The details surrounding the long-awaited EigenLayer airdrop were revealed yesterday with much fanfare – but also with considerable criticism.
The plan outlined that 45% of the 1.67 billion token supply will be allocated to the community at launch, with a third of that coming in the form of an airdrop. That airdrop will be split into multiple seasons, with the first season – which will see 5% of the supply handed out – taking place in two parts, with a focus on rewarding those who have adhered to the protocol.
A number of concerns were highlighted, but the main one seems to be the lack of portability of the token when it first goes live. EigenLayer said that when the token is launched, it will be non-transferable for “months” to allow enough time for decentralization and to promote community consensus on the token’s usefulness and governance.
However, this raised concerns as it could have negative consequences for those receiving the airdrop. “The EigenLayer team and investors will get 55%, but stakers will only get 5% and even that will be non-transferable at first,” Posted a crypto trader known as CoinMamba on X.
It’s not surprising that this was such a controversial topic, as it was a major issue for the Starknet airdrop in February.
When the Starknet token went live for trading, it was initially expected that investors and core contributors would get their tokens unlocked just a few weeks later. This would happen because the token was technically made available for trading a year before it was made available for trading – silently rushing through investors’ fortress schemes even though the token wasn’t actually live. However, following his own response, investor unlocks were pushed back.
EigenLayer did not respond when asked whether investors’ token allocations would be awarded from the moment the token was created or when the community tokens became transferable.
Facing more heat
Another major criticism was that the airdrop not only blocked a long list of countries, including the United States and Canada, but also blocked VPN users. Although this was likely due to concerns about regulatory risks, some users complained that it was inconsistent that they were not excluded from using the platform, but were excluded from the airdrop.
Others criticized the size of the airdrop, as the majority of the tokens go to investors and early contributors – although this is quite common with airdrops these days. Some claimed that the whitepaper, which includes the “Universal Intersubjective Work Token” and concepts such as “intersubjective forkingas overly complex.
There was too confusion related to Pendle users’ eligibility for the airdrop. When the announcement was first made, crypto users believed that those who had participated in EigenLayer indirectly through Pendle would not be part of the airdrop. Stichting Eigen clarified that Pendle users would get a share of the 10% of the initial airdrop of 5% of the token supply. However, Pendle’s price, which had already fallen, failed to recover and is now down 16% since the airdrop was announced.
The impact on the future of the project
While many airdrops have received a lot of criticism, the response to EigenLayer’s token plan has had a major impact.
Over the past 24 hours there has been a major spike in the number of withdrawals from the platform. According to data from, more than 7,000 recordings have been started Dune Analytics. According to DefiLlama, this removed approximately 150,000 ETH ($457 million) from the platform.
On the other hand, with the total value of the project’s smart contracts at $15.6 billion, that hasn’t made much difference for now.
