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.
According to CoinGecko data, Starknet’s (STRK) price decreased around 60% and is 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, STRK’s price on Binance reached as high as $7.70; however, it has since fallen 75.4% to less than $1.90.
In an X post dated February 22, blockchain analysts Lookonchain stated, “The price of $STRK has been falling 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 worth of STRK.
A few hours prior, Lookonchain announced that it had discovered a second case of a STRK airdrop hunter combining accounts. over 1.2 million STRK, valued at $2.4 million, were transferred from over 1,800 distinct wallets to a single address.
A similar case of an airdrop hunter was discovered on February 21, according to Lookonchain, with about 1,400 wallets sending 1.4 million airdropped STRK, or almost $3 million, to a single address.
Before Starknet’s airdrop, Yearn.finance developer Banteg said that more than 700,000 wallets out of the 1.3 million that could be airdropped with STRK were connected to GitHub accounts owned by airdrop hunters.
Starknet users who claimed they were not eligible for the distributions despite transacting thousands of dollars also put a dent in the STRK airdrop. Users had to have held at least 0.005 Ether, or around $10, at the time of a snapshot on November 15, 2023, in order to be eligible.
Others objected to the STRK unlock schedule, which around two months after debut rewards Starknet donors and investors with 1.3 billion STRK, or 13% of the supply.
When the STRK airdrop went live, it was extremely popular; 45 million STRK tokens were claimed in the first 1.5 hours of the allocation process.
According to data from Voyager, as of right now, around 430 million STRK tokens, or almost 92% of the total available for distribution worth over $790 million, have been claimed by individuals who qualify.
According to DefiLlama, Starknet’s total value locked is $73.5 million, a whopping 30% increase in just one day despite STRK’s price decline.
