The D-Day for the once highly-anticipated airdrop that soured and turned controversial is finally here. EigenLayer is all set to open the claims window and commence the first phase of its EIGEN ‘stakedrop’ at 17:00 UTC today. After receiving tokens, users can start staking and delegating EIGEN to the operators of EigenDA, the protocol’s in-house data availability solution. The official post on X [formerly Twitter] clarified that the EigenDA would be “the only AVS that uses an EIGEN quorum.” Other AVS’s will enter the picture “soon.”
EigenLayer allows new PoS projects to check the security box by connecting them to a wider trust network. This removes the burden off projects’ shoulders of coming up with something native. Several AVSs - right from oracle networks and DA platforms, to consensus protocols - can reap the benefit of EigenLayer’s security.
In over a year since its soft launch, the Ethereum-based protocol managed to get investor funds worth $15 million locked up onto its restaking platform. Depositors who poured in funds were rewarded with points based on their amount and lock up duration. Several from the space started trading points on Pendle and other platforms with leverage to reap an advantage.
The project was quite hyped up within the crypto realm until a few days back. However, as soon as details regarding the token distribution were revealed, the sentiment flipped. It was brought to people’s notice that the tokens would be non-transferable initially. Given the points program had been in motion for more than a year, depositors thought they’d be able to cash out on day one itself. The geographical restrictions added another layer to the controversy. While depositing, users from all over could deposit and earn points. Nevertheless, now, users from multiple locations including the US, China, and Canada are barred from receiving a piece of the airdrop pie. Expressing concern, pseudonymous user ‘knower’ recently tweeted,
“It would have been nice of Eigenlayer to use strict VPN restrictions/geoblocking *before* we deposited at launch instead of only implementing when it came time to claim tokens. Make it make sense!”
While one set of users continues to point fingers towards the project for “baiting” them, several others - who are on the fundamental side of the spectrum - have been advocating that the legality of using EigenLayer and the legality of receiving the airdrop are two separate issues. In fact, they have also collectively been drawing the line of distinction between utility and points.
According to the Eigen Foundation, the supply of the EIGEN tokens would be 1.67 billion at launch. 45% of that has been allocated to the community and ecosystem. From this, 15% has been set aside for stakedroppers, with 5% available in the first season whose claims kickstart today. The remaining 15% plus 15% has been reserved for ecosystem development and community initiatives. The next chunk of 29.5% goes to early investors, while the remaining 25.5% goes to the team and early contributors.
Several community members were also not happy with the minimum airdrop of 10 tokens allocated for the first season. After receiving pushbacks, EigenLayer modified its initial proposal and announced to airdrop another additional 100 EIGEN tokens to over 280,000 users. This means, Season 1 users will receive at least 110 EIGEN. Parallelly, Season 2 users will also be handed out 100 EIGEN. The team recently gave users a lockup countdown and a tentative date around which they can expect transferability to open. In fact, they also addressed concerns regarding the testnet user claims.
