sold 3.41 million STRK for more than $6.7 million and issued a warning that “the selling may continue” because the company still possessed over $12 million. A few hours prior, Lookonchain announced that it had discovered a second case of a STRK airdrop hunter combining accounts.

Over 1,800 distinct wallets transferred over 1.2 million STRK, valued at $2.4 million, to a single address. Lookonchain discovered a similar case of an airdrop hunter on February 21, where about 1,400 wallets sent 1.4 million airdropped totaling almost $3 million, to a single address

Before the Starknet airdrop, Banteg, a developer at Yearn finance, reported that airdrop hunters linked over 700,000 wallets out of the 1.3 million eligible for the STRK airdrop to GitHub accounts. Starknet users who claimed they were not eligible for the distributions despite transacting thousands of dollars also put a dent in the airdrop.

To be eligible, users had to have possessed at least 0.005 Ether (ETH) or around $10 at the time of a snapshot on November 15, 2023. Others objected to unlock schedule which approximately two months after its debut, rewards Starknet donors and investors with 1.3 billion or 13% of the supply.

During the first 1.5 hours of the allocation process, participants claimed 45 million STRK tokens after the STRK airdrop went live. Individuals who qualify have claimed around 430 million STRK tokens or almost 92% of the total available for distribution worth over $790 million, according to data from Voyager. According to DefiLlama, Starknet’s total locked value is $73.5 million, a whopping 30% increase in just one day despite the price decline.