Sei

The Block reported that Sei reserved 3% of its total supply, 300 million tokens, for the airdrop. The first plan was for 500,000 eligible wallets, but strong demand pushed the list to about 1.5 million. Instead of simple automatic delivery, whitelisted addresses had to bridge qualifying assets to Sei through Wormhole or Axelar from Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Polygon, BNB Chain or Osmosis, and Optimism was added later.

Claims opened on 16 August 2023, and The Block reported the price fell 31%, from $0.27 to $0.185, as recipients began selling. Decrypt reported that trading volume topped $1 billion on the first day.

Reception was poor in some quarters. Forklog reported that one tester who had joined all four test networks was credited with only 1.39 SEI, and users shared the hashtag #SeiScam over small rewards and unclear criteria. Sources also disagree on timing: one reported that claims would follow a warm-up period while partners finished their work, and the later report confirms claims were open by 17 August.

There was also a separate pool called Atlantic Rewards for testers.

The bridging requirement was unusual and shaped who benefited. It made people move assets to a new chain to receive a reward, which grows the network but adds bridge risk for the recipient.

A useful lesson from this drop is how a bridging requirement changes the meaning of eligibility. A wallet on the whitelist was not enough; the owner had to act, pay fees and trust a bridge, and some recipients decided the reward did not justify that effort. Projects that announce a large wallet count should be judged by the amount each person receives, which here was small for many, and not by the headline number of recipients.