Starknet

The first round covered about 1.3 million addresses and just over 700 million STRK, distributed on 20 February 2024 at 12 p.m. UTC. CoinDesk gave the figure as 728 million. Recipients included Starknet users and developers, users of affiliated dapps and Ethereum stakers with no prior exposure to Starknet. Some early users received between 500 and 180,000 STRK depending on activity. All fees for claiming through the portal were covered by the Foundation until 20 June 2024.

The first round was drawn from a 900 million STRK pool earmarked for Provisions, and roughly 500 million tokens were claimed, leaving about 400 million for future rounds. Reactions were polarised, since many people who thought they would qualify were disappointed.

StarkWare's "Airdrop Reflections" post is a useful read for the team's own account of the design. Including Ethereum stakers who had never used Starknet was an unusual choice: it rewarded people for securing Ethereum, which supports the network but also meant active Starknet users sometimes received less than expected.

Because only about 500 million of 700 million were claimed in the first round, a large share of eligible people did not claim, which is common in broad drops where recipients are not following the project.

The Foundation covering claim fees until June is a small but real kindness: claiming a token should not require buying gas first.

Some context helps when reading the numbers. The ratio of claimed to unclaimed tokens shows how many eligible wallets never took action, which is a risk with any broad distribution: people who are not following a project often miss the window, and attackers target exactly those people with fake notices.

The staking and governance features that followed give holders a reason to engage, but they also introduce lock-ups, delegation choices and slashing or fee considerations that should be understood before tokens are committed.